Negro League Stats included in official MLB records

[Republicaninmass]

Originally Posted by Deertick

Interesting, since Zimbabwe didn't exist as a country until 1980.

Any reason you chose Zimbabwe specifically as an example instead of any North American, South American, European, Australian, or Asian countries?

Quoting this as reference to the low level, gaslightimg, virtue signaling, scumbag piece of $hit you are.

[rjackson44]

I dnjoy reading about this subject so im happy this is happening

[insidethewrapper]

I thought it was called MLB Stats. The Negro Leagues may have been better, the same or below the Major Leagues during 1920-1948 but it should not be included in the MLB Stats since they were not. It should be as it is, The Negro Stats from 1920-1948 showing the greatest players from those leagues during that time ( best average, single single season,career etc. I think putting them together just doesn't seem right to me.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by insidethewrapper

I thought it was called MLB Stats. The Negro Leagues may have been better, the same or below the Major Leagues during 1920-1948 but it should not be included in the MLB Stats since they were not. It should be as it is, The Negro Stats from 1920-1948 showing the greatest players from those leagues during that time ( best average, single single season,career etc. I think putting them together just doesn't seem right to me.

The MLB is considered the AL/NL after they joined up.

All others (7 major negro leagues, American Association, Players League, etc) are considered major leagues, but not MLB. Yeah, its somewhat convoluted.

[JollyRoger]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I am all for it. This makes my little league stats one step away from being included now.

Yes! It's time to stop ageism!
While they're at it, why not add the AAGPBL stats to the MLB record books as well?

[Yoda]

Originally Posted by JollyRoger

Yes! It's time to stop ageism!
While they're at it, why not add the AAGPBL stats to the MLB record books as well?

And the Stats from the baseball leagues in Guam and American Samoa.

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by Yoda

And the Stats from the baseball leagues in Guam and American Samoa.

Don't forget Japan. Why isn't Oh in the HOF??

[Fred]

I'm so sick of "woke", "cancelled" , and PC crap.

The past is the past and nothings going to change it. But lets put some lipstick on this pig and see what we have.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by GaryPassamonte

However, elevating the NA to major league would make an undeniable case for a player like Barnes. He would become the only player to hit .400 in four seasons and would be the winner of three batting titles. Those are pretty good credentials. Also, since Gibson is now the career batting average leader with less than 3000 ABs, wouldn't Barnes career .360 average be considered with a similar amount of ABs? I have another thought. Since there is a ten year rule, are black players whose careers began after 1920 (NLs first season), now ineligible for HOF consideration if they don't play ten seasons? The pioneer route would their only option, right? That's the same requirement for 19th century pioneers with less than ten major league seasons. Doing anything else would be inconsistent. I think MLB has opened up a can of worms on this point. The sad thing is that not enough people care about the early history of baseball to force action by the HOF and MLB.

Eligibility based on number of years played is certainly a bit confusing.
You have a bunch of guys who played in the Negro Leagues that do not have 10 years of major league experience. Martin Dihigo has 9 years, Jose Mendez has 7, and Louis Santop has only 4. I guess the idea is that in addition to their major league Negro League experience, they also have non-major league Negro League experience.

Still, it would be nice for Ross Barnes to be recognized for his popularization of the sport, but you are right, there may not be enough interest in the guys who played for the National Association in the 1870s.

[GaryPassamonte]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

Eligibility based on number of years played is certainly a bit confusing.
You have a bunch of guys who played in the Negro Leagues that do not have 10 years of major league experience. Martin Dihigo has 9 years, Jose Mendez has 7, and Louis Santop has only 4. I guess the idea is that in addition to their major league Negro League experience, they also have non-major league Negro League experience.

Still, it would be nice for Ross Barnes to be recognized for his popularization of the sport, but you are right, there may not be enough interest in the guys who played for the National Association in the 1870s.

But how come the same standards are not used for 19th century century players whose careers started before 1871/1876? Almost all played in the highest levels of baseball prior to open professionalism. The HOF exists or should exist to show the history of the game and honors ALL eras of that history. In fact, the HOF has the audacity to refer to pioneer players as "executives" on their own site, apparently not daring to call them pioneers for some unknown reason. George Wright is an executive. Yeah, right.

