Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball
written by B on September 14, 2025

Softball first began in 1887, when a group of Yale and Harvard alumni wanted to play a baseball-like game indoors in November in Chicago. Using an old boxing glove, they enjoyed their game greatly and the idea of playing with a "soft ball" grew more and more popular with those who had small fields or indoor arenas. The kids at Princeton experimented with using an even softer ball, in as much as it was imaginary, and the games worked on the honor system. But there was always that one asshole kid who said his pop fly was dynamite and would explode if caught, and no college kid too wimpy to get hit with anything harder than a placenta had the balls to disagree with him.

By 1889 there was a league of teams in the Chicago area, and by 1926 it had swept across much of the US and was officially named "softball." The 1933 World's Fair was held in Chicago, and this helped publicize the sport and build a team structure that encompassed the three main types of softball players. These were:

* women only, to preserve vaginal integrity
* slow pitch, the act of lobbing a ball softly into the air in such a manner so that the retarded kid in the helmet and wheelchair who couldn't maneuver his wheels around a tee could get playing time.
* "fast" pitch, which is like slow pitch only the pitcher does several hilarious Popeye/Hulk Hogan-esque arm swings before the release.

At the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville organized league play was limited to women only when the male players kept hitting homers off what would eventually become the Wigsphere. In 1996, softball joined the Atlanta, Georgia Olympics, which were attended by our own site cofounder Jon Bois, crowned by a broken-freaking-necked wrestling gold-medal victory from American hero Kurt Angle, and bombed. BUT SOFTBALL WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT.

Last month softball took center stage at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, as the United States "Dream Team" won their third consecutive gold medal. The accomplishment overshadowed many of the other competitors including the former "Dream Team," our US Basketball Team, who are more concerned with picking up Nelly's "Sweat" and "Suit" albums than they are about teamwork and therefore won the Aluminum Medal for finishing in 300th place.

What makes these women so good at softball? So much better than everyone else in the world? They play the same game. They practice. They work together and do their best. But there is an intangible there...something under the surface that pumps their heart and pistons their legs. Something that makes them want it just a little bit more than the Japanese, the Australians, or the Chinese.

That intangible, I feel, is Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball for the NES.

The town of Mudville was the site of the famous poem "Casey at the Bat," but some say that they have an even greater claim to fame: The World's All-Star Championship. Sixty top-ranked players compete on six fields in a round-robin tournament to see who is the best. For serious softballers it's like the All-Star Game and the World Series all rolled into one! For softballers who are dicking around it's a Nintendo game that barely anybody remembers.

From the look of the box art you'd think this was a fairly straightforward softball game where players must avoid being kicked in the face by the umpire's crane kick.

The look is normal.  The controls are normal.   But the game is something else. 

What you get is a bizarre simulation of a "neighborhood pickup game" where kids in the "neighborhood" are fucked up creeps. Some can fly, some hit with spiked clubs instead of baseball bats, and so on. So if you can hit a line drive over the head of goddamn Hawkman you can compete with a Chinese girl in knee socks.

Here are just some of the players you learn to fear and respect for their eight-bit ability to break forth from your television and kill you to death with tiny squares. My own "dream team," if you will.

Zelda is a witch who has devoted her life to her softball game, and who evidently joined a children's rec league in a thinly veiled attempt to manipulate and eat her teammates. You know one of those fat kids is stupid enough to slide into an open oven. Instead of using proper sports equipment, Zelda (who is burned or stoned depending on the severity of the fielding error) swings her broom instead of a bat at the plate. Maybe the game designers were hoping to put Dracula in there somewhere and didn't want "batting" to be redundant. Or maybe Zelda hopes to "sweep" the series. All I know is that I would be upset if I learned to play a terra-cotta wind instrument well enough to travel back and forth through time for this shit.

ALL-STAR SOFTBALL TIP from LISA FERNANDEZ "The most important thing starts off with shoulder exercises. There are certain shoulder exercises that I do as preventive measures in terms of sweeping like rotator cuff exercises, shoulder complex exercises which are basically a front raise, a side raise, and a post raise. And remember, if the game might be called on account of rain, don't go out onto the field! Simple contact with water may cause you to melt!  So I guess maintaining sustenance by drinking and bathing is also out of the question. It worked for Laura Berg!"

