Negro League Baseball 4.0

NEGRO LEAGUE BASEBALL Version 4.0

By dennisjames71

 

About 12 years since the most recent version of this mod; I wanted to finally release a notable update to my mod.  Much of the reason for this update is because of the 2020 announcement that Negro League statistics were formally recognized by Major League Baseball and that career statistics for players (which were previously difficult to compile) were now being added to databases and websites such as BaseballReference.com.

 

https://www.mlb.com/news/negro-leagues-given-major-league-status-for-baseball-records-stats

 

Because of this I went through and recalculated at least 38 of the top/famous players in my mod using the BaseballReference site and of course DylanBradbury’s tremendous calculators.  For example, I was able to use Jackie Robinson’s 1945 season with the Monarchs and added his 1946 season with the Montreal Royals to calculate his ratings for the Negro League Mod.  I was pleasantly surprised that there were mostly only minor differences with the ratings I calculated 12-13 years using books and some rough databases for these players, and that a lot of that hard work in research was not in vain or totally “off”.

Another significant update in this version are the uniforms.  About 8 years ago bctrackboi11 (John) created some Negro League uniforms and sent them to me and allowed me to utilize in future mods.  I have used these uniforms sets which are a little more than half of the uniforms.  I have created (such as a 2nd set of Chicago American Giants uniforms) or re-created the other half of the uniforms for the mod.

 

Other changes will be listed in the changelog below and I did this to make available a little more refined version of this mod which was a huge passion project for me all those years ago.  I still love this mod and like many, many of the Total Classics mods; I still find the time play these on a regular basis.

 

I want to thank the sparkplugs of my update project; bctrackboi11 who sent me those wonderful uniforms and inspired me to re-do them all.  Also, in recent years Bob Kendrick’s wonderful “Black Diamonds” podcast which focuses on the History and Legacy of the Negro Leagues has been a constant inspiration.

 

Thank you all for checking this out,

-Dennis

 

The method for updating or installing this will be very simple.  The file you download will be a zipped (.7z) folder containing the all-important DATA folder.  Whether you have a previous version of the Negro League Baseball mod, a clean MVP Baseball 2005 install, or any other MVP Baseball mod; the instructions are the same:

 

1.     Delete the entire DATA folder in your installed game (this is where you are going to install this mod). (ex. C:\MvpBaseball2005\DATA)

2.     Extract/Unzip my file you downloaded into your main game directory. (ex. C:\MvpBaseball2005) This is your new DATA folder.

3.     Double-click the mvp2005.EXE to start the game.

 

 

 

[ORIGINAL SYNOPSIS 2011-2012]

Link to my Original Mod

NEGRO LEAGUE BASEBALL

By dennisjames71

After nearly a year of work…I wanted to finally present my All-Negro League Baseball Mod for MVP Baseball. After making my first negro league uniform last December, the effort snowballed into a full-fledged mod, thanks to all of the knowledge I’ve picked up and applied since then. At first I went at it for the purpose of making it for myself because of my love for the Negro Leagues; but I figured I would share my effort here so others may enjoy it as well.

So here’s what this thing is:

*A complete mod that transforms MVP Baseball into an 18-team (plus 2 EAST/WEST All-Star Teams) Negro League Mod. I’ve pulled some of the best all-time players from each franchise and through multiple eras, into a single team. Teams such as the New York Lincoln Giants will mostly have players from their best years in the 1910’s and early 1920’s for example.

*I’ve utilized the excellent Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues (John Holoway) and some Ootp All-Time Negro League spreadsheets to obtain the tough to find career statistics of many of the players. Statistics and Ratings for the better known players are more ‘polished’ than some of the lesser known players. Thanks to DylanBradbury’s superb batting/pitching calculators, I feel I was able to develop good but rough ratings for some lesser-known players who had very little information. I have portraits for the popular players and decided to use a generic negro league portrait for other players instead of the ‘blanked-out’ photos.

