Negro Leagues Recognized As Major
 

Big news.

https://theathletic.com/news/negro-l...b/Bn7XLfWXu7br

Put Perucho Cepeda and Francisco Coimbre in the HOF already.

Wow! Gonna be a statistician's dream (or nightmare, maybe). Will be interesting to see how this affects the Hall. Since they've already had two or three dedicated Negro League committees to consider and evaluate prospective nominees, I wonder? Might need to prepare my bank balance!??

Here's a great place to start:

http://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/index.php

Bryant Gumbel had a really cool segment on this recently. The guy that put this together did a lot of research.

Possible major shakeup of stats. Here's a paragraph from MLB.com:

Less clear at this stage, pending the discussions between MLB and Elias, is how rate statistics such as batting average or slugging percentage will be classified. For instance, Gibson (.365), Jud Wilson (.359), Charleston (.350) and Turkey Stearnes (.348) all had at least 3,000 career plate appearances and batting averages that would rank in the top 10 all-time, according to the Seamheads database. Their inclusion on that particular list would push the legendary likes of Ted Williams (.344) and Babe Ruth (.342) out of the top 10.

That will be a mess statswise.
My understanding has been that some of the competition was Major league, but some wasn't. I don't know what stats are counted and what aren't.

Are all the stats even known?

It's good to see the league get that recognition though.

There are a lot of missing stats. Not sure how anyone could quantify what is available. Should stats against lesser rated teams be considered as minor league stats and not considered? This is going to be a mess.

Regarding stat comparisons. We can't even come to agreement on the 'statistical correctness' for comparison of players among various eras within the same league. So I have no doubt they will be able to reconcile this to everyone's satisfaction when they do this between 2 different leagues. :rolleyes:

Should the Negro Leagues be considered a Major League? Most definitely. But comparing stats is a fool's errand.

I have several scorebooks that have games between Negro League teams and town teams, which were very competitive. Do we now need to include the town teams in the Major League record? I agree that many Negro Leaguers were capable of playing in the Majors but the vast majority were at the Minor League level at that time. I'm not sure how it should be handled but it sure muddies the water IMO.

Rob M

Is it April 1 already?

This is the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time. Again, appease, appease, appease. This time, I don't remember hearing of anyone fighting this non-battle.

We all know the impossibility of adding the woefully incomplete Negro (ahem, MAJOR) League stats to those of the much more comprehensive MLB.

A couple of things that sorely need pointing out:

Not every Negro Leaguer was of Major League caliber even if they had been welcome to play at the time. Anomalies like Gaedel and Faust aside, every single true major league player reached that level because a major league team felt they had enough talent to be there.

Let's not even get into the embarrassing lack of talent in the post-integration Negro Leagues. Are they Major Leaguers now, too?!

While we're at it, let's proclaim all those barnstorming games to be Major League! After all, the Sac City, Iowa Dry Cleaners are certainly of comparable talent to the traveling Satchel Paige All Stars. It will be incredible to see Satchel Paige with 10,000 career wins and second place Cy Young with a paltry 511. (Actually, Cy would be lower than second place!)

This is asinine. They need to leave it alone.

What's next......
 

The NBA presents The All-Time NBA Team:

Wilt Chamberlain

Michael Jordan

Meadowlark Lemon

Larry Bird

Curly Neal

I've also never heard anyone make the argument that it should be a Major League. If it was happening, it was on a very low level. The problem I have here is that MLB has so many issues with "Major League" recognition already for cases that seem cut and dry. Why do they not recognize American Association teams and at the same time recognize them? The league was a Major League but any team that played in it isn't the same team as it is now? For example, MLB swears that the Pirates came along in 1887 out of nowhere, ignoring everything else completely. Same for Cardinals and the Dodgers, but then they will say that the Reds have been around since 1869 when everyone here knows that today's Reds and the 1869 Reds are not a continuous team.

They pick and choose and no one really questioned if the AA was a Major League. They don't recognize the National Association, but some people do. Why not figure that one out first? Do things in order. Fix the stupid mistakes you make daily first, then go for new stuff like the Pacific Coast League and Negro Leagues. The PCL had players who preferred to stay on the west coast. It was not a Triple-A caliber league during ALL of those years. In fact, the Negro League news came today with the fact that they are just recognizing some of it. You do realize if they recognized all of it, there would be female MLB players right now?

