San Diego Studios, the developers of MLB The Show, plan to expand on Negro League story lines first introduced in 2023.
MLB The Show is the most popular baseball game that features current day MLB players and many legends from the past, which in recent years include legends from the Negro Leagues.
The Negro Leagues officially started in 1920. At the time, players of color were not allowed to play in the MLB, so this gave them the chance to be professional baseball players.
As of December 2020, MLB officially recognized the players and the stats of Negro League players. Since then MLB has made more of an effort to educate fans on the history of the Negro Leagues.
Varsity Baseball players Gregory Gonzalez ’25 said, “I know that the Negro Leagues were a way for Black people to be able to play organized at a time when they couldn’t with whites.”
“They existed for Black people to play baseball segregated from whites during Jim Crow,” Alexandre Fonseca ’25 added.
Both mentioned the iconic pitcher Satchel Paige as a standout. Satchel Paige was a star of the Negro Leagues who eventually made the big leagues in 1948, after the MLB finally let people of color into the league. He was 42 in his first MLB game and 59 in his last one.
Besides Satchel Paige, there is still so much history and a vast amount of legends that most people don’t know, which is exactly why MLB The Show introduced Negro League storylines.
The Negro Leagues mode features informative, interactive, and memorable storylines about legends who played in the Negro Leagues. Playing these storylines helps shine a light on players many people may not know.
Lorenzo Hasani ’25, who played the Negro Leagues in MLB The Show last year, was asked who he knows from the Negro Leagues, which prompted him to say, “Josh Gibson, he revolutionized hitting in the league.”
Josh Gibson was one of the players who had a dedicated storyline in MLB The Show 23. Other notable players included were: Hilton Smith, Jackie Robinson Martin Dihigo, Rube Foster, Buck O’Niel, Hank Thompson, Satchel Paige, and John Donaldson.
Gibson will be returning in MLB The Show 24’s Negro League Season 2.
Alongside his new storyline, there will be three new players available at the launch of the game with their own storyline: Buck Leonard, Hank Aaron, and Toni Stone.
