+1

As the postcard below states, this organized, and well resourced team, was looking to play local teams across the country. I don't know how all the stats were vetted but it seems to me these almost-professional teams outclassed the teams they played. I am not sure if these are types of teams included in statistics though.

Cool postcard!

Only games between teams of the 7 Major League Negro teams are included in the stats. Hence, Josh Gibson only has 166 Home Runs.

I wish more people would learn more about what the MLB and Baseball Reference/SABR are actually doing.

That's right. No need to wonder how or why they included the stats they did. It is all explained so that we can all share in the information available.

My only small issue with SABR is Peter Nash. How can an organization have such ties to a known hobby fraudster and criminal?

Other than that, I think SABR is a great organization.
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I rest my case. That's ridiculous.

I don't think they received much publicity, but I'm glad I held on to this signed baseball by all 3.

It feels difficult to believe this decision was made on statistical grounds and not because every organization and company was eager to show their support for a political and protest movement in 2020 when this decision was made. Sometimes you come to the right answer anyways, but I am always highly dubious of decisions made to show support for whatever the cause of the moment is. I am also always highly dubious of revisionist history that seems to have more to do with a current desired view than history.

It's even worse than 60 games. The slugging percentage 'record' is now achieved in 183 plate appearances in 39 games. These 39 games are not even a complete record, just the box scores they were able to find. Now I have no doubt that Josh Gibson was a truly great ballplayer, and he should absolutely be held up as one of the greatest players of all time, but pretending he had the best slugging season in MLB history is..., well, highly dubious at best.

History is often uncomfortable. Revising it to suit modern sensitivity does not do anyone a service. There was no perception that these leagues were major leagues at all in that time - the entire reason they existed is because they were not the major leagues and the majors had ridiculous and racist rules preventing deserving black players from playing. I love the Negro League Museum, their plaques in Cooperstown (19th century white ball and the negro leagues are where I want to see more inductions), the great work that has been done documenting them, and efforts by MLB to remember, record their history, and honor them. But pretending X is Y because that makes people more comfortable now is silly.

Amazing people are capable of rational thought and debate when discussing their opinion. There might be hope for this world after all

🍿

I completely agree with this. And it isn't just baseball, or black, or white, or zebra stripes. It's prevalent everywhere. If you aren't happy with historical fact, just make it go away, or revise it to fit your desires.

What do you guys make of early baseball stats then? Cap Anson is credited with 3,435 hits in the MLB. But more than 400 of those hits came in the National Association. While playing against National Association teams, Anson would have been competing against teams that didn't even finish the season in some cases.

Are those credible stats?

How about some cards....
 

these guys do deserve respect for sure (as do their cards)....

So many arguments questioning the talent of the negro leagues when the white Major League record holders never faced a seasons worth of pitching from Josh Donaldson, Satchel Paige, Bill Foster, etc....

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This
 

Totally agree....

That's why the stats should be separate.

Then all time leaders should only be 1947 onwards

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Perhaps there should be a minimum plate appearances total for the single year rate records, rather than just a minimum of 3.1 Plate Appearances per team game played. But I for one will not lose any sleep about Josh Gibson now being listed as the single season slugging leader instead of Barry Bonds. Nor does it particularly bother me that Hugh Duffy's 1897 batting average of .4397 is no longer considered the highest single season batting average.

Is Peter Nash particularly influential at SABR? I don't know much about him.

https://sabr.org/authors/peter-nash/

The National Association was the #1 highest quality of play professional league in the world at the time. I can't see why this wouldn't be the majors at the time.

I don't think anyone is arguing losing sleep. My argument is that this doesn't really make sense as a math decision. Whether that is good or bad up to the individual.

Is it normal for major league baseball teams to shut down mid-season? I make the point only to demonstrate that if your opinion is that Negro League players weren't facing top competition, there are plenty of precedents in what is considered MLB for dubious competition as well.

Really I just think if you're going to suggest Negro League players paled in comparison to MLB players, there's really no basis for that opinion and you can't hold that opinion without recognizing that any player in MLB before 1947 could have potentially been out of baseball if black players were able to compete for their spot.

Fair enough. Out of curiosity, what would you have the minimum plater appearances (or whatever metric) for single season hitting rate statistics be?

I think you need to go back and read what I actually wrote.

I wasn't talking to you. I was making a general point. Then I responded to a post of mine you quoted.

Duplicate post.

