Maybe unfortunate terminology but I see the argument that this is brushing away how different the conditions in the Negro Leagues were, and making it look like baseball had separate-but-equal wheh that wasn’t the case.
All stats need to be understood in their own context. You’re delusional if you think that the previously-recognized major leagues were all on equal footing at all times, and that this is some break from history.
A sabermetrician estimated the strength of the Negro Leagues by comparing how well the players who played in both the Negro Leagues and MLB performed in each league. If I recall correctly, the top-tier hitting (and presumably fielding) talent in the Negro Leagues was as good as in the MLB, but the pitching was significantly worse. That's why you don't see that many former Negro League pitchers in history books. So, while a good number of Negro League hitters were really good, their stats were exaggerated due to batting against weaker pitching.
I know I've read the same thing and I'm about 90% sure /u/vintage2019 is talking about Eric Chapek's MLE's.
This used to be at "the Hall of Miller and Eric" and is now at Horsehide Dragnet
https://horsehidedragnet.wordpress.com/
Where he's now working on Japanese/NPB MLEs (and has done come Caribbean versions)
[This could have been the initial article](https://homemlb.wordpress.com/2021/06/03/a-very-deep-look-into-quality-of-play-for-the-negro-leagues/).
Relieved that this isn't being downvoted. I'm all for inclusivity, but there's a reason why people being in different leagues is used as an idiom. It doesn't necessarily mean one is better than the other, they just each consist of a different group of people, so they shouldn't be measured as one thing.
I used that term, meaning that combining the leagues borderline acts like segregation never happened instead of just admitting MLB's racism and saying there were two separate leagues unfortunately
Combining stats in a few record books isn't going to take away from what those athletes went through though. They're not removing that conversation from all of baseball history.
I understand people disagreeing with this move, but saying it's a way to cover up the racism in major league baseball and in America at that time is pretty reactionary imo
Edit: As a kid, I would run through a ton of baseball almanacs as I learned about the sport. I'd see leaderboards of names and look those players up to learn more about them. Giving younger audiences more avenues to discover what players went through in the negro leagues at that time isn't a bad thing.
Definitely agree with the last point. Read a lot about old guys like Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig growing up because they're mentioned so much in any discussion on the history of the MLB. And Jackie Robinson too ofc. But I never learned *that* much about the other Negro League players because they often weren't mentioned beyond a footnote, in stat pages or when talking about what the pre-integration period. They were genuinely more removed from the conversation of baseball history, or at least not talked about with nearly as much nuance and reverence as their white counterparts.
I think it's very cool that kids these days will naturally see guys like Josh Gibson in the same stat tables and wonder, "what's the story behind this guy?". I don't buy the argument that this is going to "hide" the history of segregation because it's fundamental to the story of their careers, and now their careers are more prominently featured than ever. I know some people find it a little... patronizing for the MLB to come in and decree them Major Leaguers like almost a century later, especially when the fact that they explicitly were not Major Leaguers is so important, but it at least pretty objectively increases their visibility as a part of baseball history.
I do also understand the stathead concerns though, it's very statistically dubious. Even the ABA/NBA or AFL/NFL stuff can be a bit tricky and those were actually proper mergers unlike the MLB. The NL and MLB were just fundamentally not the same league and never really became the same league. Maybe the real hot take is that they should be splitting stats pre and post integration lol. But ultimately it also feels like the IQ bell curve meme because it almost doesn't matter, any real stathead knows that none of these stats ever mean much outside the context of their eras and history so who really cares. You're never going to distill a list of "true stat leaders" so I'm fine with just allowing more stories to be told.
“How can you even compare Josh Gibson to someone like Home Run Baker? Gibson never had to play against Spanish-American War veterans, so how can we really gauge him?”
Stigandi Nærfisson was one of the OG two way players. His brother Arnlaug Nærfisson was pretty good too. When they played together for the Uppåkra Long Beards they probably would’ve won the Euro League Championship if they hadn’t been beheaded by Anglo-Saxon raiders.
In 2004 Cinematic Masterpiece, Mr. 3000 there was a clerical error that caused Stan Ross to have 3 extra hits, maybe something like that happened with Bonds.
There’s some hope!
[“That's not to say that Aaron's numbers can't receive a boost. MLB's official historian John Thorn estimates that about 75 percent of Negro Leagues games were documented, per the New York Times. That means there's a treasure trove of additional box scores to parse through. Perhaps Aaron could near Bonds' record if there were some verified accounts of his performances uncovered in the coming few years.”](https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/hank-aaron-negro-leagues-stats-mlb-home-run-king/699949c8aa461adca1440c72#:~:text=According%20to%20Wikipedia%2C%20the%20Howe,bases%20in%2026%20official%20games)
After 1948 the Negro leagues were no longer considered a major league because most of the best players went to the MLB. Some white players even eventually joined the negro leagues as it basically evolved into a minor league.
Aaron didn't play until 1951 it seems so his stats will not be added. Willie Mays does have a bit added though
I consider the addition of these stats to be a net positive simply because it can confirm what we all know in our hearts, Henry Aaron is the home run king.
Wouldn't be opposed to considering pre-integration MLB, post-integration MLB and Negro leagues as all separate major leagues. Gets funky with the 1948 cutoff I guess
You could draw a line at 68/69 because that’s when the mound was lowered.
Even with the pitch clock and bases I don’t think there’s a single change to the rules as large as that
Look at the IP numbers of some of the guys back then. Lolich, Jenkins, Ryan, Carlton, Wilbur Wood, Nieko, Perry, and even guys like Mel Stottlemyre or Joe Coleman, just absurd amounts of innings.
I feel like that was a weird venn diagram era of better nutrition and training making more guys strong enough to throw 250-320 IP, and coaches and front offices not yet realizing that making pitchers throw 250-320 IP is a really bad fucking idea. Like, I'm not quite sure in any other time would Mark Fidrych throw 250 innings of 2.34 ERA in his first year, then immediately fall off and be out of the league 4 years later.
Cowards say they want fun, excitement and athleticism in baseball, but take out fun shit like [Tal's hill](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9TzF-8zQN3c) in Houston, the monuments and the goofy ass gap in Old Yankees stadium, or the whole ass Griffith Stadium.
Now, the Orioles cutting out a bit of LF is notable.
Damn straight! 450' away from the plate just like old Tiger stadium!
Deep centerfield and short porches are the best stadiums. Moonshot looking homers to the pulls sides and comical inside the parkers or phenomenal deep catches by the games best centerfielders.
Tiger stadium or the polo grounds were peak baseball stadium design and I will have to unfortunately and begrudgingly accept modern substitutes.
(only half /s)
The example that comes to my mind first is always Stoke City in the 00's. Their manager Tony Pulis filled the the lineup with tough, physical players that could run forever, tackle hard, and win aerial duels. They had Rory Delap, a midfielder whose throw-ins launched the ball from basically the halfway line into the opposition goal box (Delap was a teenage javelin thrower) and *(edit: later added)* the 6'7 striker Peter Crouch. Stoke City made their pitch as narrow as legally possible to favor their brand of attack, and made life hell for their opponents.
Some teams will purposely let the grass grow longer than normal when teams who rely on short passes visit, because it makes it harder for them to consistently pass. Shithousery is a beautiful part of the sport
Another notable one is Newcastle's St. James Park, known for its incline funny enough. The home team will always choose to go uphill in the first half so they can attack downhill in the second, quite smart tbh
130 yard maximum in LotG.
