If you’re a baseball fan, you’re probably sick to death of the national media’s obsession with New York’s teams. And if you’re a video gamer, you know that bias has been reflected, year after year, in the cover athlete chosen for 2K Sports’ baseball series.

Last year, the New York Mets’ Jose Reyes, became the first non-Yankee to grace the game’s cover, following three consecutive seasons of Derek Jeter cover art. (Rumor has it that Reyes was chosen because Jeter ran out of poses.) Before that, it was Jason Giambi.

Well, the San Francisco Giants’ Tim Lincecum, just named the National League Cy Young Award winner after an 18-5 season in which he led the Majors with 265 strikeouts, has finally broken the streak. Shortly after Lincecum’s Cy Young was announced, 2K Sports sent out a press release announcing Lincecum as the face of next year’s game.

Even though the cereal hasn’t gone away, sports video game box covers have become the new Wheaties box. Yeah, Wheaties are still around, but your mom probably won’t throw out your Tim Lincecum DVD case by mistake.

If you show up on the cover of a “Madden NFL” case, you can be confident you’ll have a permanent spot on thousands of gamers’ shelves, as well as in the discount bin at GameStop once the following year’s title is released.

Bravo, Tim. While the 2K baseball series doesn’t have some hokey “curse” associated with it the way “Madden NFL” does, Giants fans will still want to hold their breath a bit while waiting to see how Lincecum’s small frame bounces back next year after a fairly heavy workload this season.