1, it should be a documented full season before we get to the games/ab/pa. Rate stats on a partial sample is interesting factoid but it’s not really valid. 2, it should be in the same general realm as the other leagues if it’s time. Football is what, 12-16, that’s fine for them because that’s what everyone was/is playing. It’s hard to compare 39 to 154 when that was the standard. It is not even remotely close, which is the issue. The difficulties of travel in the 19th century reduced their schedules too but even then it was a lot more than 39 games, and the different leagues played similar seasons of length for the most part.

You quoted me and used “you”. That would seem like you are talking to me, but alright.

I quoted your post about the NA in response to what I wrote.

I was using the royal you to discuss general opinions made in the thread.

+1

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Fair enough. I can see how the fact that the stats are incomplete is problematic. Hopefully, they continue to find more box scores, etc. to make the statistics closer to what actually occurred.

Lots of valid points on both sides. I find it interesting in how I personally view this argument based on my collecting and reading habits. In 2020 (when this was first discussed), I was mainly collecting Ty Cobb and Walter Johnson. I had read a ton of biographies on pre integrated MLB HOFs. I thought the idea of merging records was silly and should not happen. Today, my main focus is still Walter Johnson but also Negro League players. My last several biographies have been from Negro League players. I now am for integrating the records. I am not sure if my change in thoughts is based on my love of the Negro Leagues or my current collecting/reading habits or something else. Nothing ground breaking here or am I trying to say my view is more valid than anyone else's, just some random thoughts. I do enjoy the discussion.

Chad Paskiewicz

This is true. However, MLB and Baseball Reference also recognize the Union Association from 1884 and have been since 1969 when they also started recognizing the American Association, 1882–91; the Players’ League, 1890; and the Federal League, 1914–15
https://www.mlb.com/press-release/pr...14%E2%80%9315.

I think the recognition of some of these other Leagues (especially the Union Association) as Major Leagues is one reason why some people think the recognition of the best Negro Leagues is overdue.

Yikes! Imagine owning this viewpoint in 2024... Oof

I really enjoy all the discussions and points of view. Pictures do enhance the discussion, so here is my Negro League autographed bat, and yes, some Hall of Fame players on it including the "Say Hey Kid" as he noted. We should all be celebrating as this news about recognizing the Negro Leagues simply enhances and expands the hobby base. Yes, many are disappointed for a thousand different reasons and just as many are happy. I do think this - the accomplishments of any player in the Negro Leagues does not diminish the accomplishments of others.

It could have been worse, no? He could have suggested that we have two MLB Hall of Fames, one for the whites and one for the blacks and have their stats separated too.

Satchel Paige was inducted into the HOF in 1971. He played 5 seasons in the American League and pitched in one game in 1965.

He would not be eligible for the MLB HOF under the 10 season rule, but was elected anyway. MLB has been recognizing the significance of the Negro League and it's players since. Keeping the MLB and the Negro Leagues separate hasn't existed since then either. It would be impossible for Paige to get into the MLB HOF if that was the attitude.

I've mentioned this before, but it's probably worth noting here that I'm a statistician, since we're having a discussion about statistics. What I find most ironic about this conversation is that seemingly everyone wanting to overlook or downplay the accomplishments of the negro league players are somehow also operating under the assumption/delusion that the early MLB stars were playing in leagues that were every bit as competitive as the game is today or even during the golden era.

I've got news for you. If Josh Gibson's stats (or any other NL player's) shouldn't count because the overall skill level was lower, then Ty Cobb's stats shouldn't count either. If you think Ty Cobb would have put up numbers even remotely similar in the post war era, you're delusional.

That said, from a statistical theory viewpoint, there are very good reasons that minimum plate appearance rules are in place. Baseball statistics are extremely volatile and take a very long time to converge to represent a player's true skill level. So much so that most years in the MLB the player who wins the batting title usually wasn't the best hitter that season but rather was the luckiest of the 10 or so best hitters. Even a full season with 600 AB still has a significant amount of luck involved. And if you were to take 185 plate appearance samples from every player throughout history, you'd see some remarkable stats. Probably even multiple players hitting over 0.500 in those spans.

But if we're going to include deadball era stats with modern stats, then it's hard to argue that we shouldn't include NL stats as well. Everyone knows the games and circumstances were different. We don't place an asterisk next to Ty Cobb's name. Why place one next to Gibson's? People aren't stupid. They know Gibson wouldn't hit 0.450+ in today's game. And they also know Cobb wouldn't hit 0.400 either. But that doesn't take away from what they did. They all deserve their flowers. At least now they have a vase to put them in.

