SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. >> Few contemporary sports video games enjoy a lasting shelf life. With annual rollouts and minimal year-to-year change, the average title seldom maintains cultural relevance past the year it was published. In the cases of Madden, MLB The Show and NBA 2K, fans often complain that every “new” game is the same as the previous year’s title.

It’s for these reasons that MVP Baseball 2005, released 20 years ago today, so special.

The final installment in the MVP Baseball series, MVP ’05 is as old as Giants’ top prospect Bryce Eldridge but still considered by many to be the best baseball video game of all-time — if not best sports game of all-time. The unexpected demise of the series rewarded MVP ’05, the best and last title of the bunch, a borderline martyrdom status. Two decades later, fans still wonder how the series would’ve evolved if the plug wasn’t pulled. The run was cut short, but to Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow, the voices of the game, there’s no shortage of pride when they recall the classic they helped create.

“What it means is that we did it right,” Krukow said. “We did it with passion. It was received with passion. When you can do that to an audience, they will remember.”

Around September 2002, Krukow and Kuiper were approached about being the voices of the MVP Baseball series. Kuiper speculated that they were chosen because Electronic Arts is headquartered in Redwood City and the game’s developers had likely heard the duo on the air. Krukow worked with Ted Robinson on World Series Baseball, a different baseball video game, the previous year, but Kuiper had no previous video game experience. With an opportunity bring Kruk & Kuip into the virtual realm, they both jumped at the opportunity.

“We really had no idea what we were getting into,” Kuiper said. “We had no idea how hard of work it was.”

Kruk and Kuip recorded the bulk of the lines for all three games during the fall and winter of 2002, recording updating lines for MVP ‘04 and MVP ‘05 as necessary. When the Giants lost to the Anaheim Angels in the 2002 World Series, the recording sessions became, to Kuiper, “therapeutic.”

The recording process began while the Giants were still playing regular-season games, meaning Krukow and Kuiper had to adjust their gameday schedules. Several times a week, they trekked to the EA Sports studio in Redwood City before home games and recorded over four hour sessions, breaking for lunch halfway through. Once they wrapped, they’d drive to the ballpark and nap in their cars before beginning their actual jobs.

“You ran out of voice right around the fifth inning,” Krukow said. “I’m not kidding. You only have so much voice. Then, all of a sudden, your throat gets dry and it gets a little raspy. It wasn’t as bad for me, but for Kuip, I really don’t know how he did it. It really kind of felt like you were doing a doubleheader.”

The majority of their work required reading a script. For Kuiper, the game’s play-by-play broadcaster, that meant handling a fair amount of grunt work.

Each game contained hundreds of players and dozens of ballparks from both the past and present. Kuiper, who admits that he’s not good at pronunciations, was responsible for saying them all. Not only did Kuiper have to say every name, but he had to say every name with different inflections depending on the scenario. While monotonous at times, Krukow and Kuiper both offered praise for the employees who created a memorable working environment.

“It was just like the stars were lining up because there was not one person on that crew who was jaded,” Krukow said. “Everybody was talented. Everybody had energy. Everybody had a clue as to what they were doing. They just wanted to get the feel of a game. The whole motto of EA Sports is, ‘It’s in the game.’ They really lived it.”

“It all had to be done, and it all had to be done the right way,” Kuiper said. “We plowed through it and really had a lot of fun doing it.”

For all the line reading, Krukow and Kuiper were afforded opportunities to adlib.

On several occasions, they parked themselves in front of a television, watched gameplay footage and called the game as if it was really happening. The producers then took several phrases from these freestyles and incorporated them into the game. Kuiper’s signature home run call — “It is outta here” — wasn’t incorporated into the game, but Krukow’s signature, “Grab some pine, meat!” made the cut. Since the game was made for a global audience, Krukow and Kuiper not only became the voice for Giants fans locally, but baseball fans internationally.