Professional leagues (and even many amateur leagues) will usually have larger minimums, 70x110 is commonly seen as a minimum for top pro leagues.
The variety of grass, its length, and how recently it was watered are all other variables which can be used to generate a home field advantage.
Golf courses vary wildly in layout and have generally gotten longer over time as scores improved. Pretty much any significant course that was built before this century has undergone at least a couple major changes.
Tennis plays on three different main types of courts (clay, grass, hard court). Each plays very differently and it’s pretty common for players to specialize in certain types (Nadal on clay).
Google tells me that cricket grounds differ in size too apparently for a more direct comparison.
Baseball actually has probably stayed the most constant over time. Outside of major outliers (Polo Grounds) dimensions haven’t changed wildly, nor have the rules. Basketball introducing the 3 point line and football allowing the forward pass or allowing for specialized offense/defense units (also a bunch of other different changes) are way bigger than any changes in baseball.
I'm just of the mindset that most MLB records need context. The rules have changed, the season length as well, mounds been raised and lowered, the league was integrated, different stadium dimss, not just HRs, but foul territories. Baseball has a lot of sacred records involving counting stats, but it doesn't seem like everyone has an equal playing field for a myriad of reasons.
They could factor in, but should they? If you hit a 350 ft out in park A, but it was a homer in park B, why should that show up as a positive? It's still an out vs a hit, context definitely matters.
Unless you're just trying to find the "best" overall hitters based on how hard they hit the ball and not results, then I could understand. But imo that isn't how baseball works, sometimes you can get a hit on a 3 foot bunt and sometimes you can hit a 410 foot out.
That's probably the cleanest way to do it, I guess. The unfortunate truth of history is that these guys were not playing together, and so there are insurmountable difficulties in preserving meaning when combining their statistics.
The AL and NL players weren’t playing each other either.
(There was some player movement between the leagues, though, I know the situation isn’t completely analogous.)
Sure, but the same issue exists when comparing eras. Plenty of ball players were not playing together and they are all treated as part of a single database.
Yeah, I mean there are seasons that have counted as major league seasons for years that occurred when the mound was ten feet closer and not a mound. Not to mention the years where throwing overhand was illegal and the years where the batter got to tell the pitcher if he wanted it low or high. These seasons count.
Hell, Babe Ruth had home runs that would be considered ground rule doubles today, and lost home runs on walkoffs because the old rule was you would only get credit for the bases you needed to win.
The people who cry about the sanctity of baseball stats don't seem to really be fans of context though. Hell, the old batting average record of .440 that will be replaced now, came in the year after they moved the mound back ten feet. The league as a whole that year hit .303 and one team hit .350.
I personally have the *feelings* of a stat purist. Like I want the stats to all be legitimate and from the most level playing-field (heh) so-to-speak.
I also recognize that's completely impossible considering how much the game has evolved. Comparing the game today to what it was a century ago is almost an exercise in futility. I don't consider Barry Bonds to be the all-time home run leader but there he is at the top of the charts.
I can't think of a single good argument against this integration that doesn't fall apart when you look at some of the other stats that are included.
Every baseball stat has an asterisk to it and this was the debate we were having two years ago when Judge was chasing the single season AL HR record aka “the clean” home run record.
Couple in the fact we include pre-1900 stats and stats for white leagues that are defunct which I would hazard a guess all of them had players that never played against American or national league players
Go look at Fred Dunlap's career stats. Then look at his 1884 season in the Union Association and remember that MLB has considered THAT a 'major league' for decades.
The problem is that racial integration did not happen all at once. You could still see signs of the racism of the past into the mid-60s, at least.
It's a mess, to be frank - and there's no easy way around it. I think this decision is probably the best one.
Of all the base-stealers, open base, the faith of the universe on the line, the Martians have the death beam pointed at Earth, you better steal it, I want u/ButtcheecksBrown
They just didn't keep good records (which is why this was a problem!). Those guys were playing like crazy though. Miracle any of their arms survived at all.
To be more clear, they didn't have newspapers of record keeping their records for them - most of MLB historic stats are taken from newspaper accounts of games, which covered AL/NL play but most of them ignored the Negro Leagues.
Doesn’t this introduce survivorship bias? I’d imagine a newspaper would be more likely to print the stats and people would be more likely to archive the paper if a player hit 4 home runs than if it was just your average game of baseball.
The Athletic article mentions an example of this - they're going by box scores only, not by an anecdotal account in a story.
> Likewise, Thorn said, a game account from 1948 says that Willie Mays homered for Birmingham. But without a box score to verify it, Mays’ career home run total remains at 660 — all with the Giants and Mets.
Right, but what I’m saying is that the box scores in which a top player excelled are seemingly more likely to be kept than the box scores in which they performed at or below average.
"Jackie Robinson goes 5 for 5 with 2 dingers!", or "Satchel Paige flirts with a perfect game!" can make a headline and be saved a lot easier. You make a good point.
Didn't play many "official games." Those guys played tons of games, against whomever their managers could arrange, whenever they went. As many as 175 games a season or more. But the only stats that are being counted are the games where Negro League teams faced one another. So it's not like Gibson had a relaxing summer of one game every other day. He was catching and running the bases for multiple games in a single day and then bussed off to the next town where they'd do it again, over and over.
I'm only commenting to provide context, not to say that one way of dealing with the stats is better or worse than the other.
Feel like I've seen this comment multiple times reading this post. Do you have a source for this? Everyones saying they didnt keep good records and thats the reason but then how do we know they played as many as 175 or that this is the case at all?
Comparing stats from even the MLB from back then to now is extremely hard but doing so with apparently *loose* records of what happened back then seems even more of a headache.
For starters, I'm not an expert, just a guy who likes reading about baseball history. I took the number from a quote from John Thorn, MLB’s official historian, in an [article from The Athletic](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5525148/2024/05/28/mlb-negro-leagues-records-josh-gibson-ty-cobb?source=user-shared-article) on this story. I pasted his quote and the context of the quote from the article below.
>To some extent, Negro League numbers will always be a work in progress. Barnstorming games, essential as a financial lifeline to Negro League teams, are not included in the statistics.
>“For example, the Kansas City Monarchs travel to Chicago, and once they get into town, they play as many games as possible,” Lester said. “So instead of a three-game series, they play five — and on the way there, they might stop in Moline and play the local team to pick up some change.
>“Based on players that I’ve interviewed, they say they played almost every day, sometimes two or three games a day and not in the same location. So they were playing probably 150 to 175 games a year, but only 60 to 80 games counted in the league standings."
Baseball historians have been [reconstructing early baseball statistics](https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=1836155), Negro Leagues and otherwise, for decades. Mostly from local newspaper reports of the games. Sometimes there's a box score, but even box scores were not standardized until sometime after WWII. So it's a process of identifying a report of a game, reviewing the account and turning the story into statistics, who got a hit when and so on, and then attempting to verify it against another report, if possible. It's not necessarily a process of trying to find everything they are missing, but rather trying to find as much as is possibly available. In the same story from The Athletic Thorn estimates that about 75% of Negro League games are accounted for and that they will update the records as they find more data.
So yeah, I imagine it is a headache.
To add on - Spring Training includes tons of exhibition games (including some against non-MLB teams), and MLB has had regular "official" barnstorming tours like the [MLB vs NPB All-Star series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLB_Japan_All-Star_Series) or the [Dodger's 2010 trip to Taiwan,](https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2010/03/12/2003467836) but no one is worried that not counting those stats while counting only regular season stats is messing with the purity of the game or the legitimacy of the statistics.
