SAN DIEGO — In a federal complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court, Marjorie Gehrig, granddaughter of Yankees legend Lou Gehrig, has sued San Diego Studio, the developer behind MLB The Show, alleging that the company defamed her late grandfather by releasing a Diamond Dynasty card that rated the Hall of Famer at a 33 overall — a figure the studio reportedly described in internal documents as “reflective of his on-field capabilities following diagnosis.”
The card, part of the game’s newly released “Iron Era” collection, depicts a gaunt, 1939-vintage Gehrig with a contact rating of 12, a power rating of 9, and a fielding attribute the game lists simply as “declining.” Despite being slotted into the marquee Diamond Dynasty mode, the card was assigned the game’s lowest cosmetic tier, “Iron” — a distinction that the lawsuit alleges turns the nickname “The Iron Horse” into “a calculated and grotesque insult.”
“My grandfather played 2,130 consecutive games. He gave a speech that made the entire country weep. And these people reduced the most courageous chapter of his life to a two-digit number you’d use to pad out a starter pack,” Gehrig said in a statement released through her attorney. “Thirty-three. They gave him a thirty-three.”
According to the 41-page filing, the card’s “perk” — a passive in-game ability normally reserved for clutch hitting or base-stealing — is labeled “Diminished Reflexes,” and triggers a special animation in which the avatar swings noticeably late before sitting down on the dugout bench. The complaint further alleges that when the card is selected, the game’s broadcast commentary remarks that the player “isn’t quite what he used to be.”
Reached for comment, a San Diego Studio spokesperson defended the rating as a matter of statistical integrity.
“We are deeply committed to historical accuracy, and our ratings algorithm does not make exceptions for sentiment,” the spokesperson said. “Mr. Gehrig’s 1939 season reflected a significant and well-documented decline in production. We stand by the data. We would also note that the card is, by collector standards, extremely rare, and we encourage fans to enjoy it as such.”
Pressed on whether the studio had considered the optics of assigning a numerical value to a man’s deterioration from a fatal neurological disease, the spokesperson reportedly paused before adding, “We are very proud of the level of detail in this year’s title.”
In an apparent effort to quell the backlash, the studio pushed out a patch Wednesday that left the 33 overall unchanged but added a commemorative “2,130 Consecutive Games” badge to the card’s lower corner — a gesture the lawsuit characterizes as “celebrating his iron-man streak on the same card that rates his durability a 14.” The patch notes thanked players for their “passion for the game’s heritage.”
Disability advocates have rallied behind the suit. A spokesperson for a leading ALS research foundation called the card “a master class in missing the point,” noting that the studio had managed to commemorate the very disease named after Gehrig while somehow making it about the strike zone.
The controversy has not been universally condemned, however. On competitive forums, a small but vocal contingent of MLB The Show players have reported that the 33-overall Gehrig has become weirdly coveted, after a stat-allocation glitch left his “Diminished Reflexes” perk inadvertently coded to slow down opposing pitchers’ delivery animations, making him, in the words of one ranked player, “unironically the best contact bat in the game right now.”
San Diego Studio has announced it will address the glitch in a future update. The 33 overall, the studio confirmed, will remain.