Quote:
Originally Posted by G1911
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.