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Posted By: warshawlaw

MLB has been well-defined since the NL and AL buried the hatchet. Prior to that time, yes, the majors were somewhat amorphously defined. The only rival "majors" were the Federal League teams and they were majors only because active MLB players jumped in droves to their teams. The proof of this is that no baseball historian treats PCL or other 1920's minor records as major league records. Otherwise, DiMaggio's 56-game streak would take a second place to his longer streak with the Seals, Ox Eckhardt and that guy from Milwaukee (whose name I forget--Joe Hauser?) would be in the HOF for their hitting feats, Lefty Grove would have close to 400 wins, etc. Like I said, I wish it were so--my favorite HOF "orphan" is Lefty O'Doul, who would be a shoe-in for the HOF if his PCL record could be added to his MLB record. And my Zeenuts would be worth a lot more.

And finally, yes, I would love to own the 1936 WWG Dimag, but it isn't his rookie because (drumroll please) it wasn't sold here. I'd say his rookies are the wide pen and fine pen premiums that were offered in the USA. I'd definitely say that the 1938 Goudey is not his rookie card, regardless of which of the others are "true" rookies. The 1947 Bond Robinson is one that I have often felt was a rookie card and should be treated as such. The reason it is not, however, is that it is a regional issue that was not available to the vast majority of the country.