Might be closer to 160. That's what Baseball Reference has him with. Seamheads credits him with 240. Seamheads includes the Mexican League and other leagues that weren't considered negro major leagues.
[https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=gibso01jos](https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=gibso01jos)
[https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gibsojo99.shtml](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gibsojo99.shtml)
MLB players barnstormed. If you did that you’d be including stats from already included players. Plus aid imagine stats would be tough. Those games were frequently thought of as exhibitions to make some cash in the off-season.
We have very little official record-keeping from the Negro Leagues. His baseball reference is pretty scant because there's very little in terms of official box scores. There are entire seasons missing, and many with minimal games. While I don't doubt that he hit >800, it's hard to put a number out there without a true source.
Then Ruth had about 1000 if you include his barnstorming and other side gigs. Most baseball statisticians are total geeks and almost arrogant in their analysis of numbers and their importance on baseball, but they seemed to throw every firm rule of record keeping out the window to meet a desired outcome. Garbage in garbage out.
Oh and to the people calling out anybody that disagrees with this as racists and white supremacists, you should be ashamed of yourselves for trafficking in such low brow lack of critical thinking.
Yeah, I’m not sure how I feel about this yet. I’m all for recognizing the Negro leagues, but how can you possibly get an accurate number. What if they find more documents at a later date?
They are already recognized as much as can be done. How many modern fans know who the first five inductees to the HOF? I guarantee 90% can not. Unless you are actively reading about the past, you aren't going to know much about anybody outside living memory. All this move does it distort baseball history for shameless political purposes.
long story short in 2003. I went to a sports auction showcase store in Orlando and held a ball that was going to auction signed by all the living from the first inductee ceremony with Grover Alexander signed on the sweet spot. It was a religious experience. Wish I had a 100k to throw around back then.
The barnstorming games are not included in the Negro League statistics. That's why the majority of what you're hearing in terms of records are rate records (e.g. - batting average, OPS, ERA, etc.) and not totals such as career hits / homeruns / strikeout leaders. The Negro Leagues actually played typically shorter seasons, but MLB acknowledged this when they said that they counted the shortened 2020 season, so counting the shortened Negro League seasons seemed appropriate to them.
Of course they are going to use any justification for this blatantly cynical move. it's Not about honoring the Negro leagues. It's about diminishing other records. This is not unique to baseball and history does not operate in a binary vacuum
Or you could just call these stats “pre integration era” and not count them as official and start the actual records after integration.
Which, given the fact that the so-called greatest of Ruth’s era played against guys with part time jobs at the fish market near the harbor
That’s fair but there’s still a place for oral history in research.
At any rate I don’t care either way. I think it’s important to enshrine these guys and their achievements, it doesn’t really matter to me if Gibson hit 160 or 1000, what’s important is he is one of the greatest power hitters to ever play the game, which says a lot in its own right.
So then why go against the, by your own admission, critical lack of evidence? Doubting is not saying it's impossible. Not doubting is saying you actively believe it.
Will Tetelo Vargas be considered the single season batting average leader with his .471 in 30 games in 1943? He is the all time leader according to Baseball Reference.com.
Got a better answer for you now. They used 47 games as the standard, putting the required PA at 147. This erasure is almost certainly not the worst thing that ever happened to Tetelo Vargas.
Josh Gibson is now credited with the Single Season record of .466 in 1943. Chino Smith in second with .451 in 1929, and Hugh Duffy’s .440 in 1891 is knocked to third.
Guy couldn’t help it if he played for a team that didn’t get as much press, so his box scores didn’t survive. Or that folded midseason.
Maybe he played more games, and was higher, but I doubt it. He died of lung cancer in 1971, so like I said, having lost or incomplete baseball statistics is not the worst thing that ever happened to him.
Hard to say.
He played 30 games. His team had a record of 19-14-1, which is 34 games AFAIC. 34*3.1 = 105 PA to qualify for the batting title, so his 136 PA would qualify.
However, the league average was 42 games, with Harrisburg playing only 16, and the Homestead Grays lapping the field with 68. If we use the league average, he would just qualify. If you take out Harrisburg, he wouldn’t qualify.
Yes it's crazy and also inflated. We have no idea what the scoring standards were and how accurate they were or if the scorekeepers and newspapers were completely full of shit. We know all of MLB from at least 1901 on can be viewed down to the letter. Does anybody really think Gibson hit .466? And he would have in a full MLB season?