Today's news came with the note that the Major Leagues were decided in 1968 and the Negro Leagues weren't even given consideration. So you're saying at the same time that this decision was right and wrong? Approximately 99% of the people commenting on it today have zero clue as to whether this is a good decision or not, and that includes the joke of a commissioner who changes things on a whim like the game hasn't been around longer than the teenagers he's trying to reach have been alive. Part of my rant here has nothing to do with MLB status of the Negro Leagues and more "What is Manfred going to do next without putting thought into it?"

Setting aside the politics of it gentlemen, I wonder how they are going to do it. Deciding which stats to include is going to be a nightmare operation.

This is very interesting. I am assuming that they are only talking about the Negro League “majors” and only considering league games. There is actually a pretty good statistical record for those games, especially when you get into the later 30’s and 40’s. What needs to be considered however is that while there are good records these seasons where pretty short. I doubt if Josh Gibson ever got more then 300 official league at bats in a season so it’s going to be pretty hard to do real comparisons.

The player this may have the biggest impact on us Minnie Minoso. He has always been stuck catch 22 for the Hall in so much as the voters were either supposed to look only at his NL stats or his MLB stats. If you combine both I don’t see how you keep him out of the hall

I think the major accomplishment here is that the players of the Negro Leagues will be included among players of Major League baseball, which hopefully means more attention paid to their careers re: the HOF. Otherwise there is only this special once in a while vote on any of their merits. If they are now considered among MLB maybe that means they can be voted on during any Veterans Committee vote.

If you take a look at the website that Fred mentioned above - http://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/index.php - you'll see that it has a pretty good database, and no, Satchel Paige doesn't have 1000 wins. But there is a drop-down on that site that lists all of the various leagues, and it's fairly easy to see which leagues should be included and which not.

Because of the shorter seasons, not many statistical lists will be affected - pretty much batting average, ERA and the like. Negro Leaguers didn't play enough games to challenge MLB numbers for career or season.

Isn't there some player who would be in the top 3 in alltime hits if the negro league stats count? Maybe it isn't hits but some other offensive category. I can't remember who it was.

Die to the short season of official league games I don’t think any accumulation stats will be effected. People forget that Paige often went 7-2 or 9-3 in league games for a year and Gibson would lead in homers with 12

Pops Lloyd May become one of the highest average seasons. I think he had a 450+ season in the early 20’s

What about a Negro League team that was called the Indians?

I'm for anything that tries to right the wrongs of segregation, but I don't see how you can compare a league in which only 10% of the population could play with one in which 90% of the population could play. Obviously, there were many Negro League players of Major League talent, but to try to equate and somehow merge the leagues as a whole defies logic. And there were no doubt some terrific NL teams that would have been competitive in the majors of their time, but I would guess that on average most NL teams would have been of some level of contemporaneous minor league quality. To try to cram them all into the history of the major leagues seems to me a fools errand.

I totally understand what they are doing with this move but the statistics are going to be an absolute nightmare!

In the end I think they can only really include those games played between top professional Negro League teams which will not account for too many cumulative stats. There were so many exhibition games played by these teams to generate revenue that can never be included in any way (playing local pro/semipro/college/exhibition games will never be included in any meaningful accumulation of lifetime stats)

I think where it could get interesting is things like lifetime BA, Lifetime ERA, etc because there are some pretty crazy high numbers by several of the players that could boot people like Babe Ruth off the list of lifetime BA, which could get a little weird. Jud Wilson has a lifetime avg around .366 and there are some other ungodly number put up in some years by players that seem off if the competition was as good as reported (or they were just that good?)

Recognizing people for playing at the highest level available to them isn't a fool's errand. To me this announcement is about recognition, not trying to compare stats. Or declare a new leader of any particular stat. Just the act of inclusion.

I agree. To bad MLB waited until every single player has passed

This seems like mere semantics if this is the case.

I don’t think anyone was discounting them for the last 20-30 years at the minimum so I guess if the point isn’t to change statistics then what are they actually accomplishing? The players in the Negro Leagues were already included in the HoF and I guess I just didn’t see many (if any) people really discounting what they had accomplished. No players from the PCL for example from the 1910-20’s are in the HoF for their exploits there so the players in Negro Leagues were certainly held in higher company than even the most major of minor leagues?

Again, I get the point of the announcement but is it a real thing or something to make us feel better about ourselves?

Here's ESPN's story about it:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...s-major-league

According to it, Josh Gibson would have the single-season batting average record at .441 in 1943.

