LA JOLLA, Calif. – The NCAA canceled all championships on March 12. Major League Baseball is still on hold. For the average baseball fan, it’s been a difficult couple months to be without baseball on top of everything that is going on.

One game that has provided fans with the baseball fix they have been craving has been MLB the Show. UC San Diego baseball has a role in the success of the game thanks in part to its alumni that work on the game.

Kirby St. John graduated from UC San Diego in 2010 after a stellar four-year career on the baseball team as a Right-Handed Pitcher. St. John was searching for jobs after graduation and saw an opportunity to work with Sony on a sports game. Only later on in the interview process did he find out to his delight it was a baseball game. He accepted an internship, turned it into a fulltime job and has been there ever since. A year later, his former teammate Kyle Saul was searching for a job and St. John pointed him in the direction of Sony.

St. John is a Senior Game Designer on MLB the Show. His main focus is working with broadcasters, but he also works on other production elements that make it feel like someone is actually watching the game. He has had the opportunity to work with many talented broadcasters from the MLB Network, ESPN and Fox. Current talent includes Matt Vasgersian, Dan Plesac, Mark DeRosa and Heidi Watney and former talent includes Harold Reynolds, Steve Lyons and Eric Karros. Saul works as a producer and works with game play designers and engineers to make it as realistic as possible.

The two former Tritons' experience as former baseball players have been crucial to their current jobs. Another role the duo has taken on is motion capture “acting” for the game. This involves everything from pitching motions, batting stances and bat flips to secret handshakes and facial emotions.

“When I’m working with broadcasters and working on a play, the knowledge (of baseball) is huge,” said St. John. “A lot of it is talking baseball and agreeing what we want to say on a given situation. I’m fortunate on most days I’m thinking and talking about baseball.”

St. John played baseball at UC San Diego during a time when the Tritons were starting to establish themselves not just as a powerhouse in the West, but in the country as well. His freshman year was the first year UC San Diego played in the NCAA tournament in the Division II era. One of his fondest memories with the team was his junior year in 2009 when the team won the West Region for the first time in the Division II era in Oregon at Volcanoes Stadium.

“Anytime you win and clinch your way to the world series you don’t forget,” said St. John.

Fast-forward to senior year and St. John and his teammates found themselves in the National Championship game. A combination of talent, chemistry and the strong belief that their team could win the World Series helped get the 2010 team to the championship game. While that team did not win the World Series, it still ended up setting the precedent for teams to come. Even with the influx of talent that has come into the program over the last decade, 18 records from that 2010 season still stand today.

About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program begins a new era in 2020 as a member of the Big West Conference in NCAA Division I.  The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions III and II and helped guide more than 1,300 scholar-athletes to All-America honors.  A total of 82 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 37 have earned prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships.  UC San Diego student-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 91 percent, one of the highest rates among institutions at all divisions.