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Julie...the 19th century is hottest of the hot--among us, admittedly. but then, there's not too much to go around!
However, as far as performance is concerned, you're dead right. One thing that contributes to the ignoring of pre-1900 records and accomplihments is everyone's knowledge that some of the rules were different then, some of the time, and a lot of the conditions of play were different, all of the time. And now--and on the whole I think this is a good thing--we are told that a player is to be judged in comparison with his peers in time, so the altered records for base stealing, hits, pitching, etc. have MOSTLY reverted to the way they were before people originally tried to level the playing field. All of this makes the average persuer of records throw up his hands in despair and say "Forget about it! It;s not worth the hassle, comparing the imcomparable!"