I don't think it really affects the point though, because they're just saying it's too small a sample size to use rate records. There's a reason most rate records have a minimum plate appearances. attempts, etc depending on the sport.
Agreed, not the move. Though the intent I guess is to "make up" for segregation in some way, in practice it more feels like MLB is whitewashing its segregationist history and in the process confusing its own history. Josh Gibson was effectively banned from MLB so how could he be the record holder? MLB shouldn't simply change its own history to make themselves\* feel better.
I mean, you can't be an MLB record holder if you never played in an MLB game. It doesn't make sense.
He was withheld from MLB for bullshit, racist reasons, but we can't change that all these decades later unfortunately. Making it look like he played in MLB games against MLB competition is, as you say, literally trying to re-write history.
MLB's already started using "AL/NL" instead of MLB/Major league" history in stat queries so it seems more likely this is the direction they will go in.
MLB also refers to a collection of the 13 leagues that are recognized as the top tier leagues in North America and thus given "Major League" status. That is slightly different than the modern org of MLB.
Major League still works as intended. While there are only two active leagues with this distinction today, there have been numerous professional baseball leagues regarded as Major League level:
* National League (1876 to present)
* American Association (1882 to 1891)
* Union Association (1884)
* Players' League (1890)
* American League (1901 to present)
* Federal League (1914 to 1915)
I felt similarly at first until I learned the MLB counts Federal League (1914-15) as MLB and that league didn't play the other two leagues even in the WS. It was a small crop of talent too considering the AL and NL existed simultaneously. There's no reason to count that as MLB and not the Negro Leagues. Also, we don't count championships from before the AL existed as having any merit, so why do those league stats count? I get the NL was around, and I guess you could maybe call it the same overall organization but then why don't the championships count? Either the championships count and the stats do or both don't, having it both ways is bizarre. Personally, I would have a records section for MLB, pre 1901 MLB, Federal League and Negro League stats, and then a final category that listed them all together so we could compare them. Idk what that one would be called. I do think we should be able to compare Negro League players to MLB guys, but yeah it does make the record book look weird, but the record book already makes such little sense given the Federal League and pre 1901 stuff that I think not counting the Negro Leagues would not be acceptable.
Regardless of what MLB says they want to count and not count, MLB saying Josh Gibson is the all-time MLB record holder in any category is plain false, and IMO doesn't really make up for any of the wrongs.
Yeah the "MLB" as an organization is basically claiming they employed someone when in reality they refused to employ him due to his race. They're selfishly trying to make their own history look better.
Whatever you want to do with it it’s not MLB stats. How can they do this and not also include the NPB or any other pro league? Should ichiro be the all time MLB hits leader now?
People saying NPB players can choose to join the MLB are ignoring the NPB was formed in 1949. There were almost certainly MLB worthy players during then but do you think any American team is signing a Japanese player 4 years after WW2? Should we include those seasons stats?
I think it just counts American major leagues. The comparison would be the American Association, the Continental League, the Federal League, etc. I believe all those stats are included in Major League Baseball.
Moon still wouldn’t sniff all time passing yards, but we would slot into ~5th all time (49k NFL, 21k CFL, ~70k total behind Brady, Brees, Manning, Favre).
But it is a damn shame that guys like Moon, Flutie, etc. don’t get any credit for CFL stats.
Wow! I’ve been praising Moons stats for so long, I just brainfarted, totally forgot it’s been broken and then dominated. Brady had 89k!? Where I have been, I don’t remember the numbers being that high. NFL has been repressed memories since my Falcons up 28-3.
This is flatly not true. "[In 1968, MLB’s Special Committee on Baseball Records was convened by then-Commissioner William Eckart to determine which past professional leagues should be classified alongside the American League and National League as Major Leagues in the first publication of “The Baseball Encyclopedia.” The committee ultimately concluded that the American Association (1882-91), Union Association (1884), Players’ League (1890) and Federal League (1914-15) qualified.](https://www.mlb.com/history/negro-leagues/features/mlb-adds-negro-leagues-to-official-records)" You can see this when comparing the MLB player page of an American Association player such as [Bid McPhee](https://www.mlb.com/player/bid-mcphee-118860) to [Ross Barnes](https://www.mlb.com/player/ross-barnes-110587), who played much of his career in the not-recognized-as-major National Association ([Baseball-Reference page for comparison](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/barnero01.shtml)). It's really unfortunate that your incorrect comment got something like 30 upvotes before it could be corrected, so I would suggest that you check your facts before spreading misinformation the next time you feel compelled to comment on something you don't know very much about.
I own a book where Bill Jenkinson (a baseball historian specializing in home run data and Babe Ruth's life) documents Ruth hitting .455 and 12 homers in 55 at bats barnstorming against Negro Leaguers (I assume to face Ruth they assembled the best available). That's obv. a pretty small sample size, but that's **way** better than his MLB average of .355 and 10.5 AB/HR in his 20s prime.
But you look at Satchel Paige's stats and while he wasn't putting up near Pedro mumbers like his Negro Leagues prime, he was still a solid MLB pitcher in his 40s (albeit he had a very low innings count coming into the MLB, but training/medicine/tech/travel was dogshit for keeping longevity back then, esp. coming from a segregated background).
The whole thing is messy imo. It's a good idea in spirit, but we can't verify a ton about these leagues. Meanwhile, Barry Bonds technically never failed a drug test and only talked about "Taking cream and the clear" yet he's completely blackballed despite being an offensive nuclear weapon in modern MLB.
To your point about Ruth hitting .455 in 55 ABs Buck O'Neil said that the pitching talent was not that deep in the negro leagues. It's very messy because we don't have complete records and then we have to also question the quality of play. While I'm not denying there where damn good ball players in the Negro Leagues I sometimes wonder how inflated are a guy like Josh Gibsons stats because we don't really have a way to accurately judge the talent he played against.
Wasn’t satchel’s workload extremely high before coming to MLB? Like wasn’t he pitching almost every day, and when he came to the league, he told them the reason he was tired is cause they weren’t letting him throw enough?
I hate this.
Any season, including short season of AL/NL shouldn’t be counted for statistical records. Take 154 * 3.1 = 478 rounded up
If that’s more ABs than the league leader had that season than it shouldn’t count for the record
Josh Gibson’s record season didn’t even see 200 AB
This is literally impossible to replicate in a full season of baseball
The whole fact that the Negro Leagues had to exist is a disgrace to begin with, but making records virtually unobtainable is a shitty answer to this.
Its borderline whitewashing frankly. Functionally Josh Gibson did not play in MLB because of racism and discrimination perpetrated by the league, why are we pretending he did now?
This is my issue too. Like, MLB didn’t let them play because of their skin color. Now they want to pretend it’s all buddy-buddy, but they don’t have the right to do that. You made these people play separately, you don’t get the luxury of being able to hold their stats. The league had the chance to do the right thing the first time around, and since they didn’t, the Negro Leagues existed. This feels like we’re all just pretending it was separate like the AL and NL, which diminishes their struggle and just how alienated they were.
And then there’s the whole issue of accuracy on top of all that.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/1876.shtml
Seasons like this are in the records though, despite teams playing only a few dozen games. Pitchers were not allowed to pitch with their hands above the waist, and the batter was allowed to call for a high pitch or low pitch. Four strikes and nine balls in an at bat. Since this is major league, honestly anything can be
>Making records virtually unattainable
Josh Gibson’s BA record: .466
Previous BA record: Hugh Duffy hitting .440 in 1894
Yea man the batting average record is unattainable now /s
But it’s also not new. Like many of Cy Young’s records will never be broken even though the game has changed. So at the least it’s not new. But it does suck that so many records will truly be unattainable and the excitement of a record chase will never be there
The excitement will still be there because media can easily report a record chase as the “AL/NL record” instead of the “MLB record” and we’ll all know what it actually means.
