SDS Reveals Storylines: The Negro Leagues — Season 3 Legends
"Cool Papa" Bell, “Turkey” Stearnes, Wilber “Bullet Joe” Rogan, Leroy Matlock, Monte Irvin, Oscar Charleston and James “Biz” Mackey will be featured.
The fan-favorite Storylines mode makes a return this week with Storylines: The Negro Leagues — Season 3, hosted by the beloved Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
Last year, we had two different experiences within Storylines, one being the second season of The Negro Leagues, with the other being focused on the career of Derek Jeter. This year, it looks like we’ll just see Negro Leagues content within Storylines, which remains more than satisfying considering both the quality of the mode and the massive amount of content we’ll get on launch with Diamond Dynasty.
That said, what’s new with Storylines: The Negro Leagues — Season 3?
The most well-known player introduced this year is James Thomas “Cool Papa” Bell, a Hall of Fame outfielder considered to be one of the fastest players in baseball history. Bell put up a bWAR of 34.7 through 21 years of NLB play. Bell played most of his games in centerfield, but he pitched 309.2 innings in the earlier parts of his career, too.
Other players featured in the promo and later discussed on a live stream by SDS were outfielder Norman “Turkey” Stearnes, two-way player Wilber “Bullet Joe” Rogan, pitcher Leroy Matlock, outfielder Monte Irvin, outfielder Oscar Charleston and catcher James “Biz” Mackey. This is a super-exciting group of players to feature in Storylines. Charleston has the potential to be a game-changer, as his numbers in NLB were nothing short of remarkable from 1920-27.
Like what Storylines did last year with Hank Aaron, Season 3 will feature content around a player already in the game. Irvin appears to have a Storyline at some point in MLB The Show 25’s life cycle. He has been a legend in the game for a while but never explored in this capacity. Irvin had a Hall of Fame career with the New York Giants, but before that, he played in the Negro Leagues for the Newark Eagles. Irvin slashed .305/.391/.492 through 280 games before beginning his MLB career.
MLB The Show 25 will launch with three Storylines available — Bell, Rogan and Stearnes. They staggered the release of this content in MLB The Show 24, too, which is a smart decision considering how much content is in the game at launch.
Also: Props to SDS and the MLB The Show community as a whole, as the two paired to donate $543,945 to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. The check was introduced in today’s content announcement.
Storylines legends will be 80 overall at launch.
An MLB The Show fan since 2013 and a Blue Jays fan his whole life, Jiggy loves all things baseball. He spends most of his time playing Diamond Dynasty and Franchise.