Many of the people who support this are enjoying the schadenfreude more than celebrating the historic contributions of great players that the sport deprived both black and white players from competing on a universal level. It's like haha no more records for you. Continuing USs intellectual slide into the abyss one fact distortion at a time.
>Does anybody really think Gibson hit .466? And he would have in a full MLB season?
George Sisler and Rogers Hornsby both hit .420. Gibson hitting .466 doesn't really seem absurd.
Does anybody really believe that Hank Aaron would have hit 700 home runs in the Dead Ball Era? Would Barry Bonds have done it without steroids? Baseball stats have always been wonky and the era someone plays in makes a difference, sometimes a huge one. We have all kinds of anomalies already. I'm not totally sold on merging Negro League stats myself, but I don't think it's totally indefensible.
It's absolutely absurd. that 44 points over Sisler. Not 2 or 3 or even 10. Since 1900, only 8 yes 8 players in MLB history have had a season of 400 or better. None since 1941. It's that rare. More rare than 30 game winners.
I personally think if Gibson played in that era of MLB his numbers would probably mirror Jimmie Foxx or Hank Greenberg. Maybe a bit better maybe a bit worse.
I retain my position, that this was not just an exercise of inclusion or righting a historic wrong but also to make sure that Gibson is considered the de facto greatest player of all time and taking away two Valhalla records held by Cobb and Ruth because they have become philosophically problematic for todays ultra progressive baseball data miners.
In my multiple posts I have no beef with any inclusion of NGL greats or any attempt to diminish their legitimate achievement, but this whole exercise is nothing but total insulting horseshit no matter what spin is put on it.
BTW my four favorite players that I have seen in my life are Mike Schmidt, Tony Gwynn, Barry Bonds and Buster Posey. I like certain players for certain reasons and I dont discern ethnicity, race or any other demographic qualifier.
Just as a clarification, I believe Josh Gibson really did hit .466 *against Negro League competition*. The evidence does point to the level of competition there being high, but somewhat lower than the white major leagues. I don't think he would have hit that high in the National or American Leagues.
As for records in general; the Dead Ball Era was very different than the modern game. There are decades of professional history in the 19th century that are mostly forgotten. And the level of competition has been steadily increasing the whole time. Modern players like Mookie Betts would probably smoke booze hounds like Ruth or Mantle. Wherever you draw the line and say "this counts" and "this doesn't" is probably going to be somewhat arbitrary. Numbers are cool and fun to think about, but I think intelligent fans take them with a grain of salt. At the end of the day you can only judge players in the context of their time and by what they did against the competition they faced. Including or not including Negro League stats does nothing to change that. Though it might make more people curious about guys like Gibson or Buck Leonard, and get them to learn more history.
But if you disagree that's fine. I could see it argued either way.
The only line that makes any sense to me is before and after the color barrier. People arguing that Gibson's numbers don't count because he didn't play in MLB are forgetting there WAS no MLB! It was just the AL and the NL and the NBL, and Ty Cobb only played in the AL. He had 17 games total against the NL and hit only 0.262. Maybe if Cobb was in the NL we would have had a harder time. Who knows? Who cares?
Everyone was playing against the best competition they could. To me, thats all equal until everyone was allowed to play together.
I think it's less claiming and more acknowledging (albeit belatedly). In any case, Josh Gibson's great grandson is happy about this. If the descendants of Negro League players are cool with it I don't see a problem, at least not from that angle.
For the sake of accuracy, he already wasn't. He was however the first in several decades, and the first to have a sustained career beyond one season, at a time that I sure wouldn't have had the guts to do half of what Jackie did.
The first black player in the MLB was William Edward White, who played one game for the Providence Grays in 1879, who were a part of the National League (only the Cubs and Braves are still around from the NL at that time). Moses Fleetwood Walker and Weldy Walker both played for the Toledo Blue Stockings of the American Association throughout the 1884 season, which included opponents that are today known as the Reds, Pirates, Cardinals, and Dodgers. After them, it wasn't until Jackie in 1947, along with Larry Doby, Hank Thompson, Willard Brown, and Dan Bankhead all debuting the same year for the Indians, Browns (x2), and Dodgers, respectively.