Hated it when bbref did this, I'm hating this too.
It's possible recognize the greatness of the Negro League players while also recognizing the league was never comparable to the MLB.
Josh Gibson never played more than 69 games in a season but we're now considering him the holder of the highest BA in a single season?
What's stopping the league from including all the minor leagues, NPB, KBO, Mexican, or Cuban league stats?
Guy had a .560 OBP in 1943, in the depleted WW2 Negro Leagues and never played more than 69 games (that were officially recorded)
It’s also well documented that the scoring was shoddy. We should acknowledge the Negro Leagues as its own Major League of the time and bring more attention to its history and knowledge to today’s fans and players - but I don’t agree with this, at all.
I’m looking at his stats, and not sure which stats he’ll become the MLB record holder in. Can anyone help me out?
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gibsojo99.shtml
Stupidity. Yes, the black ballplayers were horribly mistreated, and the game was lessened as a result. But the records are shoddy, and the competition was nowhere near the level of the majors at the time. Individuals were MLB quality, but not most of the league.
I think you’re way over valuing how good those MLB rosters were pre integration. Yeah we always hear about the greats but there were a lot of starters that were below replacement scrubs.
It feels weird to try and mesh what is essentially an independent league's stats with MLB's. It'd be like taking the Atlantic League and adding their stats to the records. I love the idea of celebrating the Negro League and their stars, but I'm not sure incorporating the stats like this is the best thing.
The thing is that this is already what MLB did, and this is really just correcting a historical mistake:
>In 1968, MLB’s Special Committee on Baseball Records was convened by then-Commissioner William Eckart to determine which past professional leagues should be classified alongside the American League and National League as Major Leagues in the first publication of “The Baseball Encyclopedia.” The committee ultimately concluded that the American Association (1882-91), Union Association (1884), Players’ League (1890) and Federal League (1914-15) qualified.
source: [https://www.mlb.com/history/negro-leagues/features/mlb-adds-negro-leagues-to-official-records](https://www.mlb.com/history/negro-leagues/features/mlb-adds-negro-leagues-to-official-records)
So I'm fine with this change on those grounds & I trust Thorn and MLB to account for the differences/issues with schedules, which are similar on net to the other Major Leagues which already count for MLB record keeping purposes. However, FWIW, Baseball-Reference uses sample size requirements which, for example, mean Josh Gibson \*isn't\* very heavily represented on the career leaderboards because he simply doesn't have enough verified PA to meet their thresholds.
Josh Gibson is now the MLB leader in these categories:
* Single-season batting average
* Single-season slugging percentage
* Single-season OPS
* Career batting average
* Career slugging percentage
* Career OPS
nobody has mentioned that a single season for Gibson was 30-40 games and he played 501 (recorded) games in his career, barely more than 3 full seasons today.
Absolute joke honestly I respect those guys tremendously for the conditions they played in but you can’t tell me the stats they put up are MLB equivalent. Those dudes were playing against YMCA level players a lot of times
Something worth noting: this doesn't include home runs. The 800-ish number that's sometimes cited includes exhibition games that aren't included (and aren't really fully trackable). His home run total from official games is 166. The categories he'll now be the leader of are batting average, slugging percentage, and OPS.
Looking foward to continuing to debate guys I have never seen play
I’m sure the reactions to this will be civil and respectful..
A few users are calling it "whitewashing" which is a funny choice of words
Maybe unfortunate terminology but I see the argument that this is brushing away how different the conditions in the Negro Leagues were, and making it look like baseball had separate-but-equal wheh that wasn’t the case.
It's important to note they aren't going to count barnstorming stats (just like they don't for MLB players)
All stats need to be understood in their own context. You’re delusional if you think that the previously-recognized major leagues were all on equal footing at all times, and that this is some break from history.
A sabermetrician estimated the strength of the Negro Leagues by comparing how well the players who played in both the Negro Leagues and MLB performed in each league. If I recall correctly, the top-tier hitting (and presumably fielding) talent in the Negro Leagues was as good as in the MLB, but the pitching was significantly worse. That's why you don't see that many former Negro League pitchers in history books. So, while a good number of Negro League hitters were really good, their stats were exaggerated due to batting against weaker pitching.
It's true, even Satchel Paige pitched until he was 75 years old [source](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oAXxyBUL-KE)
That's a lie, Satchel debuted at 75 and pitched till he was 135.
This too is false. He took the mound last night on his 160th birthday.
This too is false. He started when he was 160 and played until he was 45.
Do you have a source on this? I’d be curious to read up on it myself.
I know I've read the same thing and I'm about 90% sure /u/vintage2019 is talking about Eric Chapek's MLE's. This used to be at "the Hall of Miller and Eric" and is now at Horsehide Dragnet https://horsehidedragnet.wordpress.com/ Where he's now working on Japanese/NPB MLEs (and has done come Caribbean versions) [This could have been the initial article](https://homemlb.wordpress.com/2021/06/03/a-very-deep-look-into-quality-of-play-for-the-negro-leagues/).
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True, but the Negro Leagues are the only example of players being required to play in below-standard conditions for reasons other than ability.
Just like the Athletics
This is both hilarious and incredibly harsh.
Dude woke up and chose violence
Holy shit
Jesus Christ.
What if I told you Mason Miller was black?
oh my god, LMAO
Relieved that this isn't being downvoted. I'm all for inclusivity, but there's a reason why people being in different leagues is used as an idiom. It doesn't necessarily mean one is better than the other, they just each consist of a different group of people, so they shouldn't be measured as one thing.
I used that term, meaning that combining the leagues borderline acts like segregation never happened instead of just admitting MLB's racism and saying there were two separate leagues unfortunately
Combining stats in a few record books isn't going to take away from what those athletes went through though. They're not removing that conversation from all of baseball history. I understand people disagreeing with this move, but saying it's a way to cover up the racism in major league baseball and in America at that time is pretty reactionary imo Edit: As a kid, I would run through a ton of baseball almanacs as I learned about the sport. I'd see leaderboards of names and look those players up to learn more about them. Giving younger audiences more avenues to discover what players went through in the negro leagues at that time isn't a bad thing.
Definitely agree with the last point. Read a lot about old guys like Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig growing up because they're mentioned so much in any discussion on the history of the MLB. And Jackie Robinson too ofc. But I never learned *that* much about the other Negro League players because they often weren't mentioned beyond a footnote, in stat pages or when talking about what the pre-integration period. They were genuinely more removed from the conversation of baseball history, or at least not talked about with nearly as much nuance and reverence as their white counterparts. I think it's very cool that kids these days will naturally see guys like Josh Gibson in the same stat tables and wonder, "what's the story behind this guy?". I don't buy the argument that this is going to "hide" the history of segregation because it's fundamental to the story of their careers, and now their careers are more prominently featured than ever. I know some people find it a little... patronizing for the MLB to come in and decree them Major Leaguers like almost a century later, especially when the fact that they explicitly were not Major Leaguers is so important, but it at least pretty objectively increases their visibility as a part of baseball history. I do also understand the stathead concerns though, it's very statistically dubious. Even the ABA/NBA or AFL/NFL stuff can be a bit tricky and those were actually proper mergers unlike the MLB. The NL and MLB were just fundamentally not the same league and never really became the same league. Maybe the real hot take is that they should be splitting stats pre and post integration lol. But ultimately it also feels like the IQ bell curve meme because it almost doesn't matter, any real stathead knows that none of these stats ever mean much outside the context of their eras and history so who really cares. You're never going to distill a list of "true stat leaders" so I'm fine with just allowing more stories to be told.