*Practically every single aspect of this game has been modded to get the user into a term me and redeck coined when we did our TC 1927 Integration series; historical immersion.

 

All music (walk-up & jukebox) is changed to very early blues and jazz songs.

Thanks to bctrackboi11; you’ll find “old” and worn baseball bats and a dirty, hard-to-see baseball.

African-American crowd in each of the 18 stadiums with celebrities like Joe Louis, Robert Johnson, and Duke Ellington making an appearance.

All fireworks visuals are removed. All fireworks and sirens sounds have been removed when a home run is hit. You will just hear the crowd roar.

All of the created uniforms are from the most popular eras of each franchise. Some teams (like the KC Monarchs) have 2 sets of home/road uniforms.

*I’ve modded/made 18 stadiums for the Negro League teams. They are typically modifications of the stock 1927 stadiums along with others. These are interpretations of well-appointed stadiums for the teams to play in and are by no means accurate; but they provide an excellent environment to play the games in.

*Much thanks to bctrackboi11 for his excellent and iconic 1942 KC Monarchs home uniforms and New York Cubans uniforms in which he gave permission to use. Credit goes to Thome25 for his late 40’s/early 50s New York Cubans uniforms which adds a nice touch as well. I had completed the remainder of the uniforms along with the brand new, original uniforms I made for the East and West all-star teams.

*I used many of the cyberfaces for popular players that me and redeck had in out TC 1927 Integration Mods. They were done predominantly by Homer and jogar84 and others. I apologize if I missed any of the other cyberface makers who allowed us to use them in our previous mods.

*I want to give thanks to my old partner redeck for being a motivator for making Negro League material when we worked on our mods in the past Winter/Spring. His painstaking work on those rosters enabled me to use many of the players and ratings into my full Negro League mod. Thank you bud.

*A ton of thanks goes out to OTBJoel for stadium and team audio. Back in the spring and before his epic Legends of the Booth mod; he was kind enough to provide his Legends to announce proper city/stadium names as well as team names for my mod personally. You will hear Ernie Harwell announce the game is between the “Homestead Grays versus the Kansas City Monarchs” for example.

*Unfortunately because I do not know player audio, there will be little of that throughout the game but perhaps if I am able to learn those skills, I can always update this project. Also since this was done prior to the Legends of the Booth release; this will have Kiper/Krukow play-by-play and commentary.

*Much thanks goes out to DylanBradbury who had created a tentative schedule that has a few kinks that we will iron out and it is included in the game. It is a 126-game schedule for Dynasty Play.

*Finally thank you Jim825 for keeping the flame burning of your excellent efforts of Total Classics Baseball. You have been an inspiration from Day 1 for me.

My mod is by no means the ‘end-all-be-all’ and definitive Negro League Mod but its accuracy and realistic values I feel are good enough for many of the Classic Baseball fans here at MVP Mods to enjoy and perhaps be inspired to create their own work or improve upon the foundation I have laid down, hopefully.

Lastly, this effort was done because of my enduring passion and respect for this group of men who played a wonderful style of baseball in the Negro Leagues. It was my nod of admiration and a way of creating a historical experience with these superb players and the game they played.

Feel free to try this out guys and I hope you enjoy the experience. It was well worth the effort to me.

-Dennis

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*** VERSION HISTORY ***

v4.0

• All uniforms updated/improved. (including East/West All-Star Teams)
• BaseballReference.com statistics used to update player ratings for 38 major players in the mod.
• Added Intro Video
• Updated at least a dozen player portraits
• All team logos redone
• Removed Walk-Up music (Beginning of game and between-inning music still intact)
• Some graphic refinements with the stadiums and other minor updates/improvements to the general roster

v3.0

• Fixed issue in Dynasty mode where the wrong teams are displayed in the team standings
• Restored file that removes fireworks and siren sounds after home runs are hit

v2.0

• Added player name audio to about 175 players
• Fixed some minor stadium issues

v1.0

• Initial release

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