Ty Buttrey to represent the Angels in MLB The Show tournament

Fans desperate for Angels baseball will get a virtual version of it when Ty Buttrey represents the team in an MLB The Show tournament.

Major League Baseball and the Players Association, in conjunction with Sony Entertainment, have launched a video game tournament to raise money for the Boys & Girls Club, according to multiple reports.

The league announced on Friday that real-life Major League players will compete in a round-robin tournament of MLB The Show to raise as much as $30,000 for their local community.

Ty Buttrey will represent the Los Angeles Angels.

The tournament is set to begin on Friday night with Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Blake Snell facing off against Cincinnati Reds pitcher Amir Garrett. Games will be streamed on various digital platforms, including the participating players’ Twitch channels, and YouTube.

Each MLB team will have one player represented in the tournament. The players will play each other once, and then the top eight teams at the end of April will qualify for a postseason tournament, with the virtual World Series expected to be played on May 2.

According to ESPN, the game settings are constant throughout the tournament as follows:

"Gaming settings will be consistent, with designated hitters turned off, the batting difficulty set to Veteran and pitching difficulty set to All-Star, with guess pitch, quick counts and balks all turned off. The biggest difference from real life? Umpire accuracy will be set to perfect. No missed calls."

MLB, the Players Association, and Sony have agreed to donate $5,000 to each player’s local Boys & Girl Club, with the best video game player earning an additional $25,000 for charity.

As fans across the world wait for everyday life to return in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, they can now distract their minds by watching some of their favorite baseball players compete against each other in MLB The Show.

I am sure there will be plenty of fans who think they can do a better job than the Major League players; perhaps a rare time when the people watching the games being played are more talented than the ones playing it.