I have sincere doubts that The Devil is a softball all-star. But here he is, red skin and fangs and all, lending credence to my theory that these odd children aren't participating for the love of the game as they are for their desire to not be burned in a scalding lake of Hellfire. Diablo (who is using a Hispanic name, which means he crossed the River Styx in a lifeboat with three-hundred relatives) is one of the heaviest hitters in the game, largely due to the fact that swings at slow-pitched softballs with a large spiked mace. That's mace spelled M-A-C-E, because if he spelled it with a dollar sign it would heinously decrease his bat speed.

ALL-STAR SOFTBALL TIP from DOT RICHARDSON "For the younger kids, watch the pitch count and give them rest days. Sometimes people think that because pitching underhand is such a natural movement, we don't need to rest and that's not true. If that doesn't work, try making them hold snakes.  If our Dark Lord doesn't think little Rosey is ready for the start he will strike her down with great vengeance!"

Now digging in, the second baseman, Artie! Looking for gold at the plate, Artie attends each game in a hard hat (along with the weird blue pajama overalls everyone wears) and bats with a pick axe. I guess he had to come to the game straight from a mining disaster. It doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense to try to hit a baseball with a sharp point, but it sure does make for an entertaining Sunday afternoon when Artie loses grip and sends his "bat" flying out into the stands.

Your future dream is a softball scheme, cause I wanna be ANARCHY~! Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball calls into question the Sex Pistol bassist Sid's troubled childhood, where he was overweight, sported a green mohawk, and had to deal with the indignity of being picked after the guy who swings at the ball with a fucking chiseling tool. Sid should stab that kid with a pair of scissors. Sid is important to the history of All-Star Softball, but he wasn't exceptionally talented. He spent more time talking about hitting the ball than he did actually hitting the ball. I also get PISSED DESTROY whenever he grounds out into a double play.

Arnie has always encouraged children and citizens to stay fit and lead productive, non-"girlie" lives of future robot murder and homophobia, and here we get to see him lead by example. Looking more like a digitized child Willem Dafoe than the GOVERNATOR, Arnie is of average skill and isn't crucial to a winning lineup when you consider that some of the kids in this game can levitate and walk on water. But it's always handy to have someone around who can crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women! A quote from Conan the movie volume one.

If you're feeling Froggy then you might as well be indicted for child molestation! Froggy actually hops when he runs the bases, making him an excellent choice for any coach who wants players that take their nicknames too seriously. Personally I'm glad that Froggy has achieved all-star ranking in his hobby, because if he was ever depressed and contemplating suicide I wouldn't be able to resist telling him that he "might as well jump."

ALL-STAR SOFTBALL TIP from JENNIE FINCH "A good softball player must have a good attitude. Softball is a team sport and having a good attitude plays a big part in your team having success. Softball is a game of failure, if you fail 7 or less times out of 10 at the plate hitting, you're considered a good hitter. Its a game of learning from your mistakes and making adjustments. That being said, wouldn't Froggy be better off in the Hammer Brothers suit?  Being a frog limits your mobility on land, and unless we're suddenly playing Blitz Ball he's going to be about as useful to the team as Stacey Nuveman's explosive diarrhea. GOD I'M SUCH A FOX."

Why have one unintelligible 80's action movie icon on your team when you can have two? Rocky is one of the finest pitchers in the game because he is able to spin his body in a counterclockwise motion swiftly enough to actually transform his body into a tornado, granting him the ability to throw hard and destroy any coastal towns located near the pitchers mound. So unless Josh Beckett wants his family's eyes glazed over in death he and the rest of the Marlins will stay the fuck away from the stars of softball.

Fuji is a sumo wrestler who plays softball in the offseason, making him the perfect JohnKrukian role player in a sport that demands it's players run with consistency. What he lacks in speed Fuji makes up in his ability to throw ceremonial salt. I'm just kidding, the Nintendo could rarely grasp the culturally insensitive specificities of professional wrestling. Fuji was just a fat guy and could knock people over when he slides. And when he pitches his head reaches Lisa Fernandez levels of critical mass.

ALL-STAR SOFTBALL TIP from LISA FERNANDEZ "You son of a bitch."

Babe looks a lot like Babe Ruth. That's it, really. He can't hit like Ruth, pitch like Ruth, or run in fast forward like Ruth, but he's got a fat head and therefore calls himself the Babe. There isn't a Hank Aaron lookalike in the game because Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball came out in 1989, when Nintendo couldn't grasp making African-Americans not look like Al Jolson, so every black guy looked like Doc from "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!!" It's for the best, though. Not being in the game was for his own safety. The game designers had their zapper watching his every black move.