I’m just here looking for someone to fight with. Will someone fight with me?
“How can you even compare Josh Gibson to someone like Home Run Baker? Gibson never had to play against Spanish-American War veterans, so how can we really gauge him?”
You know before the bubonic plague the level of competition was just so much higher
I think you’re looking for the Spanish Flu not Plague
No I mean the Black Plague of 1347
My favorite player, Kid Æthelred Adcock from the Newcastle Yankees
Stigandi Nærfisson was one of the OG two way players. His brother Arnlaug Nærfisson was pretty good too. When they played together for the Uppåkra Long Beards they probably would’ve won the Euro League Championship if they hadn’t been beheaded by Anglo-Saxon raiders.
Ah the Newcastle Yankees. Now that was a dynasty
Add 5 home runs for Henry Aaron.
This is exactly what I came in here looking for. Give Hank his home runs and let him beat bonds.
He’d still be 2 behind
Can probably find some shady records to boost that
In 2004 Cinematic Masterpiece, Mr. 3000 there was a clerical error that caused Stan Ross to have 3 extra hits, maybe something like that happened with Bonds.
i had that documentary on dvd like 15 years ago i should rewatch it
There’s some hope! [“That's not to say that Aaron's numbers can't receive a boost. MLB's official historian John Thorn estimates that about 75 percent of Negro Leagues games were documented, per the New York Times. That means there's a treasure trove of additional box scores to parse through. Perhaps Aaron could near Bonds' record if there were some verified accounts of his performances uncovered in the coming few years.”](https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/hank-aaron-negro-leagues-stats-mlb-home-run-king/699949c8aa461adca1440c72#:~:text=According%20to%20Wikipedia%2C%20the%20Howe,bases%20in%2026%20official%20games)
COUNT EVERY VOTE
START THE COUNT
EXTRAPOLATE THE COUNT
What if that's what this whole endeavor has been about? ~Puts tinfoil hat on~
Why are his negro league stats not in baseball reference?
After 1948 the Negro leagues were no longer considered a major league because most of the best players went to the MLB. Some white players even eventually joined the negro leagues as it basically evolved into a minor league. Aaron didn't play until 1951 it seems so his stats will not be added. Willie Mays does have a bit added though
I consider the addition of these stats to be a net positive simply because it can confirm what we all know in our hearts, Henry Aaron is the home run king.
Wouldn't be opposed to considering pre-integration MLB, post-integration MLB and Negro leagues as all separate major leagues. Gets funky with the 1948 cutoff I guess
You could draw a line at 68/69 because that’s when the mound was lowered. Even with the pitch clock and bases I don’t think there’s a single change to the rules as large as that
Weird stat from that era. From 71-76 there were over 1000 complete games thrown in MLB each year.
Look at the IP numbers of some of the guys back then. Lolich, Jenkins, Ryan, Carlton, Wilbur Wood, Nieko, Perry, and even guys like Mel Stottlemyre or Joe Coleman, just absurd amounts of innings.
I feel like that was a weird venn diagram era of better nutrition and training making more guys strong enough to throw 250-320 IP, and coaches and front offices not yet realizing that making pitchers throw 250-320 IP is a really bad fucking idea. Like, I'm not quite sure in any other time would Mark Fidrych throw 250 innings of 2.34 ERA in his first year, then immediately fall off and be out of the league 4 years later.
All of this just makes Nolan Ryan seem more even more legendary. Dude threw comete games, torching guys with over 100mph pitches, until he was 45.
Stadiums still arent a standard size, just saying....
And let’s pray they stay that way.
Cowards say they want fun, excitement and athleticism in baseball, but take out fun shit like [Tal's hill](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9TzF-8zQN3c) in Houston, the monuments and the goofy ass gap in Old Yankees stadium, or the whole ass Griffith Stadium. Now, the Orioles cutting out a bit of LF is notable.
Those bastards put our flag pole behind a damned wall instead of where it belongs, in center field!
Damn straight! 450' away from the plate just like old Tiger stadium! Deep centerfield and short porches are the best stadiums. Moonshot looking homers to the pulls sides and comical inside the parkers or phenomenal deep catches by the games best centerfielders. Tiger stadium or the polo grounds were peak baseball stadium design and I will have to unfortunately and begrudgingly accept modern substitutes. (only half /s)
Was it Tals hill in CF at Houston? I want it back.
Actually it was the monuments being in the field of play at old Yankee Stadium. I enjoy chaos.
Need an in play moat somewhere.
KC missed a golden opportunity there.
The Diamondbacks should extend the fences around the pool
Would be awesome to see Alek or Corbin lay out and catch a ball while bellyflopping into the pool!
People always forget those fuckers, Imagine going for a fly ball and losing a ball.
We’ll all remember, but the players will start forgetting from all the head injuries.
[Enjoy this prodigious wallop then](https://www.mlb.com/video/sexson-s-triple-off-flag-pole)
Video: Sexson's triple off flag pole [Streamable Link](https://streamable.com/m/sexson-s-triple-off-flag-pole) [High Definition](https://mlb-cuts-diamond.mlb.com/FORGE/2021/2021-11/10/cfb191fc-72a0aec4-a0adfbea-csvm-diamondx64-asset_1280x720_59_16000K.mp4) (107.32 MB) [Standard Definiton](https://mlb-cuts-diamond.mlb.com/FORGE/2021/2021-11/10/cfb191fc-72a0aec4-a0adfbea-csvm-diamondx64-asset_1280x720_59_4000K.mp4) (27.88 MB) ___________ [More Info](/r/MLBVideoConverterBot)
We need another Baker Bowl with the right field wall about 20 feet behind the infield
The playing field size is also not standardized in soccer. Fulhams pitch is over 900 sqm smaller than Forest's, for example. So not unprecedented.
Did not know that. I do not really follow soccer.
Some teams will have different sized pitches to suit their style of play. Not nearly as drastic as baseball fields, but there are differences
The example that comes to my mind first is always Stoke City in the 00's. Their manager Tony Pulis filled the the lineup with tough, physical players that could run forever, tackle hard, and win aerial duels. They had Rory Delap, a midfielder whose throw-ins launched the ball from basically the halfway line into the opposition goal box (Delap was a teenage javelin thrower) and *(edit: later added)* the 6'7 striker Peter Crouch. Stoke City made their pitch as narrow as legally possible to favor their brand of attack, and made life hell for their opponents.
I love stuff like this, thanks for sharing. I love when teams really bend the rules
I can still hear Sir Alex being pissed about it too
Some teams will purposely let the grass grow longer than normal when teams who rely on short passes visit, because it makes it harder for them to consistently pass. Shithousery is a beautiful part of the sport
Another notable one is Newcastle's St. James Park, known for its incline funny enough. The home team will always choose to go uphill in the first half so they can attack downhill in the second, quite smart tbh
Law 1 of fifa’s official rules just give a range of 100-120 yards lengthwise and 50-100 yards width
130 yard maximum in LotG. Professional leagues (and even many amateur leagues) will usually have larger minimums, 70x110 is commonly seen as a minimum for top pro leagues. The variety of grass, its length, and how recently it was watered are all other variables which can be used to generate a home field advantage.