I just checked the HOF's site. There are forty executive/pioneers. Thirty-three were actually executives. Only seven were players, at least for part of their baseball careers. The list, with induction year: George Wright (1937), Candy Cummings (1939), Harry Wright (1953), Rube Foster (1981), Frank Grant (2006), Sol White (2006), Bud Fowler (2022). Probably, only George Wright, Candy Cummings, Frank Grant, and Bud Fowler were inducted as players.
Is it reasonable that only two white "pioneer" players have been elected to HOF in its history and these elections took place 85 and 87 years ago?
I'm all in favor of fairness, equity, or whatever else people want to call it today, but, as I've already said here, 19th century baseball players are the most underrepresented group in the HOF and it is a black eye on the HOF.

[Deertick]

Originally Posted by Republicaninmass

Quoting this as reference to the low level, gaslightimg, virtue signaling, scumbag piece of $hit you are.

A) I'm not sure you understand what gaslighting is, and
B) Honestly ask yourself why you chose that specific country as an example when composing your 'hot take'. It may help you grow as a human being.

[Misunderestimated]

I'm in favor of including the Negro League numbers.

Some stray thoughts about these numbers:
The stats that people have trouble with are (from my reading) all rate statistics -- high averages and percentages -- not counting stats. My sense is that Negro League's best players would have been as good/better than their AL/NL counterparts. This is what the anecdotal evidence says and it's supported by the level of excellence of the first waves of integrated players who include many of the greatest national Leaguers ever (Aaron, Mays, et al)

I'm not as sure if the Negro leagues as a whole -- I mean the hypothetical replacement players too -- were on par with the AL and NL at the same time. This may help account for the staggeringly high rate stats that the Negro League's best players (almost all hitters by the way) put up.

The Negro Leagues as a whole were definitely superior to the lesser leagues in the 19th Century and probably the Federal League in 1914-15. The Union Association of 1884 was far worse that any league and it's considered a major league... Look at how good that league made Fred Dunlap look. (BTW the National Association circa 1871-75 belongs as a major league unless we are going to bounce the UA and maybe a few years of he American Association when it was at its weakest)

I don't think the incompleteness of Negro Leagues data should exclude them from major league status. it is interesting that the numbers may be moving over the next few years -- e.g. Josh Gibson's BA could go up or down.

Many of the record-breaking seasons were during a particularly weird time in baseball history --> the WWII era when many American males (of all colors) were fighting the war. It stands to reason that this more limited pool of players would make ir easier for the best to stand out even more. Think of this: what would Ted Williams have hit if he had gotten to feast on the AL pitching in 1943-45 ? He hit .406 in 1941 -- I'm guessing he gets to .420 with a lot of BB if he plays those years although Hal Newhouser was pretty awesome in 1945-46. Of course, Josh Gibson may have been suffering from a brain tumor in the 1940's and he still put up those numbers.

--

Finally, the impact and import of baseball stats as an arbiter of greatness suffered a body blow during the PED era that it hasn't recovered from... Since Bonds, McGwire, and Clemens (and company) stats lost their allure to many people. This says nothing about the Negro Leaguers -- they weren't juicing. But it does make all of this less meaningful than it would have been if this decision had been made in 1997. Maybe it should have been made then, although I don't know how much data was available back then.

[Casey2296]

"There is a certain justice in Ty Cobb's .366 BA record being broken by a Negro Leaguer. While Cobb was not been as bad at the end of his life he had a history of racism during his playing years."

Other than Al Stumps debunked sensationalistic biography, can you give me some examples of Cobbs racism?

100% agree that after Bonds, stats really lost their significance.

[Tomi]

Buck O'Neil said Cobb used to barnstorm in Cuba with Cuban and Negro League players. Not something a racist would do.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=l7zYopq-...y0Lty8Qreg6yhf

[G1911]

Interesting brief counterargument: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...s-not-a-racist. There have been some good book length treatments with full citations in recent years that are much fairer biographies.

