Twenty-year-old Chris Gilmore of Orlando, Fla., Thursday night won $1M in 2K Sports' "MLB 2K12" Perfect Game Challenge, the third winner in the video game publisher's annual prize to promote its baseball title. Unlike the first two efforts, in which the $1M contest was a race to complete the first verified perfect game in the video game, 2K Sports this year expanded it into a tournament, with the finals held at the MLB Fan Cave in N.Y. Gilmore, a pitcher and physical therapy major at Brevard Community College, defeated Charlie Bates of Conway, Ark., 10-1 in a final game that will be shown May 24 on Spike TV. Model Kate Upton, who has appeared in several TV ads for "MLB 2K12," was on hand at the Fan Cave to present the check to Gilmore. "I was confident I could do this," Gilmore said. "Once I made it to New York (for the final tournament rounds), it was just a matter of winning three games." It is not known whether 2K Sports will revive the $1M contest next year, as its video game license with MLB is in its final season.
