Derek Jeter Real Baseball for iPhone

Every time you launch the game, you're treated to a short video touting Derek Jeter's many on-the-field achievements. There doesn't seem to be a way to disable the video in the game's options, but you can bug out after a few seconds. That's not the end of the Jeter hagiography, though; load screens feature sayings from Chairman Jeter about the importance of hard work, discipline, and humility in the face of multitudes of reporters and fans ready to sing hosannahs to you for the most routine of plays.

Observant players will note that these images of Jeter feature him bedecked in the familiar Yankee pinstripes, but that all traces of the Yankees' logo have been scrubbed out of existence. That's because Real Baseball may have Derek Jeter's considerable blessing, but it does not have any tie-in with Major League Baseball or its players union. The game features made-up teams and generic players.

That lack of authenticity may be a deal-killer for some baseball fans, but it didn't bother me. I was more put off by the game's insistence that every lineup had to feature the catcher leading off, the first baseman batting second, and so on, all the way down to the right fielder hitting eighth. Alter the lineup--the catcher for the Oakland Chips is a bit of a slowpoke, so I decided to switch his place in the order with the faster left fielder--and Real Baseball not only swaps their batting positions but their fielding spots as well. The catcher always bats lead off in Real Baseball's world. It may make the game easier to organize, but it detracts from the realism.

You can play a quick game of one, three, six, or nine innings, or you can play an entire season, lasting 14, 28, or 56 games. The game's App Store description promises a 162-game season, but I couldn't find that option when testing version 1.0.6 of the game. That's not a complaint--a 14-game season was long enough to hold my interest. If you'd like to skip the drudgery of a regular season, you can jump ahead to a three-round playoff mode. You're playing against the computer--there's no multiplayer mode, either via Wi-Fi or pass-and-play.

The game offers three degrees of difficulty--rookie, veteran, and all-star. I couldn't discern a difference between the first two levels; in fact, playing in veteran mode, I achieved my greatest triumph, pummeling the New York team led by the One True Jeter. All Star mode proved a little bit trickier--your computerized opponent hits the ball harder, fields better, and makes a lot fewer mistakes.