I'm not sure if people just repeat the Stump lies out of habit, or if people just really need some targets for their contemporary narratives and do not care whatsoever about evidence.

Trying to shovel contemporary narrative into the past and then vilifying the past for not being the present is a stupid game to play at all, but it's extra stupid when the chosen target was actually much more aligned with the contemporary narrative than the one of their own time and place.

[Misunderestimated]

The Stump (and Alexander and Tommy Lee Jones) versions of Cobb are unfair. The revisionist account by Leerhsen paints a fairer and far more flattering picture of the man. (Perhaps it "overcorrects?") By the end of his life Cobb was positively progressive on race. But my understanding is that his fury as a young man (a very very southern young man in the early 20th century who lived and worked in the north) often had a racial edge.... The incident with the handicapped heckler comes to mind. I can't think of anything else off-hand though -- maybe I'm remembering things from the Alexander bio although I read the Leershen book more recently.
Perhaps I'm overstepping in calling the young Cobb racist... I'll retract that.

[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by G1911

Interesting brief counterargument: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...s-not-a-racist. There have been some good book length treatments with full citations in recent years that are much fairer biographies.

I'm not sure if people just repeat the Stump lies out of habit, or if people just really need some targets for their contemporary narratives and do not care whatsoever about evidence.

Trying to shovel contemporary narrative into the past and then vilifying the past for not being the present is a stupid game to play at all, but it's extra stupid when the chosen target was actually much more aligned with the contemporary narrative than the one of their own time and place.

I rarely see mention of a man like Frank "Home Run" Baker who prevented the lynching of a black man accused of assaulting his sister in law in 1924.

[Deertick]

Originally Posted by Misunderestimated

I'm in favor of including the Negro League numbers.

Some stray thoughts about these numbers:
The stats that people have trouble with are (from my reading) all rate statistics -- high averages and percentages -- not counting stats. My sense is that Negro League's best players would have been as good/better than their AL/NL counterparts. This is what the anecdotal evidence says and it's supported by the level of excellence of the first waves of integrated players who include many of the greatest national Leaguers ever (Aaron, Mays, et al)

I'm not as sure if the Negro leagues as a whole -- I mean the hypothetical replacement players too -- were on par with the AL and NL at the same time. This may help account for the staggeringly high rate stats that the Negro League's best players (almost all hitters by the way) put up.

The Negro Leagues as a whole were definitely superior to the lesser leagues in the 19th Century and probably the Federal League in 1914-15. The Union Association of 1884 was far worse that any league and it's considered a major league... Look at how good that league made Fred Dunlap look. (BTW the National Association circa 1871-75 belongs as a major league unless we are going to bounce the UA and maybe a few years of he American Association when it was at its weakest)

I don't think the incompleteness of Negro Leagues data should exclude them from major league status. it is interesting that the numbers may be moving over the next few years -- e.g. Josh Gibson's BA could go up or down.

Many of the record-breaking seasons were during a particularly weird time in baseball history --> the WWII era when many American males (of all colors) were fighting the war. It stands to reason that this more limited pool of players would make ir easier for the best to stand out even more. Think of this: what would Ted Williams have hit if he had gotten to feast on the AL pitching in 1943-45 ? He hit .406 in 1941 -- I'm guessing he gets to .420 with a lot of BB if he plays those years although Hal Newhouser was pretty awesome in 1945-46. Of course, Josh Gibson may have been suffering from a brain tumor in the 1940's and he still put up those numbers.

--

Finally, the impact and import of baseball stats as an arbiter of greatness suffered a body blow during the PED era that it hasn't recovered from... Since Bonds, McGwire, and Clemens (and company) stats lost their allure to many people. This says nothing about the Negro Leaguers -- they weren't juicing. But it does make all of this less meaningful than it would have been if this decision had been made in 1997. Maybe it should have been made then, although I don't know how much data was available back then.

I didn't want to truncate your quote, as I feel it would diminish it. This conveys my opinion nearly completely.