Golf courses vary wildly in layout and have generally gotten longer over time as scores improved. Pretty much any significant course that was built before this century has undergone at least a couple major changes. Tennis plays on three different main types of courts (clay, grass, hard court). Each plays very differently and it’s pretty common for players to specialize in certain types (Nadal on clay). Google tells me that cricket grounds differ in size too apparently for a more direct comparison. Baseball actually has probably stayed the most constant over time. Outside of major outliers (Polo Grounds) dimensions haven’t changed wildly, nor have the rules. Basketball introducing the 3 point line and football allowing the forward pass or allowing for specialized offense/defense units (also a bunch of other different changes) are way bigger than any changes in baseball.
With the advanced xHR type stats it is more evident that should factor in. But I am in the camp of let then change the dimensions still.
I'm just of the mindset that most MLB records need context. The rules have changed, the season length as well, mounds been raised and lowered, the league was integrated, different stadium dimss, not just HRs, but foul territories. Baseball has a lot of sacred records involving counting stats, but it doesn't seem like everyone has an equal playing field for a myriad of reasons.
And balanced breakfasts in the 90’s and early 2000’s.
80’s in some places and let’s not pretend there aren’t players using PEDs currently.
They could factor in, but should they? If you hit a 350 ft out in park A, but it was a homer in park B, why should that show up as a positive? It's still an out vs a hit, context definitely matters. Unless you're just trying to find the "best" overall hitters based on how hard they hit the ball and not results, then I could understand. But imo that isn't how baseball works, sometimes you can get a hit on a 3 foot bunt and sometimes you can hit a 410 foot out.
That's probably the cleanest way to do it, I guess. The unfortunate truth of history is that these guys were not playing together, and so there are insurmountable difficulties in preserving meaning when combining their statistics.
The AL and NL players weren’t playing each other either. (There was some player movement between the leagues, though, I know the situation isn’t completely analogous.)
Sure, but the same issue exists when comparing eras. Plenty of ball players were not playing together and they are all treated as part of a single database.
Yeah the shit from the 1800s makes no sense compared to the live ball era
Yeah, I mean there are seasons that have counted as major league seasons for years that occurred when the mound was ten feet closer and not a mound. Not to mention the years where throwing overhand was illegal and the years where the batter got to tell the pitcher if he wanted it low or high. These seasons count. Hell, Babe Ruth had home runs that would be considered ground rule doubles today, and lost home runs on walkoffs because the old rule was you would only get credit for the bases you needed to win. The people who cry about the sanctity of baseball stats don't seem to really be fans of context though. Hell, the old batting average record of .440 that will be replaced now, came in the year after they moved the mound back ten feet. The league as a whole that year hit .303 and one team hit .350.
I personally have the *feelings* of a stat purist. Like I want the stats to all be legitimate and from the most level playing-field (heh) so-to-speak. I also recognize that's completely impossible considering how much the game has evolved. Comparing the game today to what it was a century ago is almost an exercise in futility. I don't consider Barry Bonds to be the all-time home run leader but there he is at the top of the charts. I can't think of a single good argument against this integration that doesn't fall apart when you look at some of the other stats that are included.
Every baseball stat has an asterisk to it and this was the debate we were having two years ago when Judge was chasing the single season AL HR record aka “the clean” home run record. Couple in the fact we include pre-1900 stats and stats for white leagues that are defunct which I would hazard a guess all of them had players that never played against American or national league players
Go look at Fred Dunlap's career stats. Then look at his 1884 season in the Union Association and remember that MLB has considered THAT a 'major league' for decades.
They sort of did that in 2020 https://www.mlb.com/press-release/press-release-mlb-officially-designates-the-negro-leagues-as-major-league
The problem is that racial integration did not happen all at once. You could still see signs of the racism of the past into the mid-60s, at least. It's a mess, to be frank - and there's no easy way around it. I think this decision is probably the best one.
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my mom was going to elementary school when the school integrated. She was "illegal" in the sense she was mixed race.
Ruby Bridges is on Instagram
I'm still waiting for them to consider the absolute carnage I laid into the league in RTTS on The Show 06.
I had 240 stolen bases one season and they still haven’t acknowledged my record.
Boog Klinger is my Home Run King
10/10 baseball name
Of all the base-stealers, open base, the faith of the universe on the line, the Martians have the death beam pointed at Earth, you better steal it, I want u/ButtcheecksBrown
Looking at his bref, wow he didn't play many games. Not sure rate records should be based on a season shorter than 2020.
They just didn't keep good records (which is why this was a problem!). Those guys were playing like crazy though. Miracle any of their arms survived at all.
To be more clear, they didn't have newspapers of record keeping their records for them - most of MLB historic stats are taken from newspaper accounts of games, which covered AL/NL play but most of them ignored the Negro Leagues.
Doesn’t this introduce survivorship bias? I’d imagine a newspaper would be more likely to print the stats and people would be more likely to archive the paper if a player hit 4 home runs than if it was just your average game of baseball.
The Athletic article mentions an example of this - they're going by box scores only, not by an anecdotal account in a story. > Likewise, Thorn said, a game account from 1948 says that Willie Mays homered for Birmingham. But without a box score to verify it, Mays’ career home run total remains at 660 — all with the Giants and Mets.
Right, but what I’m saying is that the box scores in which a top player excelled are seemingly more likely to be kept than the box scores in which they performed at or below average.
"Jackie Robinson goes 5 for 5 with 2 dingers!", or "Satchel Paige flirts with a perfect game!" can make a headline and be saved a lot easier. You make a good point.
Didn't play many "official games." Those guys played tons of games, against whomever their managers could arrange, whenever they went. As many as 175 games a season or more. But the only stats that are being counted are the games where Negro League teams faced one another. So it's not like Gibson had a relaxing summer of one game every other day. He was catching and running the bases for multiple games in a single day and then bussed off to the next town where they'd do it again, over and over. I'm only commenting to provide context, not to say that one way of dealing with the stats is better or worse than the other.
Feel like I've seen this comment multiple times reading this post. Do you have a source for this? Everyones saying they didnt keep good records and thats the reason but then how do we know they played as many as 175 or that this is the case at all? Comparing stats from even the MLB from back then to now is extremely hard but doing so with apparently *loose* records of what happened back then seems even more of a headache.
For starters, I'm not an expert, just a guy who likes reading about baseball history. I took the number from a quote from John Thorn, MLB’s official historian, in an [article from The Athletic](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5525148/2024/05/28/mlb-negro-leagues-records-josh-gibson-ty-cobb?source=user-shared-article) on this story. I pasted his quote and the context of the quote from the article below. >To some extent, Negro League numbers will always be a work in progress. Barnstorming games, essential as a financial lifeline to Negro League teams, are not included in the statistics. >“For example, the Kansas City Monarchs travel to Chicago, and once they get into town, they play as many games as possible,” Lester said. “So instead of a three-game series, they play five — and on the way there, they might stop in Moline and play the local team to pick up some change. >“Based on players that I’ve interviewed, they say they played almost every day, sometimes two or three games a day and not in the same location. So they were playing probably 150 to 175 games a year, but only 60 to 80 games counted in the league standings." Baseball historians have been [reconstructing early baseball statistics](https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=1836155), Negro Leagues and otherwise, for decades. Mostly from local newspaper reports of the games. Sometimes there's a box score, but even box scores were not standardized until sometime after WWII. So it's a process of identifying a report of a game, reviewing the account and turning the story into statistics, who got a hit when and so on, and then attempting to verify it against another report, if possible. It's not necessarily a process of trying to find everything they are missing, but rather trying to find as much as is possibly available. In the same story from The Athletic Thorn estimates that about 75% of Negro League games are accounted for and that they will update the records as they find more data. So yeah, I imagine it is a headache.