Steve

Not that I saw. Check out that website. As far as lifetime averages, like batting average, ERA, etc., again, Negro Leaguers just didn't accumulate enough at bats or innings to qualify. You can't compare Ty Cobb, with 10,000 at bats and a .366 average to Josh Gibson, with 3500 at bats and a .365 average. MLB simply has to establish qualifying numbers to exclude some of the crazy averages. I really don't think the stats are going to be as much of an issue as some seem to.

Also, according to the ESPN article, MLB will only recognize stats from 1920-1948; so anything after that, such as Hank Aaron's Indianapolis Clowns stats, won't count.

Steve

I think you will see greater research into the stats and careers of the people who played. That is an accomplishment. Stats are not widely available because not many people thought they were worth keeping. The opposite is true of MLB, where serious attention to stats was placed. I would think recognizing the league grants legitimacy to it and it's stats and encourages further research and attention that extends beyond the hobbies of private individuals, which has so far been the origin of a lot of what we do know.

This was MLB's statement:

"All of us who love baseball have long known that the Negro Leagues produced many of the game's best players, innovations and triumphs against a backdrop of injustice," the statement read. "We are now grateful to count the players of the Negro Leagues where they belong: as Major Leaguers within the official historical record."

A BIG SHOUT-OUT to our own Graig Kreindler, whose magnificent work portraying Negro League players had to have had a guiding influence toward this decision.

Thank You Graig!

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So anyone who ever played in the Negro Leagues is now a Major League player? From a pool of 10% of the population? Inclusion is great, but inclusion lacking merit, which would be the case for a large percentage of these men, only diminishes everybody concerned. There's a reason the term "major league" has meaning, and by including players who didn't meet that standard, you've cheapened it, IMO.

In related earth-shattering news, congratulations to Toni Stone for becoming the first woman to cross the MLB gender line 67 years after the fact...

This is getting more laughable with each angle I consider.

Pretty definitive statement when discussing the merits of players who, if you will recall, weren't allowed to play in the major leagues because of their skin color. Why does recognizing their play at the highest level available to them diminish anyone? And how could recognizing a fact like that diminish anyone anymore than the decisions to deny them the chance to play?

I think they are using 1948 as the cut-off so Toni Stone wouldn’t be included in the “major league” statistics she played after that. Still was a pretty cool accomplishment.

In the spirit of this politically correct inclusivity, this is flawed. If they're doing this, there shouldn't be a cutoff date. Someone will make the argument that there were several post-1948 Negro Leaguers who would have undoubtedly been Major Leaguers if not for the fact that the teams weren't taking each and every worthy Negro League player and stocking their clubs. Surely, teams such as Boston and Detroit could have grabbed a few more, yet didn't...

(I certainly understand the logic behind the cutoff date, but they're putting their feet in their mouths by having one.)

Much of what we know today of Major League statistics and information was gathered by private individuals pursuing their hobby of gathering information and not by professionals. The statistical hobbyists are also responsible for clearing up a lot of misinformation in the record books.

All this being said I am 100% on board with more information being gathered for about the Negro Leagues, that can only be a good thing!!!

I agree. I think this is simply a starting point and based on how this shakes out they could broaden what is included down the road very easily.

Don’t agree with MLB on this one. This is the equivalent of adding Jim Kelley’s USFL passing yardage to his NFL stats or including Ichiros hits from the Japanese leagues to his MLB totals.

It doesn't matter to you that a large percentage--I wouldn't want to put a number on it, but undoubtedly well north of half--of these players never would have made the major leagues whatever their color? Segregation in America is a tragic part of our past, and racism a continuing stain, I just don't see how pretending that all the teams and players in the Negro Leagues during that period now deserve to be considered Major League caliber serves to do anything to ameliorate that awful history. I perceive the analogies to such "outlaw" leagues as the USFL, ABA, to be imperfect but useful. If somebody wanted to do with the Negro Leagues as a whole what the HOF has done with individual players and do the research to try to cull those who might have made the Major Leagues and then include them in a history of "big league" baseball, I wouldn't have any objection to that. But throwing every Negro League player, the majority of whom would never have made it given the opportunity, into the same pot as those who did, defies common sense to me.

Exactly what I've been saying (in other words) since my first comment.

The "Yay! Everyone's a winner!" mentality is the antithesis of athletic competition.

I prefer to play baseball by jumping on my pogo stick. I went to an open tryout with a big league club and was denied entry. Therefore, I should one day be inducted into the Hall of Fame? (Lots of sarcasm. Just trying to have some fun amidst this decision which, if applied to more important matters, may hold a dangerously troublesome outcome for the future.)

Another problem is guy's like Ken Burns think's every player in the Negro Leagues had enough talent to be in the major leagues.