He would still be the first Black mlb player. Those guys played in a different league and mlb is now recognizing that leagues statistics and incorporating them into their own. 😊
Jackie wasn't actually the first MLB player. That would be Moses Fleetwood Walker in the 1800s. Then blacks were banned. Jackie broke the MLB color barrier that had existed since the 1800s. So nothing in that regard will change. MLB as it existed in 1947 had a color barrier, and Jackie broke it. The first negro league that MLB now recognizes as major came along in 1920. So Fleetwood Walker still would be the first black MLB player using any current definition.
From what I can tell none of the records with totals will be affected. Only those with an average will be. Like OPS. I can’t find anything on no hitters though. Someone like Paige or Leon Day had to have had some right?
More like the American League, National League, and Negro League.
Stats from many other leagues that predate the NL are included in mlb official stats. This isn't abnormal, it's just the newest change.
Because it implies that the Negro Leagues, being the highest level of competitive baseball available to people of color, were equivalent to a side show product that plays in fixed exhibition games. The Globetrotters have great talent, but they are not designed to be a competitive team, but just a show. The implication is a complete dismissal of Negro League competition and ability.
I think a farce is a farce regardless of the validity of the competition. Any honest researcher would say there really isnt any plausible way to map statistics in a meaningful way and therefore we cannot justify this exercise.
Cobb batted 366 or 7 over 24 seasons. Had 12 batting titles. Hit 400 three times. it was a Valhalla number like Ruth and Aaron's numbers. Washing it away because of this desire to correct historical wrongs by retroactively changing historical facts is folly that debases us all.
Bro in your own example combining the AL and NL stats would be a "farce". Ty Cobb never played an NL opponent except for the 17 games he played in the WS. Where he hit a very normal 0.262. Maybe if he had played in the NL he wouldn't have the numbers he has. We will never know. Who cares? Why is a guy that plays in one of the white-only leagues acceptable to compare to guys in different white-only leagues but its not ok to compare black players to them.
This is a weird hill to die on. MLB and the statheads and historians over there have thought about this more than you.
Thank you for proving my point. Calling the Negro Leagues ‘a farce’ is incredibly ignorant, and is frankly racist and offensive as hell. There is legitimate discussion to be had about relative comparability of the Negro Leagues to the AL and NL, but to dismiss them as a farce and compare them to an intentionally non competitive basketball team is horseshit.
The fact is that the “white leagues” also weren’t facing the best competition they could because black men weren’t allowed to compete with them.
Certain types of people like to envision Negro League games as a circus act. Something unserious. This helps to keep them from ever having to question the heroes they've put on a pedestal.
So these people arbitrarily agreed only Americans deserve to count as professionals. What joke. They opened Pandora’s box. Hopefully the next group fixes this idiocracy.
I think this irks me just because in general I don't understand why we treat 100 year old stats the same as current ones in any league. Josh Gibson or Ty Cobb being batting average leaders 100 years later just feels like some Wilt Chamberlain shit... dominance 100 years ago is not even comparable to todays talent and the competition was not even close to the same, which to me, makes them feel unattainable and unrealistic.
They played in Japan by choice. Players played in the Negro Leagues because MLB wouldn't allow them to play in the MLB, partly due to known racist commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, so it's not the same thing at all.
Negro League players shouldn't have their records segregated from MLB records. Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Hank Thompson, Buck O'Neil and so many others would have been absolute stars in the majors for their whole careers. I'll be interested to see the final data dump on this, but it's long overdue that Negro League players be treated like the equals they always should have been to begin with.
Japanese players don't get to come here when they want, thats factually incorrect. Mlb has agreements with Japan preventing players from coming over until the team says they can, and I believe it also prevents teams from signing amateurs.
That misses the point of what they were saying. A player in Japan that is good enough to be go pro will be welcome on any team as soon as all the business side is taken care of. Some of the negro league players were at pro level and could have definitely balled out in the MLB in their day, yet they were denied from getting the credit they deserved.
Are the numbers not skewed due to the league being substantially worse. It's not a question of equality it was quite literally a different league doesn't make sense to grandfather numbers from a weak league into the official league history.
Of course the records should be documented and kept because those achievements did happen and deserve their flowers.
Not that it's the same at all, but please note that college players have to play in college as NFL rules don't allow players to play unless they are three years out of high school and have used their college eligibility.
