A PC mod showing Red Sox slugger David Ortiz unleashing an all-natural, chem-free assault inside the Boston-set Fallout 4 has attracted the attention of Major League Baseball's hall monitors, who say the uniform he wears is (wait for it) foul and out of play.
Ortiz, who has hit 503 home runs and recorded 2,303 hits without knowingly ingesting performance-enhancing drugs or deliberately intimidating the official scorers is seen above in the game, thanks to the combination of a mod and a player build made to look like him. Richie Branson told The Boston Globe it was only natural to formally introduce the Sox to the game after Fallout 4 went to such lengths to make the city's baseball heritage a big part of it.
"You've got Fenway Park, the Green Monster [its iconic left-field scoreboard] and all of Boston, but there weren't any Red Sox jerseys," he told the Globe.
Fenway, opened five days after the Titanic sank in 1912, is re-christened "Diamond City" after the apocalyptic events of 2077, in an alternate future constructed on idyllic visions of Eisenhower-era America and the atomic-age technology forecast by science periodicals of the day. If Fallout's canon truly hews to the 1950s, the Yankees were probably still kicking the crap out of the Sox by the time the bombs fell like a Bucky Dent/Aaron Boone home run.
Branson said he used freely-available typefaces to construct a proper Red Sox uniform and batting helmet. But when the Globe checked with MLB's third-base umpire for a ruling, he signaled out. "The use of these marks is an infringement of our rights. We plan to enforce those rights," a spokesman said Thursday.
The YouTube video above later altered its "about" information to exclude the download link for the mod, and provide a disclaimer that it was not affiliated with Major League Baseball at all. Branson has insisted he made no money from the sale of the mod and, currently, Fallout 4's EULA requires that all mods be made available for free.
Branson's mod was available on PC only. David Ortiz's last recognizable appearance in a licensed Xbox video game was MLB 2K13 on Xbox 360 two years ago.
