MLB The Show’s new mode features Negro League legends

Two years after Major League Baseball reclassified the Negro Leagues as a major league and announced it would count the statistics and records of its players as part of its history, eight Negro League legends will be included in the latest edition of baseball’s most popular video game simulation. MLB The Show 23 will feature Negro League greats in a new game mode called “Storylines,” which combines narrative videos about the players’ journeys and gameplay highlighting important moments in their careers.

Players in the new game mode are Martín Dihigo, John Donaldson, Rube Foster, Buck O’neil, Satchel Paige, Hilton Smith, Hank Thompson and Jackie Robinson, who integrated Major League Baseball in 1947. Additional Negro League players will be added to the game in subsequent years of the franchise.

“We plan to use MLB The Show as a gateway to expose new generations of baseball fans to these historic figures and their stories of triumph over adversity,” Ramone Russell, a product development communications and brand strategist for Sony San Diego Studio, the game’s creator, wrote Feb. 6.

Sony San Diego Studio partnered with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and its president, Bob Kendrick, as well as the players’ families, to develop “Storylines.” Kendrick narrates the videos in the game and helped MLB The Show decide on the players to include. Mlb.com reported that MLB connected Sony with Kendrick after Sony expressed interest in adding Negro League players to the game in 2021. This year’s edition is available March 28.

“The story of the Negro Leagues is not an African American story,” Kendrick says in a video released Feb. 6 announcing the new game mode. “It is an all American story. It’s the kind of story that we as Americans have typically embraced, because it’s a story about pride, passion, perseverance, determination, the refusal to accept the notion that you’re unfit to do anything.”

Foster, often called the “Father of Black Baseball,” helped establish the Negro National League in Kansas City on Feb. 13, 1920, after his 16-year playing career. A century would pass before the legends who starred in the Negro Leagues would be officially recognized as big leaguers. In December 2020, Commissioner Rob Manfred said MLB was “correcting a longtime oversight

‘We plan to use MLB The Show as a gateway to expose new generations of baseball fans to these historic figures.’ Ramone Russell of Sony San Diego Studio, the game’s creator

in the game’s history” by adding the names and statistics of 3,400 Negro Leaguers from seven distinct leagues from 1920 to 1948 to its official records.

Miami Marlins star Jazz Chisholm is on the cover of this year’s game, which is available on Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch. MLB The Show and Sony San Diego Studio will donate $1 to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum for every copy sold of the game’s collector’s edition — featuring Derek Jeter on the cover.

WIKIMEDIA Rube Foster, seen at the 1924 “Colored” League World Series, played for the Chicago Union Giants, Cuban X-giants, Philadelphia Giants, Leland Giants and Chicago American Giants.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TNS John Jordan “Buck” O’neil, seen in the Cubs dugout, is one of the players in the new game mode.

AP FILE Satchel Paige was one of baseball’s best pitchers in the Negro Leagues. Later in his career he pitched in the majors.