The only thing I would add is that I would be against this move 25 years ago. Why? Not because I believed the NL didn't deserve the recognition, but because the method of baseball stats delivery was via BOOKS and rudimentary sort features! I was calculating 162 game comparables back in the mid 70's. The DH rocked my world, as it created a disparity in comparing AL/NL. It annoyed me (and to some extent, still does) when playoff 'records' were broken and didn't account for playoff expansion. I loved reading old contemporary news story accounts, recollections, and biographies of past players. I was fascinated by the challenge of trying to accurately gauge how a deadball vs. liveball vs. WWII vs. Negro League vs. post expansion player would fare against one another. As I know now, it is a fruitless folly. Just watch a game from the 80's on youtube. The level of play (NOT the 'game') now is tremendously greater. And that is within my lifetime.

Now do I believe that the greats would be great regardless? Yes. Just not as great.

My point is , stats are stats. They give insight, not proof of superiority across generations. Inclusion of the Negro League stats are fine with me. As long as I can sort them, just as I did with the 18th century players decades ago.

P.S. If I recall correctly they were italicized

[Deertick]

Duplicate

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by G1911

Interesting brief counterargument: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...s-not-a-racist. There have been some good book length treatments with full citations in recent years that are much fairer biographies.

I'm not sure if people just repeat the Stump lies out of habit, or if people just really need some targets for their contemporary narratives and do not care whatsoever about evidence.

Trying to shovel contemporary narrative into the past and then vilifying the past for not being the present is a stupid game to play at all, but it's extra stupid when the chosen target was actually much more aligned with the contemporary narrative than the one of their own time and place.

Here is a short piece by Charles Leerhsen, author of Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty that says: "But what about Cobb’s 19th-century Southern roots? How could someone born in Georgia in 1886 not be a racist? What I found—and again, not because I am the Babe Ruth of researchers, but because I actually did some research—is that Ty Cobb was descended from a long line of abolitionists. His great-grandfather was a minister who preached against slavery and was run out of town for it. His grandfather refused to fight in the Confederate army because of the slavery issue. And his father was an educator and state senator who spoke up for his black constituents and is known to have once broken up a lynch mob.

Cobb himself was never asked about segregation until 1952, when the Texas League was integrating, and Sporting News asked him what he thought. “The Negro should be accepted wholeheartedly, and not grudgingly,” he said. “The Negro has the right to play professional baseball and whose [sic] to say he has not?” By that time he had attended many Negro league games, sometimes throwing out the first ball and often sitting in the dugout with the players. He is quoted as saying that Willie Mays was the only modern-day player he’d pay to see and that Roy Campanella was the ballplayer that reminded him most of himself.

A similar piece by MLB.com echoes the above sentiments, stating that "We have zero evidence to suggest that Cobb was a racist."

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

It's utterly confounding that this information about Cobb took so many years to come to light. He has descendants. If the ancestors, and Cobb himself, had this type of history, it's very strange that the family wouldn't have been more vocal against what had sadly been accepted as the more awful account of the "truth".

I have not yet read the Leerhsen book. Does he give a differing account of the story of Cobb going into the stands to attack the crippled heckler who allegedly called him the N word?

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

It's utterly confounding that this information about Cobb took so many years to come to light. He has descendants. If the ancestors, and Cobb himself, had this type of history, it's very strange that the family wouldn't have been more vocal against what had sadly been accepted as the more awful account of the "truth".

I have not yet read the Leerhsen book. Does he give a differing account of the story of Cobb going into the stands to attack the crippled heckler who allegedly called him the N word?

The Leerhsen link I provided states: "He was the first baseball celebrity, and he did not always handle well the responsibilities that came with that. And yes, he once went into the stands and repeatedly punched a man who had been heckling him for more than a year, and who turned out to have less than the full complement of fingers—hence the story of him attacking a handicapped fan. This is a mark against him. But was he a racist and an embarrassment to the game? Far from it."

I have not read the Leerhsen book.

[G1911]

Leehrsen's book, as I recall, spends most of the length debunking myths by going back to primary sources. The short of it is that no evidence was found to support most of the common stories told about him. He did commit some assaults and had a bad temper as a young man, for which he is criticized fairly in the book, but these incidents are all very different from what was written in the 60's and then passed on down. He does not conclude Cobb was some flawless individual, just that most of what is said about him is contradictory to the evidence.