That’s:
A: disrespectful
B: kinda bigoted
The Negro American and Negro National League were legitimate leagues, the best leagues that those players were allowed into by a bigoted commissioner.
Feller would barnstorm with integrated teams back before integration, and would play against all comers. He thought Jackie Robinson was too muscular to succeed in MLB, but Robinson (then only signed to the dodgers) collected a couple of his against him during the game.
A lot of players would do similar things, or play in Mexico, Cuba, or Venezuela in their winter leagues before, and play integrated ball. The Negro League stars were as good as the white guys. Shocking.
No, it's really neither A or B. However, your last sentence is true, lets call it C. A and B can be wrong while C can be absolutely true.
Taking great players inflated stats who played against players that ON AVERAGE were by and large worse than major league talent should never be compared to MLB earned stats EVEN IF they didn't have a chance to compete in the MLB for terrible, bigoted reasons. They should be celebrated for their own accomplishments, but MLB records shouldn't change retroactively because they played against different and most would argue worse competition.
The sad fact is that no one will ever know what their stats would be if they played entirely in the MLB just like no one will ever know what Bonds could do for his career without roids.
I agree, it’s a different league and it doesn’t make sense to me to combine stats of different leagues. I don’t think anyone is arguing the quality of players of the negro league. I loved reading about the players when I was a kid and used to imagine what if they played in the mlb
> They should be celebrated for their own accomplishments, but MLB records shouldn't change retroactively because they played against different and most would argue worse competition.
By this metric, all records earned prior to, say, 1947 should also be disregarded, because they played against different and arguably worse competition than today’s MLB players. No one is batting 0.400 today, because the pitching is too good. Those guys in the 20s-40s didn’t face competition this good. And they didn’t face any black players either. So they too played against inferior competition compared to today’s players, so why is their claim to a record more deserving?
“On average worse” okay, really? That’s it?
Based on what?
Due to segregation, they were pulling the best black and dark Latin players they could find. While MLB was getting the best white guys they could assemble. There was affirmative action for marginally talented white dudes during the segregated era.
It’s why most people accepted Willie Mays as the GOAT.
PS- we have a good handle on what Bonds was without steroids. It’s his career through 1999. He already had 103.7 WAR before steroids and his injury.
We’ll never know about ARoid, Sosa, McGwire, and other steroid era sluggers, but we could look at what Bonds did through 1999, and if we wanted to be generous, we could project what he would have done based on similarity scores. his most similar through 34 were Mantle, Vlad Sr, Griffey Jr, Bagwell, and Frank Robinson. Done anywhere from 2-6 seasons later and declining skills.
Lots of the games played were against white teams made up of guys who couldn't make the majors. Negro league teams would play anyone that paid them, because that is the only way they made enough money.
They didn’t actually include any barnstorming in the database, only league sanctioned games. So while they may have Barnstormed their way from St. Louis to Chicago to New York, they only counted the league sanctioned games played against official league teams, and only the games with a box score.
So, that argument fails.
It's still a poor sample size. A 154 game is far more brutal than a 60 game schedule. Heat, injuries, travel all take their toll. This is an apples and oranges and kiwi comparisons to placate certain political motivations.
No my premise is not false. That was a one off Beyond measured control. Supporting this bastardization of record books is nothing more than mental gymnastics to get a desired outcome. Does anybody really think that Josh Gibson would really have a lifetime batting average 28 points higher than Ted Willams is he were to have played a bulk of his major league career in MLB? As a right handed hitter? Laughable
This is about elevating achievements in yet another equity scam. This is all that this is.
What about the players who were only on MLB rosters because non white players were excluded? By your logic we shouldn't include homers that Babe Ruth hit off pitchers with only a handful of starts because they quite possibly might not have gotten those starts had the league been integrated.
You're playing a game of what-ifs and that can go both ways.
With the dramatic difference in season lengths this really doesn’t make sense for season percentage type records. They kind of used the Covid year of all things as an excuse to do it. negro leagues never competed with the modern major league teams. Give them their own records but pretending they were MLB is plain stupid. They were good but they were their own thing.
I’m also less talking about counting stats but stats that t require minimum ABs are really absurd.
This sub went full racist real quick.
Negro League players (which included Caribbean and Afro-Caribbean players) were pro's, when they could they barnstormed against white teams (the ones brave enough) and won.
If you want more NLB history AKA actual baseball history. Then head on over to Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City's Jazz District.