ALL-STAR SOFTBALL TIP from CARMELO ANTHONY "i remember that movie babe, that be havin that pig that be doin' all sorts a crazy shit, you remember that? my favorite part was the very end, a part with lots of history for us to remember.  when faced with a situation in which he was scurred, babe, tha pig, he go into a sheep herding contest and even though he ain't down with pushin' them around and all he use magic sheep words that make them obey. i got magic words like that too, with the ladies, which is why i am young and rich.  i so rich, i rent the movie babe, dip it in glue, dip it in a vat of diamonds, an return it to blockbuster.  i don't even care.  that how rich i be. baa ram ewe, baa ram ewe.  yup yup, baa ram ewe in dat ass."

Choosing the right players and positions isn't the only challenging thing about this game; each of the six playing fields (five for qualifying rounds, one major league stadium for the championship game) has it's own set of rules.

And who knows more about local sports authority than a man who has had his giant face scalped just above the bridge of the nose and who must now wear a hat to cover up his brain hole as to not scare the children he has given his dome to instruct?

The sandlot is the smallest field, so it's a good idea to put your fastest players in the outfield. You have to worry about tripping over tree stumps as well. Hit the ball over the fence and you're up against legendary ball-eating dog "The Beast," who is either a metaphor for growing up and dealing with your fears or Dan Severn in a shitty disguise.

The park features water hazards in the outfield, so there's a good chance that you'll end up submerged diving for a ball. And there's also a good chance that a duck will eat the ball on a bounce and you'll have to run around British comedy style with your arms stretched out chasing after him while everybody laughs. AND THE FIELD IS ALSO AN IMMOBILE CAR.

On the school field there is a special rule: any home run that breaks a window is automatically deemed an out! Any home run that lands within twenty feet of sage-like teacher Mr. Feeney results in a touching life-lesson. One of the perks of this diamond is that when playing two player mode you can taunt your enemy by telling him/her that you're "taking them to school!" One of the downsides is that if they say "we're already AT school," your logic is fucked.

The island is a moderately large, normal diamond at first glance. But on second glance you realize that the "island" field is close to being the "Island of Dr. Moreau" field, because just beyond the outfield fence lies a collection of anthropomorphic beasts in T-shirts watching you run down balls. Including in this amalgamation of biology and Godlessness is a giraffe in shorts, what looks like sharks coming up out of the grass, and what can only be described as a bear in pajamas.

I'd hate to be the bastard who scaled the wall Junior Griffey-style only to have his arm taken off by a Man-Bear.

The best of the parks has to be the cliff, a small, rock-top baseball field where balls that roll off the side are ruled ground rule doubles and the owners sponsor AC Delco "Lovers Suicide" Night.

Honestly it's a lot like SBC Park in San Francisco, where the Giants play, only instead of Barry Bonds injecting himself with venom and blasting balls eight thousand feet into McCovey Cove you've got "Gary" bouncing long singles off a white picket fence made by God.

The final game of the tournament takes place in the major league stadium against "The Amazons," a group of girls who have dedicated their lives to championship softball and reliably shipping DVDs. And though "The Amazons" might seem like a sexist name for a women's team you've got to understand the Dusty Diamond team naming system.

Instead of providing stock names like every other non-MLB licensed baseball or softball game (from the simple "Utah" of "Bases Loaded" to the legendary "Ninja Black Sox" of "Baseball Stars"), Dusty assigns one team name per letter of the alphabet...and Dusty reveals himself as a third-grader. Team names like "Dweebs," "Nerds," "Rads," and "Flakes" are all prevalent, including some more creative team names like the "Spuds." And sometimes they can't spend more than a few minutes thinking up team names and call the U-team the "Ukers." What the fuck is a Uker? Do they employ Mr. Belvedere as their team manager?  I wonder what they picked for "E?"  Elephants?   Energizers?  Ah well, it's still gotta be better than what the U-team gets.

Well shit.

The Amazons bring the concept of female empowerment through the art of hitting a fluorescent ball the size of a car full circle, reminding us via violent ass-beating how badly Lisa Fernandez, Jennie Finch, Michele Smith's trailer afro, and the rest would destroy us in a pickup game.

Nice job, ladies.

Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball is a forgotten classic and should be discovered by you immediately, if only to one day tell your children that you pulled a 4-6-3 double play involving a witch, a caveman, and Satan.