[Topnotchsy]

I think that the issues raised by some point to distinctions between the Negro Leagues and the American and National Leagues. There is no doubt that the length of season was different.

Combining the numbers ignores many, many things and may be inconsistent with how other leagues have been handled. Yes, it ignores the length of season. It ignores the conditions that black players played under. It ignores the fact that they had to play semi-pro teams in between their official games because they needed to earn more money. It ignores the racism and discrimination that they dealt with.

What we are left with is trying to figure out what to do in a world where the black players were not allowed to play in the American and National leagues, despite a lot of evidence that they were roughly equivalent players. (Books like Outsider Baseball highlight the evidence but to briefly note a couple of sources: interracial barnstorming games, the success of the black players who integrated MLB and were enormously successful in the years immediately following integration etc.)

At this point we are left with a 'what do we do now?' And there is no right answer. Should Josh Gibson hit over 800 homeruns but the vast majority were in unofficial games. Should he be considered the all-time leader, or should he rank around 250th with 246? He played those games and hit those homeruns and in some cases, the unofficial games were against elite teams. But they were not official games. And so there is a tough decision to be made. Similarly, should we ignore Negro League rate stats (like batting average) because the season was shorter, or find a way to accomodate?
There was no simple, clean, easy decision. And any fan with a degree of nuance will know that Ty Cobb's career batting average was accomplished in far longer seasons, while Josh Gibson's 246 homeruns barely begins to tell the story.

It's not perfect. It never will be. In part because the history is not perfect. There never should have had to have been a separate Negro League. People like Effa Manley, Gus Greenlee, Cumberland Posey etc should have owned MLB teams. Josh Gibson should have been behind the plate catching Lefty Grove or Red Ruffing etc. Satchel Paige should have been pitching to Bill Dickey or Gabby Hartnett. But that was not the case. So we are left picking up the pieces and trying to make the best of it.

Baseball stats more than any other sport are considered sacred. And this is a big change. One that will take getting used to for many and one that some people will not like. I'm sure some of those people will not like it for racial reasons, others because of the inconsistencies and others for many other reasons. As a solution, it is an imperfect one. But I think that some view it as a good start in the right direction.

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

I'm not sure how exactly the stats are calculated, but if there is any sort of leeway given as described above, then all non-NL payers obviously deserve to have their numbers similarly padded. Wow, Babe Ruth hit 1500 HRs? Amazing! Where would Babe Didrickson rank among professional baseball's all-time greats?

The only solution that works for me (and I stress, for me because it's clearly not happening) is to leave everything as it was. This is what happened in real life. How hard is that to leave alone? We can hate that it happened, making sure to teach our children that it was wrong and that some of the best to ever play were denied opportunities because of racism. It has to be left separate in order to accurately teach the history of the game/American society and to make it less confusing for future generations. By all means, keep celebrating these players. Keep putting up gravestones for those without one. Honor and respect them all, but accept that there's a historical stain that will always be there and needs to remain in place for the sake of accuracy, and due to that, the leagues are forced to stay segreated. That was life at the time. Would it sound silly to anyone else if every African American, dead or alive, was retroactively given permission to drink from Jim Crow Era water fountains and open access to all the other freedoms they were historically denied?

By all means, the NL stats need to be as accurately recalculated as possible using period data, but they should be limited to official games played. Otherwise, it's as silly and pointless as counting every Babe Ruth exhibition and barnstorming stat.

[Topnotchsy]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

I'm not sure how exactly the stats are calculated, but if there is any sort of leeway given as described above, then all non-NL payers obviously deserve to have their numbers similarly padded. Wow, Babe Ruth hit 1500 HRs? Amazing! Where would Babe Didrickson rank among professional baseball's all-time greats?

