Who is getting paid for the rights to use those names?

The NLBPA licenses players' likenesses from the Negro Leagues.

Licensing revenues are directed to the NLBPA foundation to support former players and their families, as well as NLBPA operations

not the exact 8 I'd have chosen, but who cares - close enough.

I recall that when - holy crap, it's 20 years ago this year - we were batting around the idea of a Hall of Merit here at BBTF.

a couple of potential participants flinched at the idea of trying to rank a Negro Leagues player against an NL/AL one.

now, this was not even slightly racist. this was just stat-minded people who - especially given the even more primitive stats available for so many players at that time - weren't eager to be so, well, speculative.

iirc, a few of us noted that these wonderful players already got screwed in their own time in a disgraceful way - so did we really want to perpetuate those misdeeds? and so we speculated. and it was good. not perfect, but good.

Fellas, Welcome to The Show ! (finally)

Josh Gibson is conspicuous by his absence. I think he'd be very high on the list if you asked people to name a Negro League star. I can't watch the video in my office so maybe they addressed it but maybe they are holding back him (and guys like Charleston, Bell) to give a bit more weight to future editions as well as highlighting some lesser known players.

Man I'd have LOVED something like this when I was a kid. A MicroLeague or APBA season with Negro League players would have been excellent.

A MicroLeague or APBA season with Negro League players would have been excellent.

Even though I grew up in Pittsburgh, I first really learned about Josh Gibson through his Cadaco All-Star card when I was probably 7 or 8. I think there were some other Negro League players in the set that came with the gme.

Josh Gibson is conspicuous by his absence.

Yes. Both Gibson and Charleston are surprising omissions, to say the least.

I can't watch the video in my office so maybe they addressed it but maybe they are holding back him (and guys like Charleston, Bell) to give a bit more weight to future editions as well as highlighting some lesser known players.

Given that it's listed as 'Season One', this is almost certainly the case, although in an ideal world I guess they would roll out updates, paid or otherwise, without having to wait for next year's edition. Might be one way to keep interest in the current edition of the game during the offseason.

Yes. Both Gibson and Charleston are surprising omissions, to say the least.

Joe Williams, John Henry Lloyd, Bullet Rogan.

Once again Jackie makes it to the show while Josh sits on the sidelines.

Only 4 of the 8 are even in the Hall of Merit - Paige, Robinson, Foster, and Dihigo.

O'Neil obviously is a great choice when you combine all aspects of his baseball life (which HOM voters don't do).

Jumping in late, but as an MLB The Show veteran, the phrasing of the announcement makes it all but certain to me that there will be another batch, maybe more...I'd guess June and August. 'Seasons' is a word they use in a few different ways to designate game modes. For example last year there were nine 'ranked seasons' for competitive online multiplayer.

For anyone interested, the developers led off their previews of this year's edition with a 1-hour discussion on the Negro Leagues feature, available at YouTube now.

The word seems to be that this will be 5 seasons, one per annual edition of MLB The Show. If they hold to it, that's quite a commitment for a brand that tends not to say much about each edition of the game until a couple of months before it comes out. But it also means only the eight named players are likely to be featured in '23, so hopefully they're diving deeper into the story of the players involved than just some linked challenge gameplay, text summaries, and a couple of promotional videos to set it up.

The video has hardly any gameplay, but there are a few nice anecdotes, details of some new ballparks to fit the mode, and I was informed about some players I hadn't heard of before. Plus, it was nice to see Ramone Russell - who's been the face of the development team for a few years now - get quite emotional as they wrapped up the discussion about having the opportunity to work on the feature.

Thanks for that video, the ballparks look pretty sweet. I'm pretty excited about this. I actually just took my oldest son to the museum, so the timing is great.