Hello! My name is Blitzerama. For the past year, I've dedicated a decent chunk of time becoming as good as I can at Mario Superstar Baseball. I've worked hard to figure out how the game works, and the result of my effort has been greater than I could have imagined. I currently hold all 8 records for the game at the time of writing this, and I feel as I accomplished what I set out to do. Unfortunately over the past months I've realized I've grown very tired of not just speedrunning the game, but streaming and recording in general. It's hard to say whether this is an issue with burnout, time constraints, or just life moving on, but I feel like its time that I step away. Thanks to everyone who followed me and gave me encouragement throughout my time running the game, and I hope this community can continue to flourish and grow as much as possible.

With all that said, I feel as it would be hard for me to walk away if I wasn't able to put to paper all of the notes I have taken about this game over the year of playing it. My apologies ahead of time if these notes feel scattered or unorganized, but I'll do what I can to sort it and make it as cohesive as possible. So... let's start with the basics. Keep in mind that the strategies I lay out within this guide may only work for Mushroom Cup. Once you get into the higher levels, this game becomes much more of a test of skill and requires an insane amount of good luck.

~ What Charater's Team Should I Use? ~

My personal choice, and what I believe to be the best choice for this is Wario. Wario's team has one thins that I cannot stress the importance of in a heavy RNG game such as this. That thing is consistency. On both sides of the ball, Wario's team provides some of the most consistent play that you will find in this game. Whether this be the hit-potential of star hits done by the middle of the line up, to the amazing plays you can make with many of the infielders, runs done with Wario's team always seem to last longer and make it to the finish line more often than not. Of course if you want to use other characters you certainly can. Heck, the current 2nd place record by simesaba and original 1st place record by AnthonyCaliber both used Mario. However it's hard for me to turn down how great Wario's team is. On that note as well, most of this guide will be written with the idea that you have selected Wario's team, so keep that in mind.

~ Pitching and Fielding ~

I'll be honest, this will be the least scientific part of this guide. Pitching and fielding in this game takes a lot of practice. Additionally, it is so heavily dependent on RNG that you might go through an entire run without giving up a single hit, only to lose it to a 2-run homer by Toadsworth. That being said, here are the tips that I can provide to help get through this portion of the run.

1. Put spin on the pitches In many of the runs I do, I usually switch King Boo with Wario to start the game. This is because King Boo is slightly trickier than Wario, and allows us to put spin on the ball by holding the stick left or right after a pitch. From my experience, too many pitches without any movement or variance in location have resulted in hits from the CPU.

2. Mash the B button when fielding Mashing the B button when running at any time in this game with result in your character moving faster. You need to take advantage of this as much as you can, as a caught ball for an out can result in saving yourself 15+ seconds.

3. Keep the infield as is The magikoopas are the MVPs of your defense, and there is really no reason to move them away from their original spots. I can't tell you how many times my run has been saved by me frantically hitting the A button and having a magikoopa make a fantastic catch with their wand.

4. Practice I know that this is a cop out, but honestly there isn't much that you can do to make fielding in this game easy. It's something that requires you to build reflexes based on a given situation. Once the ball is hit, you just need to be able to make the best play.

~ Hitting, and getting 10 Runs ~

Now this is where I have an actual plan. Over the past year of doing this I think I've figured out a pretty good way to get 10 runs in most cases. Obviously if you are going for the Any% run this only matters for Bowser, as the rest of the games your game plan will be to get 1 run as fast as possible, then bunt until you waste all of your outs.

My gameplan is this:

1. Get a Hit with Wario. If you get out, its not the end of the world, so keep going.
2. With Waluigi and the Magikoopas (MK), use star hits. They are incredibly consistent hits with these characters.
3. At this point, you may encounter scenarios where you can bunt for free and not lose an out. This only works when you have <2 outs, and you can do this by manipulating the CPUs into throwing home. This works if you have a man on third, and at least one empty base. It's hard to explain this technique, but in short, you will:

Bunt the ball, do NOT steal with the man on third. DO steal with the man on first if there is one. If you have a man on second and third, have them mimic each others movements. The CPU will prioritize the man going home and throw the ball there. Once this happens, have the running going home run back to third. If done correctly, everyone should reach base safely. You can do this with pretty much any character in that situation, and its a really easy way to get men on without stress. You can see me perform this here, as well as in many of my other videos:

4. At this point, you need to interweave these tips with solid hits. Yeah I know its another "just practice and you'll get better" thing, but its the truth! However I do have a note about hitting in general at this point. DON'T CHARGE HIT EVER. Solid contact is always better than rolling the dice on a power hit.

The more you practice hitting in this game the better your feel for it will be. Honestly a lot of runs succeed on the back of just getting great hits. However if you follow this plan it will set you up more often for success and take more of the load off of your shoulders.

~ Conclusion and Thanks ~

I hope this was of some help to you guys. I know its messy and probably not as helpful as I think it will be, but I had to get my thoughts on paper to have some kind of closure. I wish you all the best of luck with running this game, and always remember that patience is key for this and any other RNG heavy game.

Special Thanks to Socky for the insane sub support, my best life and discord friends for supporting me, AnthonyCaliber for making the run that inspired me to try it, my followers on twitch, and people like simesaba and mdmason for putting a fire under my ass and forcing me to make my runs better. You guys are the best.

Love you guys, and play ball! <3