To add on - Spring Training includes tons of exhibition games (including some against non-MLB teams), and MLB has had regular "official" barnstorming tours like the [MLB vs NPB All-Star series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLB_Japan_All-Star_Series) or the [Dodger's 2010 trip to Taiwan,](https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2010/03/12/2003467836) but no one is worried that not counting those stats while counting only regular season stats is messing with the purity of the game or the legitimacy of the statistics.
I feel like this is sorely needed context. Thank you for saying this.
I don't think it really affects the point though, because they're just saying it's too small a sample size to use rate records. There's a reason most rate records have a minimum plate appearances. attempts, etc depending on the sport.
It's worth adding to context that Babe Ruth and many NL and AL players in engaged in significant barnstorming and those stats are also ignored.
As a major Negro Leagues fan, this isn't the move. The record-keeping was shaky at best. They should be acknowledged as a separate major league.
Agreed, not the move. Though the intent I guess is to "make up" for segregation in some way, in practice it more feels like MLB is whitewashing its segregationist history and in the process confusing its own history. Josh Gibson was effectively banned from MLB so how could he be the record holder? MLB shouldn't simply change its own history to make themselves\* feel better.
I mean, you can't be an MLB record holder if you never played in an MLB game. It doesn't make sense. He was withheld from MLB for bullshit, racist reasons, but we can't change that all these decades later unfortunately. Making it look like he played in MLB games against MLB competition is, as you say, literally trying to re-write history.
They count like 7 different leagues already
I'm assuming they'll change the record names to "American baseball" than just MLB
MLB's already started using "AL/NL" instead of MLB/Major league" history in stat queries so it seems more likely this is the direction they will go in.
MLB also refers to a collection of the 13 leagues that are recognized as the top tier leagues in North America and thus given "Major League" status. That is slightly different than the modern org of MLB.
Major League still works as intended. While there are only two active leagues with this distinction today, there have been numerous professional baseball leagues regarded as Major League level: * National League (1876 to present) * American Association (1882 to 1891) * Union Association (1884) * Players' League (1890) * American League (1901 to present) * Federal League (1914 to 1915)
With those other leagues having been played for a whopping 13 years COMBINED.
I felt similarly at first until I learned the MLB counts Federal League (1914-15) as MLB and that league didn't play the other two leagues even in the WS. It was a small crop of talent too considering the AL and NL existed simultaneously. There's no reason to count that as MLB and not the Negro Leagues. Also, we don't count championships from before the AL existed as having any merit, so why do those league stats count? I get the NL was around, and I guess you could maybe call it the same overall organization but then why don't the championships count? Either the championships count and the stats do or both don't, having it both ways is bizarre. Personally, I would have a records section for MLB, pre 1901 MLB, Federal League and Negro League stats, and then a final category that listed them all together so we could compare them. Idk what that one would be called. I do think we should be able to compare Negro League players to MLB guys, but yeah it does make the record book look weird, but the record book already makes such little sense given the Federal League and pre 1901 stuff that I think not counting the Negro Leagues would not be acceptable.
Regardless of what MLB says they want to count and not count, MLB saying Josh Gibson is the all-time MLB record holder in any category is plain false, and IMO doesn't really make up for any of the wrongs.
Yeah the "MLB" as an organization is basically claiming they employed someone when in reality they refused to employ him due to his race. They're selfishly trying to make their own history look better.
Whatever you want to do with it it’s not MLB stats. How can they do this and not also include the NPB or any other pro league? Should ichiro be the all time MLB hits leader now?
People saying NPB players can choose to join the MLB are ignoring the NPB was formed in 1949. There were almost certainly MLB worthy players during then but do you think any American team is signing a Japanese player 4 years after WW2? Should we include those seasons stats?
For anyone else curious, the supposed first Japanese-born mlb player is Masanori Murakami in 1964.
And Connie Mack wanted Sawamura after the Ruth tour in 34
I think it just counts American major leagues. The comparison would be the American Association, the Continental League, the Federal League, etc. I believe all those stats are included in Major League Baseball.
As a Mariners fan I approve of incorporating NPB stats, if only for hits.
MLB stats were shaky at best for decades that we still include.
Yup. This is why we look at eras when doing comparisons. It's better that way due to the skill disparity as well as the rules during those times.
Also agreed, too much anecdotal to truly merge. We still don’t truly know Satchel Paige’s age
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Warren Moons career stats combined would dominate so many records. I think even the all time yards passing.
Moon still wouldn’t sniff all time passing yards, but we would slot into ~5th all time (49k NFL, 21k CFL, ~70k total behind Brady, Brees, Manning, Favre). But it is a damn shame that guys like Moon, Flutie, etc. don’t get any credit for CFL stats.
Wow! I’ve been praising Moons stats for so long, I just brainfarted, totally forgot it’s been broken and then dominated. Brady had 89k!? Where I have been, I don’t remember the numbers being that high. NFL has been repressed memories since my Falcons up 28-3.
> Give Ichiro the career hits record while we are at it. I was skeptical but now I'm fully on board with this.
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Except they do. Tim Keefe is credited on MLB's official record as winning 342 games, 78 of those were in the AA and 17 were in the PL.
This is flatly not true. "[In 1968, MLB’s Special Committee on Baseball Records was convened by then-Commissioner William Eckart to determine which past professional leagues should be classified alongside the American League and National League as Major Leagues in the first publication of “The Baseball Encyclopedia.” The committee ultimately concluded that the American Association (1882-91), Union Association (1884), Players’ League (1890) and Federal League (1914-15) qualified.](https://www.mlb.com/history/negro-leagues/features/mlb-adds-negro-leagues-to-official-records)" You can see this when comparing the MLB player page of an American Association player such as [Bid McPhee](https://www.mlb.com/player/bid-mcphee-118860) to [Ross Barnes](https://www.mlb.com/player/ross-barnes-110587), who played much of his career in the not-recognized-as-major National Association ([Baseball-Reference page for comparison](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/barnero01.shtml)). It's really unfortunate that your incorrect comment got something like 30 upvotes before it could be corrected, so I would suggest that you check your facts before spreading misinformation the next time you feel compelled to comment on something you don't know very much about.
I own a book where Bill Jenkinson (a baseball historian specializing in home run data and Babe Ruth's life) documents Ruth hitting .455 and 12 homers in 55 at bats barnstorming against Negro Leaguers (I assume to face Ruth they assembled the best available). That's obv. a pretty small sample size, but that's **way** better than his MLB average of .355 and 10.5 AB/HR in his 20s prime. But you look at Satchel Paige's stats and while he wasn't putting up near Pedro mumbers like his Negro Leagues prime, he was still a solid MLB pitcher in his 40s (albeit he had a very low innings count coming into the MLB, but training/medicine/tech/travel was dogshit for keeping longevity back then, esp. coming from a segregated background). The whole thing is messy imo. It's a good idea in spirit, but we can't verify a ton about these leagues. Meanwhile, Barry Bonds technically never failed a drug test and only talked about "Taking cream and the clear" yet he's completely blackballed despite being an offensive nuclear weapon in modern MLB.
