Online Extra

If your idea of baseball fun is realism and managing teams, you will probably prefer All-Star Baseball 2003 to EA Sports' Triple Play 2002. Knowing the intricacies of major-league baseball can help you enjoy Triple Play, but a deep knowledge of baseball is a necessity to get the most out of All-Star. You can play in manager mode if you don't want to control every move the players make. But player mode can take a while to learn; you need a high degree of discipline to work the controls. For example, when batting, you must control not only the placement of the swing but also the angle of the bat: A down angle will ground the ball, but to hit a fly, you angle the bat up.