How a video game glitch spawned baseball's most unlikely fan club

Edmonton Journal

13-05-2025

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So imagine his surprise Sunday at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, where he spotted three teenagers, all repping his jersey. And imagine the three teenagers' surprise when he embraced them with open arms.
'I was like, 'What's going on?'' Law said.
'I think about [meeting him] every three seconds, and it still puts a smile on my face every time,' Trent Woods said.
Here was the meeting of the Derek Law fan club. Present: three 18-year-olds from Louisville, twins Trent and Trey Woods and their friend Kooper Dean. Plus the man himself, who wandered over from the visiting dugout on a spring afternoon. The teens were so euphoric that they jumped in delight. Law, in Nationals red, was so charmed, he held his cap over his heart.
What brought all this about – the jerseys, the scene, the joy? It started with a glitch in a video game.
In the 'Diamond Dynasty' mode of video game series MLB: The Show, gamers compete against each other with teams composed of baseball cards. The better the player, the better the rating. The better the rating, the better they are in the video game, generally speaking. For real-life MLB players, though, the game's creators concocted a special twist, called 'Real 99s.' It scrapped the rating system and gave the player a 99 rating for his own card. In simple terms, it meant real MLB players could play with a juggernaut version of themselves.