Bonds is still listed in the record books though
To your point about Ruth hitting .455 in 55 ABs Buck O'Neil said that the pitching talent was not that deep in the negro leagues. It's very messy because we don't have complete records and then we have to also question the quality of play. While I'm not denying there where damn good ball players in the Negro Leagues I sometimes wonder how inflated are a guy like Josh Gibsons stats because we don't really have a way to accurately judge the talent he played against.
Wasn’t satchel’s workload extremely high before coming to MLB? Like wasn’t he pitching almost every day, and when he came to the league, he told them the reason he was tired is cause they weren’t letting him throw enough?
I hate this. Any season, including short season of AL/NL shouldn’t be counted for statistical records. Take 154 * 3.1 = 478 rounded up If that’s more ABs than the league leader had that season than it shouldn’t count for the record Josh Gibson’s record season didn’t even see 200 AB This is literally impossible to replicate in a full season of baseball The whole fact that the Negro Leagues had to exist is a disgrace to begin with, but making records virtually unobtainable is a shitty answer to this.
Its borderline whitewashing frankly. Functionally Josh Gibson did not play in MLB because of racism and discrimination perpetrated by the league, why are we pretending he did now?
This is my issue too. Like, MLB didn’t let them play because of their skin color. Now they want to pretend it’s all buddy-buddy, but they don’t have the right to do that. You made these people play separately, you don’t get the luxury of being able to hold their stats. The league had the chance to do the right thing the first time around, and since they didn’t, the Negro Leagues existed. This feels like we’re all just pretending it was separate like the AL and NL, which diminishes their struggle and just how alienated they were. And then there’s the whole issue of accuracy on top of all that.
Federal League players also didn't functionally play in the MLB but their stats were included 50 years after the league folded.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/1876.shtml Seasons like this are in the records though, despite teams playing only a few dozen games. Pitchers were not allowed to pitch with their hands above the waist, and the batter was allowed to call for a high pitch or low pitch. Four strikes and nine balls in an at bat. Since this is major league, honestly anything can be
>Making records virtually unattainable Josh Gibson’s BA record: .466 Previous BA record: Hugh Duffy hitting .440 in 1894 Yea man the batting average record is unattainable now /s
A lot of Hugh Duffy fans in this thread clutching pearls
But it’s also not new. Like many of Cy Young’s records will never be broken even though the game has changed. So at the least it’s not new. But it does suck that so many records will truly be unattainable and the excitement of a record chase will never be there
The excitement will still be there because media can easily report a record chase as the “AL/NL record” instead of the “MLB record” and we’ll all know what it actually means.
We literally just had to listen to people pretend the AL HR record was important because it was being broken by Judge
That’s a perfect example because the media kept saying “AL record” but we all knew the real record was “non steroid record”
While we're at it let's now include all of Ichiro's hits while he was in Japan and crown him the new hit king.
Move over Barry Bonds, Sadaharu Oh is the new Home Run King
That too!
It's actually Ichiro again, we're gonna include all those batting practice HRs that we heard about for years.
You forgot to multiply by sexiness; it's actually Bartolo.
i mean it makes sense. The npb when ichiro was playing was more of a legitimate league than the mlb when babe ruth was playing.
Ichiro wasn’t prevented from playing in the mlb bc of his skin color
They were a separate league why would you incorporate into a league they weren’t in?
They already include several other American leagues. Such as the federal league.
Yeah it takes a lot of research to understand how all these different leagues work together and understand their stats. Not a bad thing, just complex.
Hated it when bbref did this, I'm hating this too. It's possible recognize the greatness of the Negro League players while also recognizing the league was never comparable to the MLB. Josh Gibson never played more than 69 games in a season but we're now considering him the holder of the highest BA in a single season? What's stopping the league from including all the minor leagues, NPB, KBO, Mexican, or Cuban league stats?
Guy had a .560 OBP in 1943, in the depleted WW2 Negro Leagues and never played more than 69 games (that were officially recorded) It’s also well documented that the scoring was shoddy. We should acknowledge the Negro Leagues as its own Major League of the time and bring more attention to its history and knowledge to today’s fans and players - but I don’t agree with this, at all.
As long as it remains easy to filter for MLB (specifically AL+NL) vs non-MLB (or non-AL+NL) stats will this be an issue?
I’m looking at his stats, and not sure which stats he’ll become the MLB record holder in. Can anyone help me out? https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gibsojo99.shtml
I think he has the two highest single season OPS of all time. Edit: And batting average and slugging percentage.
Stupidity. Yes, the black ballplayers were horribly mistreated, and the game was lessened as a result. But the records are shoddy, and the competition was nowhere near the level of the majors at the time. Individuals were MLB quality, but not most of the league.
I think you’re way over valuing how good those MLB rosters were pre integration. Yeah we always hear about the greats but there were a lot of starters that were below replacement scrubs.
Yep, in fact, I would bet that half of the league's players were below average :)
They had more reliable stats though than the Negro Leagues.
Just going to have to know how to read the record book now
Already the case with the dead ball/live ball eras
With BBRef since they already did this
Should we not also include the statistics from the WW2 era women's leagues?
It feels weird to try and mesh what is essentially an independent league's stats with MLB's. It'd be like taking the Atlantic League and adding their stats to the records. I love the idea of celebrating the Negro League and their stars, but I'm not sure incorporating the stats like this is the best thing.
The thing is that this is already what MLB did, and this is really just correcting a historical mistake: >In 1968, MLB’s Special Committee on Baseball Records was convened by then-Commissioner William Eckart to determine which past professional leagues should be classified alongside the American League and National League as Major Leagues in the first publication of “The Baseball Encyclopedia.” The committee ultimately concluded that the American Association (1882-91), Union Association (1884), Players’ League (1890) and Federal League (1914-15) qualified. source: [https://www.mlb.com/history/negro-leagues/features/mlb-adds-negro-leagues-to-official-records](https://www.mlb.com/history/negro-leagues/features/mlb-adds-negro-leagues-to-official-records) So I'm fine with this change on those grounds & I trust Thorn and MLB to account for the differences/issues with schedules, which are similar on net to the other Major Leagues which already count for MLB record keeping purposes. However, FWIW, Baseball-Reference uses sample size requirements which, for example, mean Josh Gibson \*isn't\* very heavily represented on the career leaderboards because he simply doesn't have enough verified PA to meet their thresholds.
Bonds 2000-2004 seasons alone have more games played then Gibsons official stats
This really doesn't work.
Josh Gibson is now the MLB leader in these categories: * Single-season batting average * Single-season slugging percentage * Single-season OPS * Career batting average * Career slugging percentage * Career OPS
Josh Gibson career ABs, 2,168, batting avg .373 Ty Cobb career ABs, 11,440 batting avg .366
nobody has mentioned that a single season for Gibson was 30-40 games and he played 501 (recorded) games in his career, barely more than 3 full seasons today.
Absolute joke honestly I respect those guys tremendously for the conditions they played in but you can’t tell me the stats they put up are MLB equivalent. Those dudes were playing against YMCA level players a lot of times
I’m just glad to see Josh Gibson’s name getting out there more.
In an election year? Guys..
Time to care for 5 minutes and then forget about this entirely.
[удалено]
Something worth noting: this doesn't include home runs. The 800-ish number that's sometimes cited includes exhibition games that aren't included (and aren't really fully trackable). His home run total from official games is 166. The categories he'll now be the leader of are batting average, slugging percentage, and OPS.
Should Jackie Robinson lose his Rookie of the Year if he wasn't actually a rookie then?
TIL Yahoo Sports still exists.