The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 69

ONUNETODAYboston.comae nWnl(o Viewer Discretion: Your TV guide Sound Effects Music notes Movie Nation What's on the big screen Exhibitionist Visual arts and beyond Movie Directory Weather F6-7 F8 The Boston Globe Saturday, October 27, 2007 Relic of a video game offers players a blast from the past Simplicity and run are two of the key components of RBI Baseball v-n- rf a from the pre-Xbox era. Not only do the players all look identical, but they appear to have graduated from the Super Mario Baseball Academy Cartoon Factory. Two buttons and a directional pad control the action. Charge the mound after a brush-back pitch? Maybe in Fenway Park, but not in this game. Still, for devotees like 18-year old Mike Moroco, a freshman at Villanova University and loyal member of Sox Nation, no other baseball video game packs quite the same punch.

"How many of the new games are fun to play? Not many," reasons Moroco, who had not even been born when RBI Baseball first ap- peared. They look great, maybe. But compared to a game like MVP Baseball 2005, it's simple to learn and easy to play." Jeff Gerstmann, 32, grew up playing RBI Baseball with his father. Now editorial director for GameSpot.com, a website that tracks and rates video and computer games, Gerstmann calls it "a classic, classic game" that has never lost its appeal because, one, it's so satisfying to play, and, two, its learning curve can be mastered by' even casual players. RBI BASEBALL, Page FS By Joseph P.

Kahn GLOBE STAFF Giddy over their team competing in another Fall Classic, Red Sox fans can relax and chuckle at a vintage horror movie now playing on YouTube: Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, otherwise known as The Groundball That Ate Bill Buck-ner. The video runs nearly nine minutes long and is accompanied by Vin Scully's game broadcast. What makes it hilariously entertaining, and why thousands of YouTubers have given it 4Vi stars, is the wedding of Scully's commentary to a pitch-by-pitch reenactment using screen images from RBI Baseball, a video game that, digitally speaking, looks as if it strolled out of an Iowa cornfield during the first Bush administration. Talk about ghosts in the Compared to the current crop of video games, RBI Baseball is Pacman in pinstripes, an 8-bit relic i- iin nrv jV I til I I I -Vv 1 1 ii4 Lstui k-Mn4 1 ARAM BOGHOSIAN FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE Because the reporter in the horse costume was learning how to get in character for Halloween Town By Meredith Goldstein GLOBE STAFF Be nice to the monsters and furry things at Halloween Town this weekend. They are new to this.

In fact, it was just a few days ago that they learned how to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, calico cats, and the Big Bad Wolf. On Monday night, in a room at the Boston Medical Center that is usually used for people taking childbirth classes, two dozen volunteers and one reporter sat like good pupils as we learned from the master, a man named Kevin Roberge. You don't know Roberge, but there's a chance you have rubbed his paws. For much of his life he has worked for Walt Disney as a costumed character in its theme parks. He has been tigers and dogs.

He has been an over-excited genie. Above: Kevin Roberge demonstrates as Meredith Goldstein droops. CONOR LASTOWKA A popular YouTube video uses images from RBI Baseball's reenactment of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series matched with announcer Vin Scully's commentary. "I can guarantee I am in more photo albums than anyone here," he told the group, as we prepared for more than an hour of costume boot camp. This is Roberge's first time helping out with Halloween Town, a two-day event that turns the Seaport World Trade Center into a holiday theme park to benefit Boston Medical Center charities.

The event is meant for children younger than 12, so most of the costumed folks are furry as opposed to freaky. Last year more than 10,000 people showed, so this time around the BMC hired a professional Roberge to help volunteers make the H-Town HALLOWEEN TOWN, Page F4 sr hi GHOST TOWN Get complete Halloween coverage at boston.comhalloween. TONY CENICOLATHE NEW YORK TIMES Alex Beam A puckish fan checks in from the Garden So this is what it's like to Dlav third fiddle. fSH -5J So this is what it's like to play third fiddle. Taco Bell promotion is off base to some By Joanna Weiss GLOBE STAFF We're accustomed, by now, to unsubtle product placement on TV.

We accept the intrusion of Nissans into every other frame of NBC's "Heroes." We don't flinch when Fox's "American Idol" set shares its color scheme with a Coke bottle. We accept that every statistic uttered during a sports broadcast is sponsored by some company or other. So it says a lot about the unexpected reach of Taco Bell's "Steal a Base, Steal a Taco" promotion and the fervor with which Fox Sports has embraced it that so many people would find this one so dirty. So Orwellian. Whether it is or not If you've been watching baseball this week, the details of the giveaway are probably emblazoned in your brain, like multiplication tables or the Giant Glass theme song.

But for the benefit of everyone else and Taco Bell, of course here goes: After the first stolen base of the series, the chain prom-, ised to give a free beef taco to anyone who asked. (The catch: You have to go from 2 to 5 p.m. on Tuesday.) Jacoby Ellsbury did the deed in the fourth iiming Thursday night. And not long afterward, Fox Sports played this conversation, recorded a day A glutton for raunter-prograrnming, I took in Thursday night's Boston Bruins game at the TD Banknorth Garden. Millions of Bostonians were watching Curt Schilling hold down the Colorado Rockies or seeing Matt Ryan bid fair for a Heisman Trophy with a dramatic last-minute win over Virginia Tech.

Meanwhile, my companion and I were counting the thousands of empty seats at the Garden, trying to figure out whether the arena was 40 percent or 50 percent full. Officially, the Garden was 57 percent full. Unofficially, I had the impression that if the Patriots had been playing, we would have had the place to ourselves. Before banging America's most mismanaged sport up against the boards, let's clear up a few BEAM, Page F5 i MATTHEW J. LEEGLOBE STAFF Fans in the Garden Thursday could watch the Bruins live or Sox on TV..