Every year, the announcement of who will be featured on the cover of the newest MLB The Show entry becomes a hot topic in January. The honor is typically reserved for baseball’s biggest names, whether that be legends of the game or the future breakout stars of the sport. In recent years, we’ve seen marquee players like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Shohei Ohtani gracing the cover of the game. With speculation naturally rising to a fever pitch as to who would be chosen to be the MLB The Show 25 cover star, the eventual reveal was a collage of sorts featuring up-and-comers Paul Skenes, Elly De La Cruz and Gunnar Henderson. But from one corner of the internet emerged news of a potential GOAT edition of MLB The Show 25 featuring a very unlikely cover star.
Michael Jordan? Really?
Well, not exactly. Even though a version of the game with MJ on the cover won’t actually be available to consumers, it’s still fun to see the White Sox and Bulls Instagram accounts imagine what such a product might look like.
There’s little doubt that Jordan has amassed the kind of resume that would put him squarely in the discussion of being the GOAT of basketball. We’ll leave the Lebron debate to the thousands of sports shows and podcasts in dire need of content and concede that he’s at least a leading candidate for the title. There are the thrilling YouTube highlights, the dizzying array of NBA championship rings and MVP trophies, and the popular documentary series The Last Dance detailing just how competitive Jordan could be and what could happen if it took things personally. He certainly belongs on the cover of an NBA 2K game. But what’s he even doing on a hypothetical version of an MLB The Show game?
There might still be some out there who would be surprised to learn that Michael Jordan also played baseball. Okay, so he wasn’t the kind of two-sport sensation that Bo Jackson or Deion Sanders were in their prime (see what I did there?) but he did at least give it an honest shot. For reasons that are still up for debate, Jordan stepped away from basketball while he was still at the peak of his powers in 1994 and tried to live his late father’s dream as a baseball player for a year within the Chicago White Sox organization. Was he any good? Not really. The records will show that he barely hit above .200 in almost 500 plate appearances while playing with the White Sox AA affiliate in Birmingham that 1994 season. But he did flash his superhuman speed by stealing 30 bases (though he was also caught stealing 18 times). Following the season, Jordan returned to the Bulls and the rest is history.
For a thorough account of his decision to temporarily pursue baseball and what it was really like for him to humble himself by trying something different, check out the 30 for 30 documentary Jordan Rides The Bus. You’ll find that the experience was quite a bit different than star-struck opposing catchers feeding him the pitches during an at-bat that was depicted in Space Jam.
If nothing else, the White Sox and Bulls IG post of a Michael Jordan MLB The Show 25 cover provided us with an opportunity to look back at a GOAT’s unorthodox decision to step away from the sport he was seemingly born to play while creating a unique footnote to his illustrious basketball career.
Published: Feb 4, 2025 04:54 pm