The only solution that works for me (and I stress, for me because it's clearly not happening) is to leave everything as it was. This is what happened in real life. How hard is that to leave alone? We can hate that it happened, making sure to teach our children that it was wrong and that some of the best to ever play were denied opportunities because of racism. It has to be left separate in order to accurately teach the history of the game/American society and to make it less confusing for future generations. By all means, keep celebrating these players. Keep putting up gravestones for those without one. Honor and respect them all, but accept that there's a historical stain that will always be there and needs to remain in place for the sake of accuracy, and due to that, the leagues are forced to stay segreated. That was life at the time. Would it sound silly to anyone else if every African American, dead or alive, was retroactively given permission to drink from Jim Crow Era water fountains and open access to all the other freedoms they were historically denied?

By all means, the NL stats need to be as accurately recalculated as possible using period data, but they should be limited to official games played. Otherwise, it's as silly and pointless as counting every Babe Ruth exhibition and barnstorming stat.

Only official games are being counted. But comparing Ruth's barnstorming to Negro League barnstorming is comparing two very different things. The Negro Leagues were forced to barnstorm due to the realities of their existence. Ruth barnstormed to make more money. More importantly, the sheer quantity of games was radically different. The Negro League stars allmost definitely played many more unofficial games than official games. Ruth played a tiny fraction.

I'm not arguing for including unofficial games. Just pointing to a complexity in comparing.

[jsfriedm]

I think counting Negro League stats as Major League stats is a bad idea for two reasons:

1)It is a superficial way of making people in the present feel better about the past. The reality is that Negro League players were not allowed to play Major League Baseball. That is the whole reason there were Negro Leagues in the first place. Going back and declaring them major leagues now is like retroactively declaring slavery illegal and then saying no one was ever actually enslaved in the United States. Yes they were. You can deal with that fact, but you can't change it.

2)The Negro League stats we have, as many have pointed out, are terribly incomplete and the truth of players' performance is irretrievable. So it doesn't help to pretend that we have the real stats for Paige, Gibson, etc. We don't, and the numbers we do have will never do them justice.

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by jsfriedm

I think counting Negro League stats as Major League stats is a bad idea for two reasons:



1)It is a superficial way of making people in the present feel better about the past. The reality is that Negro League players were not allowed to play Major League Baseball. That is the whole reason there were Negro Leagues in the first place. Going back and declaring them major leagues now is like retroactively declaring slavery illegal and then saying no one was ever actually enslaved in the United States. Yes they were. You can deal with that fact, but you can't change it.



2)The Negro League stats we have, as many have pointed out, are terribly incomplete and the truth of players' performance is irretrievable. So it doesn't help to pretend that we have the real stats for Paige, Gibson, etc. We don't, and the numbers we do have will never do them justice.

I disagree. I think the project was well-researched over many years, not superficial in any sense, and the purpose was to better inform people of the history of the game. The result of the project was an awareness that the various Negro Leagues were comparable in level of play to the American and National Leagues, and in that sense should be considered major leagues, for purposes of US baseball and its historical stats.

Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

[Peter_Spaeth]

Guess it helped this card. Wow.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/375448380819

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Guess it helped this card. Wow.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/375448380819

I was watching that one as well. Holders of Josh Gibson's 1976 Shakey's Pizza card look to have hit a windfall as well.

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

That's just silly. A card released three decades after a player's passing should not carry such value. I am not a fan of autograph/relic cards, but those make a bit more sense to carry value if issued posthumously. There's (at least supposed to be) something contemporaneous to the player housed within.

I understand that there are players featured in the set for whom this was their first ever card release. To that extent, it makes sense why people would want an example to fill a void. But it's a novelty set, issued in the first wave of the rebirth of card collecting. This wasn't even Gibson's first card. The Toleteros was also a posthumous release, but the value there makes more sense. Why the sudden boom in price for a 1970's issue that was basically created for card collectors? Just because many collectors may not be able to afford the Toleteros, then this card automatically escalates in price?

If I owned the Gibson, sure, I'd admit to a bit of hypocrisy as I was cashing in!

Also, can somebody please enlighten me as to if this set carried more than a nominal value even into the 1990's? I have foggy memories of them being worth next to nothing, but perhaps my mind is playing tricks on me.

