Negro League Hall of Fame

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by Fred

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.

Not to open this can of worms again, but there are so many reasons that MLB should have never combined the stats. They had to twist their own rules they made up just to get Gibson records.

Here are some major issues I have with it.

I consider the National Association to be Major League. They don't. The main reasoning I've heard from people who had some say in the decision is that teams didn't complete schedules sometimes. The Negro Leagues literally have a much worse track record in that area. How does it help one league and keep another from being a Major League?

They eliminated the 5,000 plate appearance mark for career records that has stood for as long as they made these leader charts, just to include Negro League players, saying that they were based now on league games played to figure out if they qualified with a lower number. They have left off plenty of 19th century players from the leaderboard all of these years (and still to this day), who came up with shorter schedules. If you gave those players credit for shorter schedules, they would be listed on the leader board for the MLB page too. It's cherry picking.

They didn't include two years of Gibson's stats by saying that the league wasn't the same quality, but those two years are two of his worst hitting stats. If he was the greatest player and doing much worse in the league, then how do you explain the league not being quality? They had Gibson, Judy Johnson, Oscar Charleston, Satchel Page, etc etc in the league! Take those two years away and Cobb still has the title (he obviously still has the title now, I don't accept any of their backwards rules to strip him and Barry Bonds of titles)

The stats are incomplete. Self-explanatory.

Gibson was handed the single season batting record and didn't even lead the league in average that year! They made up a rule, then twisted it just so he got the title and Tetelo Vargas didn't.

As I have said to others, you can blindly accept Gibson as a record holder with far fewer times at the plate, or you could just use common sense and say no, it doesn't work like that. He's the Negro League all-time leader. MLB is run by clowns right now for so many reasons. Adding Negro League stats was not one of those reasons. It ranks up there with the best thing they have done in the last five years. Calling guys with incomplete stats and 2,500 plate appearances all-time leaders qualifies as a clown decision. It's insulting to historians of the sport.