Kind of like anyone who had one AB in the majors, sucked, and washed out. No difference at all, except that they didn't get the chance to get that one AB.

Does it really make that much of adifference? It’s really not going to mess up the stats and its giving recognition to a group of baseball players who were wrongfully denied their opportunity. Unless you really want to argue the slippery slope theory...

How difficult is it to learn from our past, recognize humanity's mistakes, and move on in a more progressive direction? This is not progressive; in a way, it's revisionist history.

Negro Leagues
 

I listened to an interview, today, on local radio (Kansas City) with Negro League Hall of Fame director Bob Kendrick. Of course, he was pretty excited about the inclusion of the Negro Leagues into MLB. He said that it had been in the works for about 2 years and that he had been involved in the discussions pretty extensively. He pointed out, as was mentioned earlier, that it will include only players from 1920-1948 and that only stats acquired through competition between true Negro League teams would be used. No barnstorming, exhibition, etc games will count.

I like the idea. There have been some real stinker teams throughout MLB history, but games against those teams still count. I imagine top level teams enjoyed playing these teams so as to pad the stats. Exp: Cincinnati Reds who regularly threw a starting rotation of minor leaguers a couple seasons ago.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Some NL players over the years said that Jackie was garbage when he played for the Monarchs. So, how is this going to work then? Will those NL stats get carried over? Won’t they hurt his overall numbers or am I failing to understand something here?

Wow. I'm 1,000% AGAINST this if, for no other reason, the fact that Negro League stats were not kept nearly as precisely as MLB stats. Also, as previously pointed out, Negro League teams didn't always play "major league" competition. Why would MLB decide that this was a good idea? Should we also make Ichiro the new MLB hit king, or Sadaharu Oh the new MLB HR king? This is ridiculous.

Best thing to happen in Baseball my entire life!

A number of points that are in response to many of the comments made.

There is extensive research on the caliber of play in the Negro Leagues, and generally it is assumed that the stars were roughly equivalent to the best in the Majors, while the leagues overall were in the range of AAA (or between AAA and the Majors). This is based on a wide range of factors including barnstorming tours, common opponents etc along with seeing how players who transitioned leagues like Jackie, Campanella,Doby and others did.

Note that there were a number of leagues historically that are considered Major Leagues. Along with the American League and National League, there was also the Union Association, the Players' League and the Federal League. And the range of talent in those leagues varied significantly. Certainly, in some cases, they were no better than AAA, which means that we currently have official leagues that were on par with the Negro Leagues and likely were worse.

The stats that will be included are only from 1920-1948 which was when the leagues were more structured and established, and before integration largely impacted the caliber of the teams and players. And it is only for league games.

There has been extensive research on Negro League games and box scores. There is definitely still uncertainly around stats, but we have uncertainty around stats from the 1800's as well and that never stopped us from including them. We've had adjustments to major stars. An adjustment to Ty Cobb's total (which is now reflected in Baseball-Reference) is in the article below.

https://sabr.org/journal/article/how...tting-average/

Regarding some comments about the push for this; while the average fan, who cares little about the Negro Leagues may not have heard anything about this, there has been a push for some time. I wasn't involved in the push, but think it is a good thing.

Stats accumulated against AAA level competition are not Major League stats.

I wonder what Ted Williams would've hit had he spent his career in Triple A leagues. Or any ML player for that matter.

According to baseball-reference.com, in Jackie Robinson's one year (1945) with the Kansas City Monarchs, he hit .414, with 24 hits in 58 at bats.

If you add those totals to his Dodgers stats (1,518 hits in 4,877 at bats, .311 average), his batting average will go up one point to .312.

Steve

Did you read my full post. There are leagues that are currently considered Major Leagues that were not on par with the American and National Leagues.

There were also eras in the American and National Leagues (like during WWII) where the caliber of player was significantly below "Major League" level. Unless you are arguing to remove some the 1800's leagues currently considered Major Leagues, and remove Hal Newhouser from the HOF (both his MVP awards and his 2 best seasons were against dimished WWII competition) then you aren't being consistent here.

Ted Williams and Babe Ruth no longer have top 10 batting averages. As a result, their cards will probably take around a 30% dive. I’ll help soften the blow. If anyone is interested, I’ll buy your cards at just a 25% discount. PM me. :D

You make valid points. As someone who is on the opposite side of this argument, I agree with nearly all of what you're saying here.

I would gladly see Hal Newhouser's HOF plaque relinquished, as well as removing some of the 19th century leagues (if it proves sensible after more continued study) if this latest decision was obliterated.