Lotta opinions in here but I'll post a fact this thread has proven

Speaker and Hornsby are undervalued

I don't see how anyone can doubt that the Negro Leagues was top baseball, or that the big stars would have been big stars in the major leagues. Was the quality of ball at a big league level, or AAA, AA, A, etc.? We'll never know. One factor to consider is that whites made up 90% of the population then, so they had a much bigger cohort to draw from. Same with 19th century ball, Latin American ball, Japanese ball, etc. So why don't we just have the separate records that were actually set for each of them and concede that some of their players would have been setting records in the majors had they been playing there instead. I just don't see trying to shoehorn them in together in a combined record books--Cooperstown and other honors, sure--as a productive exercise. Let's look at what they actually did in their own leagues and find amazement and inspiration in that.

I think people tend to group all of these into a bucket, and it's not proper. The National Association was, I think, quite deserving as a major league. It is the first real major league. The Players' League, though it lasted one year, also brought in a ton of the top talent and seems to me to have been and thought of as what constitutes a major league. The others I am either less informed on or doubtful of. The NA, the Players League, and even the Federal League certainly thought of themselves as major leagues. I think if we want to revise, taking a closer look at three of these and reconsidering might be a good place to start.

They were high end, played similar schedules, and don't have the historical contradiction. The Negro Leagues were not leagues even attempting to compete as major leagues - they existed entirely because the Major Leagues had a terrible policy. Their entire existence was predicated on the fact that they were not major leagues and nobody really thought that they were; their quintessential purpose was that they were not major leagues - which is why they fell apart so fast when the real majors finally adopted a meritocracy. Many Negro League players were obviously very high end, I have no doubt Josh Gibson would have been truly great in the real majors too and it is a historical tragedy he was not allowed too. That tragedy shouldn't be glossed over by rewriting it to pretend the negro leagues were the major leagues too.

I think it rather obvious he would not likely have posted these 'records' though. Time and place is everything, we know Radbourn couldn't win 60 today and Bonds wouldn't bash 73 in 1901, but pretending 39 games of Gibson is a record season seems to be a whole new issue of revisionism rather than the ebb and flow of history.

But Negro Leaguers were trying to compete against Major Leaguers and sought out the competition with their white counterparts. And when they were granted such competition, they performed very well. Josh Gibson desperately wanted to show that he could dominate the white MLB and was crushed that he never got the chance to do so. I don't think it is accurate to say that they "weren't even attempting to compete as major leagues". They did everything in their power to do so.

In any event, the addition of the Negro Leagues to the MLB statistical record was announced long ago, has already happened, and Net54 doesn't have any say in it. You can continue griping about it, but its done. I for one am glad I can see stats of the Negro Leaguers in a convenient way, even if they are incomplete.

No one is disputing that many of them were great players, or that it has happened. If you want to object to discussion about things... I mean, this is a forum :rolleyes:

I am objecting to you saying the Negro Leagues "weren't even attempting to compete as major leagues." This is a forum that is acting like this is the first time they heard about this and many seem outraged.

I’m slightly in favor of the decision but understand the other side of it. To me, Bonds rendered all time records a bit less interesting and meaningful anyway.

I think I missed the outrage part? Seems like people gave reasonable ideas for and against. I already wrote this was done in 2020.

Here is you objecting to discussion:

That a thing happened is not in dispute. People will express opinions for or against the topic at hand on a forum. We don't have to agree with everything that happens outside of our power.



I have a very hard time seeing as how the Negro Leagues were thought of or acted as major leagues in that time. You seem to be choosing to recast what I actually said as a criticism that they could not compete with whites. I have very specifically stated the opposite multiple times. I have said nothing but praise for Gibson.


Here's what I actually said.

Look no further than:

Now add Ty Cobb to the list (maybe even Ruth in another decade).
I’m really mad that Aaron didn’t retake being the all-time HR in this “pick and choose box scores” approach. Aaron is still 2 dingers shy.

Mlb.com still shows Aaron with 755 home runs. Aaron played for the Indianapolis Clowns in 1952, but the stats being included are only up through 1948 so his home run total won't be changing.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/sport...s/73892841007/

I believe many of the games were played in existing parks. The Yankees made a good chunk of change fitting in these teams.

Was it possible to have 150+ game seasons? They were paid well below market prices so they had to barnstorm to keep living standards.

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And a card.
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Honestly, the bigger issue to me is the decreasing number of Black players in MLB and the minor leagues.