CNN
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Major League Baseball has incorporated the statistics of former Negro Leagues players into its historical records on its website, meaning that legendary category leaders like Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb have now been replaced in the record books by players who were not authorized to play on the website. same fields as them during segregation.
Josh Gibson, one of the greatest sluggers in Negro Leagues history, is now listed as MLB’s new all-time career leader with a .372 batting average, edging out Ty Cobb with .367.
The MLB website shows that Gibson also surpasses Babe Ruth in career slugging percentage.
“We are proud that the official historical register now includes Negro League players. This initiative is intended to ensure that future generations of fans have access to the statistics and milestones of everyone who made the Negro Leagues possible,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement.
“Their accomplishments on the field will be a gateway to a broader knowledge of this triumph in American history and the path that led to Jackie Robinson’s Dodger debut in 1947.”
Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images
Josh Gibson returns home safely during the 1944 Negro Leagues East-West All-Star Game at Comiskey Park in Chicago.
Gibson was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.
“We’re thrilled,” Sean Gibson, the slugger’s great-grandson, told CNN. “It’s a long time coming. Not just for Josh Gibson, but for all the other great members of the Negro League family.
The powerhouse catcher’s Baseball Hall of Fame plaque — he is one of 35 Negro League stars enshrined in Cooperstown — says he “hit nearly 800 home runs in league and independent baseball” during his 17-year career.
However, the majority of these home runs occurred not in league-sanctioned games (around 50 to 75 per season) but in exhibitions played against former big leaguers and white semi-pro teams.
“It is indeed an exciting day. It took a while,” Negro Leagues Baseball Museum President Bob Kendrick said during a news conference Wednesday. “This is an absolute watershed moment in the history of black baseball and the Negro League.”
Kendrick continued, “You can’t reduce the history of the Negro Leagues to statistics. You simply can’t.
“This story is much bigger than just statistics. In many ways, this story is bigger than the game of baseball.
Kendrick also addressed baseball fans who might be upset about their favorite players dropping in certain rankings.
“It doesn’t diminish them,” Kendrick said. “It just provides names that maybe you should have known before and you have an opportunity to learn more about them.”
More than 2,300 Negro Leagues players from 1920 to 1948 have been added to the MLB database as more statistics are “still being discovered.”
Additionally, the MLB career statistics of Hall of Famers like Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige and Minnie Miñoso now reflect the accomplishments of their Negro Leagues.
For example, Robinson’s 49 hits with the Kansas City Monarchs in 1945 increased his career total from 1,518 to 1,567. Paige’s career win total increased from 28 to 125 and Miñoso’s 150 hits with the New York Cubans brought his career total above the 2,000 hit mark to 2,113.
This comes about three and a half years after MLB recognized the Negro Leagues as its equivalent and counted the statistics and records of thousands of black players who played in the Negro Leagues from 1920 to the late 1940s.
Although this recognition occurred in December 2020, MLB said at the time that it needed time to review how this recognition would affect MLB records. This was due in part to the fact that some statistics were still being compiled and because MLB had to sort league-sanctioned games from exhibition games.
“The Negro League’s shortened schedules, interspersed with revenue-generating exhibition games, grew out of MLB’s exclusionary practices,” said John Thorn, an MLB historian who chaired the Statistical Review Committee of the Negro League. Negro Leagues, in a press release. “To deny the best black players of the era their rightful place among the leaders of all time would be a double penalty. »
Baseball historian Larry Lester, who also served on the committee, added: “Stories, folklore and embellished truths have long been an essential part of the Negro Leagues narrative. These storylines will still be entertaining, but our dialogues can now be quantified and qualified to support the greater authenticity of these athletes.
“Every fan should welcome this statistical restitution with a view to social reparation.”
Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images
The Newark Eagles of the Negro League pose at home at Ruppert Stadium for a team portrait in 1939. Monte Irvin is in the back row, far left, and Mule Suttles is in the middle of the back row.
MLB said in 2020 that it was “correcting a long-standing oversight” by elevating the status of the Negro Leagues – which included seven leagues and approximately 3,400 Black and Latino players from 1920 to 1948.
“A lot of people have heard of Martin Dihigo, Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige. But what about the thousands of other men who played in the Negro Leagues from 1920 to 1948? They are finally being recognized as major-league caliber players,” Scott Simkus, one of the researchers credited by MLB with compiling and building the Seamheads Negro Leagues database, said at the time.
“Their statistics, their career will be considered equal to anyone who played in the National League or American League during that time.”
“It’s sad that this great history has been hidden from them,” Lester, co-founder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, said at the time.
Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, said the recognition “serves as historical validation for those who were shut out of the major leagues and had the foresight and courage to create their own league that helped change the game and our country. Also.”