Negro League Hall of Fame

[Fred]

Originally Posted by Yoda

On one of my many metaphysical musings, I started to think about the recent move to incorporate Negro League stats into official MLB stats, giving, as we all now know, the highest lifetime batting average title to Josh Gibson, leaving the Georgia Peach in the dust. It got me wondering that, if this is the new reality, then why not integrate those already inducted in NL HOF into the real Hall. It would achieve full integration instead of this halfway measure.
Be interested in what others think.

John, here's what I think and I don't believe in that "new reality". I'd also like to read what others think.

Josh Gibson was a great player, however I'm not sure how he becomes the MLB lifetime batting average leader based on incomplete stats. The available stats have a .373 lifetime average based on 2168 at bats. I get it, it's not Gibson's fault that the stats for his career are not complete, but because he happens to have a high average in the at bats that were logged, that shouldn't automatically make him the lifetime batting leader.

Could you imagine if Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, and a host of other NL players were allowed to play in MLB with Ruth, Cobb, Johnson, Matty, et al. It would have been awesome.

Too bad Branch Rickey wasn't able to do what he did at least 30 years earlier, or better yet, too bad there was all the racial biases in the past to begin with.

What were left with are two sets of stats, one very complete, the other, unfortunately not near complete. The two sets of stats are difficult to integrate and frankly, near impossible to compare.