We all know how long it took Newhouser to be inducted. Frankly, it should never have happened. But then, from what you say, the superstars of the Negro Leagues were playing mostly against AAA caliber players. Should the same rules not apply to them? Who, then, was deserving of enshrinement and who wasn't? Imagine trying to apply logic and meagerly collected stats in an attempt to accurately award merit. Cobb, Ruth, Joe D., Gehrig and whoever else were not playing AAA players. In fact, guys like Ted Williams and Joe D. weren't really padding their stats playing against the diminished WWII players, either. It's all just a huge can of worms proving that everything should have been left as was.

The only thing that we can't do that much about is the diminished talent pool of the WWII-era MLB. It has to stand for the sake of continuity.

(Not that any of these things would ever happen, outside of perhaps the eventual exclusion of the 19th century leagues, but I'm doubtful of that as well.)

I don't have a big problem with that. Charleston, Paige, Gibson, Lloyd, Torriente, et al., were absolute studs. IMO, they were on par with their white counterparts. I dont think any cards will take a hit, nor do I think that NL cards go up much. There aren't enough of them to move the needle. This is not nearly the issue that some are making it out to be so far as I'm concerned. This should have happened years ago and it is to MLB's shame that it didn't.

Funny how many commentators think this decision is the greatest thing since sliced bread but never bothered to donate $78.32 to our Negro League Baseball Museum fundraiser challenge.

Fair enough. I can appreciate the perspective and consistency.

I'd argue though, that we need to take it further. After black players, despite being a tiny fraction of the overall players early on, they won the NL ROY in 1947, and every year in the 5 years from 1949-1953.

If we take the best players in baseball who played most of their career after WWII, there are at least as many elite black players as white players. Most top 10 lists include 5 players from after WWII: Musial and Williams are white, and Mays, Aaron and Bonds are black. Some lists add Mantle, which would make it even. As you go further down the list you have Frank Robinson, Joe Morgan, Ken Griffey Jr, Rickey Henderson, Bob Gibson, Roberto Clemente, Pedro Martinez, Roy Campanella etc.

If you don't believe that the Negro Leagues should be included, there's an argument that all of MLB before integration shouldn't either be. Since it is clear that at roughly 50% of the high of the greatest players likely were barred from playing.

Forgive me, but this only proves that the MLB clubs picked the freshest, best cream off the top of the Negro League milk bottle. That's neither fresh news nor relevant to the conversation, and purely coincidental that the award happened to be won by black players.


Sadly, that number can only ever be a guess. There will never be definitive proof of this; it can only be speculated. Also, does this not fly in the face of what you already wrote about the majority of Negro Leaguers only being of AAA caliber? Even with our better understanding and appreciation of overlooked Negro League stars who were finally inducted after so long, statistically, we're nowhere near 50%. Even after years of scrupulous study of (hopefully) rediscovered box scores, will Cooperstown be opening the floodgates to that many players to even come close to that figure? Highly doubtful.

Since Integration, we have 70 years where black players have been roughly half of the all-time greats. I can't say definitively that before that era the players would have been equally good, but it's reasonable to speculate. The elite talent has been sustained for 70 years since, and includes players that crossed over leagues (Jackie, Campanella, Aaron, Mays etc all played in the Negro Leagues.)

When you talk about picking the "cream of the crop" that's likely at least somewhat true. But in winning the ROY, these players were finishing on top of all the white players who were rookies (and subsequently the many MVP's won by Mays, Aaron, Frank Robinson, Campanella etc which means they were literally viewed as the best.)

Regarding my two comments, they are consistent. Research has shown that the elite of the Negro Leagues were on par with the elite in the Majors, but that the teams were overall thinner in talent.

Even if the number of stars missing from pre-integration was 30%-40% and not fully 50%, you are looking at the leagues missing large groups of the best players.

In my mind, if you don't count the Negro Leagues as a Major League because it didn't quite live up to the AL and NL (top to bottom), it's hard to compare stats from pre-integration with post-integration.

All that said, I know not everyone will agree (though I think most will disagree with less nuance than you have) and I appreciate the dialogue around this.

Then the NHL had better add WHA stats to the career totals of guys who played in both leagues. That would mean Mr. Hockey is again the all-time goal scoring leader I believe.

Jackie Robinson batted .384 in 26 league games for the KC Monarchs in 1945, his only year with them. Doesn’t sound like “garbage” to me.

