Trailblazing baseball team Chatham Coloured All-Stars added to MLB The Show 22

A popular baseball videogame is giving players the chance to step into the cleats of one of the sport’s most iconic teams.

The 1934 Chatham Coloured All Stars is recognized as the first all-Black team to win an Ontario Baseball Association title, enduring ridicule and attacks by some fans who felt people of their skin colour did not belong on the diamond.

But the historic team is returning to the field for the first time in about 90 years — virtually on MLB The Show 22 — following a collaboration between Major League Baseball (MLB), the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG), the Chatham-Kent Black Historical Society and game developers at San Diego Studios.

"It was quite remarkable ... seeing the reaction of people that just look so real, I was quite surprised," said Hall of Fame pitcher Fergie Jenkins Jr.

His father, Fergie Jenkins Sr., was an outfielder for the Chatham Coloured All Stars.

Screenshot of Fergie Jenkins Sr. in the video game MLB The Show 22. (Sanjay Maru/CTV News Windsor)The team is remembered for breaking barriers, facing off against predominantly all-white opposition. On multiple occasions, fans who disagreed with the Chatham Colour All-Stars' inclusion in the Ontario Baseball Association would spit or throw rocks at the players.

In a video released by the OLG announcing the team's inclusion in the video game, Chatham-Kent Black Historical Society president Dorothy Wright describes the All-Stars as a group of young men who wanted to show the world that baseball is "everybody's game."

"They may not have had the money or the houses or anything else. But they were our heroes," said Wright.

According to the OLG, the goal of adding the All-Stars to the game is to "keep the memory of the team alive."

"There were so many stories about my dad. Some of the players he played with were pretty famous back then, coming from Chatham, Dresden and a couple of other small towns," said Jenkins.

"For many of those players , their families still live in Chatham. I’m pretty sure they’d be quite surprised to see them in this game."

The instructions to add the 1934 Chatham Coloured All-Stars to MLB The Show 22 can be found here.

Screenshot of Fergie Jenkins Sr. and players on the Chatham Coloured All Stars team in the video game MLB The Show 22. (Courtesy OLG)