[Schlesinj]

“We became serious about creating the database in 2000. I reached out to about 30 researchers across the country to access newspapers that I did not have access to. So, after five years, we were able to establish a very solid database of capturing Negro League stats,” he said. “We had data from more than 450 newspapers. There’s no app, there’s no software that can scan a box score, that will populate a spreadsheet or a database.

Started with a 2000 $250k donation.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Bored5000

I was watching that one as well. Holders of Josh Gibson's 1976 Shakey's Pizza card look to have hit a windfall as well.

Who knew?

[puckpaul]

Originally Posted by Fred

I'm so sick of "woke", "cancelled" , and PC crap.

The past is the past and nothings going to change it. But lets put some lipstick on this pig and see what we have.

+1

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

Just because many collectors may not be able to afford the Toleteros, then this card automatically escalates in price?

Yes. Economists call it the "substitution effect" [the change in demand for a good as a result of a change in the relative price of the good compared to that of other substitute goods]. Toleteros are rare and very expensive; many collectors want to have something representing the Negro League greats in their collections; I did, which is why I picked up a bunch of cards from the Laughlin set as the earliest NL set I could afford. Another example would be Cool Papa Bell's 1976 self-issued set. Ditto some of the 1970s PCs.

Oh, some cards:






Guess I better have my Gibson slabbed...

[insidethewrapper]

60 games for a season is not enough to judge a player , as the top players rise to the top in a 162 schedule as well as teams. Right now we are at the 60 game mark this year and Profar is 2nd in batting average and first in OBP. If he was in the Negro leagues he may be considered for the HOF.

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Adam,

Certainly, and I understand it, but more along the lines of someone picking up a 56T Mantle because the '52 is out of their reach. The value of the '56 being period to Mick's career makes that logical to me.

We don't have that option with Gibson, but because the Laughlin was issued so much later, that is what perplexes me. I understand it was a limited print run, which is of course tantalizing to a broad collector base, but still. The current value of these goes hand in hand with the retroactive proclamation that the players, in fact, are Major Leaguers. Those on one side of the argument will never understand; those on the other will never understand why they will never understand!

[Exhibitman]

Gibson has no career-contemporary cards except that insane postcard. Even the Toleteros is a tribute card. So anything you get is gonna be a tribute card. I'm just explaining my logic and that of many others who collect the 'collector' issues of the 1970s in lieu of impossibly rare and expensive older cards of NL players. You do what you can do.

[vintagerookies51]

The only valid point people have here are the possible inaccuracy of stats from the Negro Leagues. Trying to compare this to adding Japan league stats is a joke. That league was across the world. The Negro Leagues would have played in the same league if segregation didn't exist.

Negro League players won something like 10 NL MVPs in their first 13 years they were allowed to play. Maybe the MLB had more depth, but the best Negro Leagues players were always as good as the best MLB players. Can you imagine if players like Willie Mays and Hank Aaron had been whitewashed from history like Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, and Oscar Charleston? IMO this is a great move by the MLB to recognize some of baseball's all-time greats that were partially forgotten about due to past injustices.

[Tripredacus]

This is completely messed up. How in the world is Lyman Bostick able to be #3 in single season batting average with only 84 PA?
https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...g_season.shtml

If they are going to change the PA requirements, they should refactor everyone else, because I bet that they only change the PA requirements for the new players and the old players still are stuck with that 3.1PA/G requirement.

I like how they have updated WAR for the teams tho, I wish they'd do it for minor leagues too.

[Beercan collector]

Originally Posted by Tripredacus

This is completely messed up. How in the world is Lyman Bostick able to be #3 in single season batting average with only 84 PA?
https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...g_season.shtml

If they are going to change the PA requirements, they should refactor everyone else, because I bet that they only change the PA requirements for the new players and the old players still are stuck with that 3.1PA/G requirement.

I like how they have updated WAR for the teams tho, I wish they'd do it for minor leagues too.

Ross Barnes 1876 season qualifies but his 1872 , 1873 do not ?

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by Beercan collector

Ross Barnes 1876 season qualifies but his 1872 , 1873 do not ?

I think Baseball Reference counts/acknowledges the National Association, where Ross Barnes played in 1872 and 1973, but MLB does not. Seems like MLB should count NA.