In my estimation, there are at least 10 who deserve HOF consideration. Not saying that they should all be elected, but they should be looked at. I think that 5 would be no-brainers if they were white -- Lundy, Donaldson, Marcelle, Beckwith and Brewer. There are several more who should be looked at, including several who played before the cut-off date of 1920. I kind of get 1948, but 1920 is ridiculous IMO.

I think it's also pertinent to mention the huge upswing in Latin American talent that represents your post-integration demographic. It gives this discussion more points to consider. While there were certainly black Latinos playing in the Negro Leagues, it was statistically far from what's transpired in the integrated era. The great players of the last 30+ years with (at least some) African ancestry have more often than not been Latino.

And while there are a handful of black Latino HOFers from the Negro Leagues, there was never a Latino superstar who made it into pre-integration MLB.

That's a point I hadn't considered, but I'm not sure I agree for a couple of reasons.

1) All the players I mentioned were black except for Clemente, and I don't believe any were Latino. I didn't even mention Pujols, Arod etc.

2) There were many great players who because they couldn't play in the MLB, chose to play in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico. Players like Alejandro Oms, Pedro (Perucho) Cepeda etc. Had those players had the chance to play in the MLB, with the increased salaries and opportunities, many if not all would have taken that opportunity. (Some players were explicit about not playing in the US because of the color barrier)

Yes and I take stats from the 1800s with a grain of salt, also considering all of the rule and equipment changes over the past 120+ years.

The war years created a circumstance that was unavoidable. Yes, the level of play dipped during those years. Same with the first couple of years after expansion.

But this is different - it is a conscious decision to elevate stats garnered against (by your own admission) Triple A competition to Major League status, across several decades.

You may take the 1800's stats with a grain of salt, but they are included in the baseball record books. And some of those leagues were also roughly at AAA level (not comparing to modern day, just comparing to the other leagues of the time).

The reality is that we've accepted a range of levels as Major Leagues for a very long time. And the elite in the Negro Leagues were clearly as good as the best in the Majors. We have barnstorming games as evidence. And we have the incredible play of the black players who played in the Majors after integration. Jackie won the ROY in 47 and MVP in 49. He wasn't remotely the best player in the Negro Leagues. Campanella won 3 MVP's. But there's a good chance he was no Biz Mackey, and he certainly was no Josh Gibson.

The MLB was diminished in those years because they didn't have the great black players (if the track record since integration is an indication, it's likely 30%-50% of the biggest stars in the game. Arguably those stats shouldn't be counted either along the same line of reasoning.

I agree with this. Where we disagree is whether their stats, accumulated against AAA level competition, should be equated to ML players of that era, who accumulated stats versus ML competition.

I also wonder if the NL had talent watered down during the war years.

He is; WHA ROCKS!

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...Howe%20raw.jpg

This. But it doesn't go far enough.

Any imposed change to social norms is messy and devisive. Sometimes the reaction is dramatic, like Civil War dramatic. But usually people share their opinions and feelings for a while then simmer down while life proceeds. Both sides of this issue have been intelligently presented, but I predict time will smooth things out and we'll soon be talking about something else.

I like how they cut it off at 1948 and dont include up to 1953 because it would have given Aaron the HR record again

IMO, the was just recognition that the Negro Leagues were, at that time, the absolute highest level of play for ANY BLACK player & THAT is the very definition of a Major League.
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While the HOF is at it might want to include the women of baseball and include their stats and I don't mean that sarcastically. Include everyone

stats
 

I think it will make things more confusing

Exactly. How many for this would would also want to include the women??

I like it. Most of the criticisms I've read of it so far are based on assumptions that would be debunked by reading the original article or this one from MLB. I don't really buy the argument that imperfections in the tabulation of the stats are a good reason not to prefer some improvement over the status quo, and this particular method of synthesizing the Negro League stats with the extant MLB stats is certainly an improvement over the absolute segregation of the two.

This will become more than a straw man argument the day that a significant number of women are playing on modern-day MLB rosters.

Since they've been calling it the "World Series" since 1903, isn't it time they include the Japanese Major Leagues too?

Looks like Sadaharu Oh is the REAL all time HR king.

Maybe it's a good idea to load up on Randy Bass cards since they're pretty cheap for a guy who hit 55 HRs in a single season.

I can't be the only one who would like to see Ichiro ahead of Pete Rose.

So what you’re saying is that decades of research by some of the top baseball historians in the country should overrule the opinions of baseball card collectors? You don’t think Rob Manfred should have checked here first? But, but, but...[emoji2962]