Overview
Whether you may be going for a 100% completion, you really hate A-Rod (and I mean really hate him), or you just like shovel play, this guide is written to go in depth on to how you should set up and properly execute the swat you need for your severed head to travel 50 meters or more in distance.
Step 1: Finding a mound
After you’ve gotten your shovel (which should be the first weapon in front of you), you need to find out where you’re going to take bat. If you just loaded up a new game, then the first place you can go to is the left stairs north of your home.
The trick is that you want a steep slope where your head can bounce down and around.
You can also try a hill like the one to the right of your home going north but its slope might make the head not travel as far since the head can only bounce so much.
On the other hand, it may be better since the area is more open than the stairs, allowing your head to bounce more freely.
If you’re farther into the game, anywhere else is acceptable so long as it has a good incline like the or a sheer drop like the spiral stairs at the brewery or the slope in-between the mall parking lot and the trainyard.
You can also take swing at the top of the compound on Friday like I had but it might require more setup and effort.
Step 2: Preparing your ground
Once you found your mound, you can start to prepare your swing. Unless you’re farther into the game and found other melee weapons like the machete or shears, decapitating heads with the shovel will require a bit of work, and more so if you only have the shovel as your weapon of choice. But after you have that figured out and you have your head, you can start batting.
The best place to have your head is right next to or close to the edge of your incline or drop. You can move your head by using the alt-fire or right click of your shovel while crouched and up close to it.
But be careful as doing so might launch your head much farther than intended.
Step 3: Sending out of town
The two most important things to know about earning the “A-Rod Who?” achievement is
- Using quicksaves will make your life easier (for setting up and hitting)
- The head doesn’t need to travel in a straight line, it just needs to move a total distance of 50 meters or more
and
- The achievement will not be granted unless you hit the head with the normal (left-click) swing with the shovel.
The last part is the most crucial as hitting the head using the alt-fire will not grant you the achievement no matter what. This also means that you’ll need to hit differently then you would with the alt-fire, as your normal swing goes from left to right and not back to front.
So to hit properly, it’s best to swing as low as you can from the right side of your head (while crouched) as doing so will launch it at a higher arc.
It’s also important to note that you do not have to be under your head like in the animation above, but might help if you are able to.
Conclusion
After that, you should have gotten your achievement and can now celebrate the fact that you’ve earned it and that you are not A-Rod (unless you happened to be named Alex Rodriguez).
I hope this guide helps, and if it doesn’t, just comment on what needs to be tweaked and I should fix whatever may be wrong with it.
And if you don’t know who A-Rod is, go ahead and watch the 30-minute video made by Baseball Doesn’t Exist below. It might just make you want to go back questioning “Who’s A-Rod”?