Quote:
Originally Posted by BobC
That may be, but he (nor any other Negro League player-managers) is not being counted in the 222 MLB player-manager's list I've mentioned. I understand that MLB baseball has recently decided to count Negro League stats as MLB stats in an attempt to try and make up in some way for the segregation that previously existed. However, despite those that feel that MLB, pre-integration, was actually playing in a watered-down league talent-wise because of the absence of black players, I look at the very low percentage of blacks playing in MLB still today, and feel that as such, the Negro Leagues were likely way more watered down than the pre-integration white major leagues were. And even though there were players with some obvious major league level talent playing in the Negro Leagues, I feel they may have benefited a lot more stat-wise from playing in what was possibly an overall much less talented league than their white counterparts. And as such, I'm not so sure that simply bringing across the Negro League stats that they cherry picked to count is fair and proper to the white players that have been pushed down or off all-time MLB stat and leaderboard lists.
Using that same logic, I'm sure there were Japanese/Asian players, as well as Cuban/Latin American players, back in the early days before baseball was integrated that had the talent to play in the majors, but didn't/couldn't for any number of reasons along with bias and possible discrimination. So why isn't major league baseball going back and cherry picking stats in those leagues to consider as comparable to major league baseball stats, and add them in as well, just like they did with Negro League stats??? Seems quite arbitrary to me that MLB decided to add the stats for only the one group/league.
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I think the fact that the Negro Leagues were in the United States and there is more continuity with players that played in both the Negro Leagues and MLB is a main reason to consider them as part of the MLB. Can't say that for leagues in Japan, etc.
As you point out, there were Asian and Latino players that were capable of playing in MLB but didn't have the opprtunity at the time. But that seems to bolster the argument that an all-white league was less talented than it would have been, and stats may been artificially inflated compared to what they would have been with more competition.
The relative lack of black MLB players today may be more a function of the relative popularity of other sports like football and basketball rather than a sign that Negro League players would not have performed well in the MLB