MLB '13 The Show Needs a Coverboy

Every sport has a signature video game. For baseball, SCE San Diego Studio's MLB The Show Series gives you everything you want in a game of simulation hardball, and each year it seems to deliver more of the things baseball fans want to see.

This year, the player who will don the cover of the game seems like a can't miss no matter how voting ends up. Matt Kemp, CC Sabathia, Andrew McCutchen, Bryce Harper, Buster Posey, Ryan Braun, Miguel Cabrera and Johnny Giavotella are the candidates. Fans can cast their ballot by heading over to MLB.com/covervote and joining in via twitter or Facebook.

Baseball is doing a great job of promoting this as the marquee game of their sport. All hands are on deck with the aforementioned Twitter, Facebook, and MLB.com outlets. Each candidate made a campaign video (here's McCutchen's) and I even heard Colin Cowherd talking about the game with CC Sabathia today on ESPN Radio during my lunch break. 

I can tell you from experience, this game is worthy of all the hype. It's one of the few things in my life that year after year continues to deliver without diminishing returns. Even a new car is only great for the first year you have it. After that, you've got trash on the floor and your friends will smoke cigarettes in it without asking.

This game delivers a feel so real, you'll smell peanuts and pine tar from the minute you throw it in your Playstation. Sorry XBOX owners, you're left out in the cold like George Jung for now. 

If you have the time on your hands, I challenge you to pick the game up and try to play a full 162-game season. It might sound like it gets boring or tedious to some, but you'll never see the same thing twice in this game. And over the course of playing a season with that many game you'll see some rare special things at about the same rate you would see them over the course of the real-life season. You'll get blown out, win an 18-inning game in which you have to insert a pitcher to play left field, make a game saving catch, hit grand slams, have a shot at records, endure slumps, rain delays; it's all in this game if you allow play it out and allow it to come to you. 

Now, head over to twitter and send a simple tweet '#MLB13HARPER' to vote for the guy I want to see on the cover. 

Follow @mlbtheshow for more details of The Show '13 cover vote race. At press time, Andrew McCutchen holds a surprising decisive lead.