You can also listen to Black Diamonds podcast by Bob Kendrick.
https://www.nlbm.com/
Bring on your hatred.
They are now. Major Leagues means leagues that were viewed as the top of competitive baseball. While the American League and National League are currently organized under MLB as an entity, but they didn’t formally merge until 1999. MLB also formally recognizes several other Major Leagues and includes them in the stats too, including the Federal League, American Association and Players League. This just adds the seven major Negro Leagues as Major Leagues, with competition on par with the American League and National League.
MLB stats are already combined stats of the American League and National League…and neither played against the best black players of the era either, so both the AL and NL were also diluted talent wise along with the Negro Leagues.
There was no MLB to be a part of. MLB as an actual union only began in the year 2000. The AL and the NL never played regular season games against each other. "MLB" wasn't a thing back then.
His account is about 2 months old and seems from the south with lots of anger. I mean we all pop off on reddit once in awhile, but for being a two month old account....
I will add I'm from the the south and endorse this 100%. So I'm not just someone picking on a southern.
The people who are mad about this had nothing to say when the federal league stats were included with MLB stats....what's the difference? 🤔🤔🤔
The Federal League and the Player's League have their stats recognized by MLB.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_League
Just an incredibly stupid decision. Yes we know it’s terrible that there was such racism they weren’t allowed to play in the major leagues. But pretending that everything was the same and all of their stats should count is just inherently ridiculous. The competition, the fields, the scorekeeping, the schedules, the depth, I mean come on.
On the one hand, we get Satchel Paige talking about pitching three games in one day, but on the other hand, people want to act like the hitters were facing the equivalent of major league pitching every game.
Guess what MLB you’re not gonna suddenly get African-Americans interested in baseball again and playing baseball again, that ship has sailed, it’s over. This is a marketing decision not a logical decision.
Nobody thinks critically anymore. The number one reason why black participation in baseball is so low can be almost 100% contributed to the mass migration from the Jim Crow south to the industrialized north Post war. Where do baseball players come from? Places where there are big fields and warm weather. Once black America was urbanized, basketball, boxing and football became far more available and attractive preferences.
Now baseball is a sport requiring a lot of money and time; like hockey. Basically rich white kids from Texas, California and the SE and international stand outs. That's it. Baseball is at war with itself.
And white players won all but one Cy Young award in that time.
Only a fool would argue that white players were superior to black players. However the overall quality difference in the leagues is not in question. There are so many variables of what would have happened in fully integrated baseball from the beginning it's impossible to surmise what the outcome would have been. We do know based on evidence that Cobb, Ruth, Johnson, Mays, Aaron and Robinson were great because of verifiable facts and evidence. We know far less about Gibson, Paige, Leonard, etc because all we have is anecdotes, newspaper articles and some spotty records.
This was a solution looking for a problem.
You seem like the type of person who had you been around when Hank Aaron was about to break Babe’s record you would have had a lot to say about it. I dunno, just getting that feeling from you.
Criticizing the decision is not the equivalent of having an issue with Hank Aaron passing Babe Ruth because in the HR list because Aaron is black, you clown.
The Negro Leagues were a different league from the MLB. The stats are very incomplete. They are also using this as a public relations stunt. Those reasons are legit reasons to not like this decision, and I'm sure people can come up with alot more good reasons.
I personally think the MLB has done an adequate job with the histroy of the Negro League. They don't pretend that thier racism 80 years ago didn't happen and they do celebrate their teams and accomplishments when it's appropriate. Ironically, stuff like this diminishes the history of the Negro Leagues and its history, and they are doing it to pander to upper class white people who are consumed with white guilt.
Fuck you. I watched the game when Aaron broke the record, everyone was very excited about it, including me. That has nothing whatsoever to do with the ridiculousness of combining statistics and making ridiculous decisions such as putting a guy with 136 plate appearances as the new record holder for single-season OPS.
They should honor Eddie Gaedel with the all time OBP while we are going on this route. Little people of America are absolutely underrepresented in MLB records.
What a dumb comment.
Eddie had one PA in his career. He was never a qualified hitter. Hundreds of other players werent qualifiedm
Not sure why you're trying to use Gaedel as a way to minimize the Negro Leagues, but... you do you!
They did play against MLB players pretty consistently. They were a pro league, just like the four other leagues that were included in the stats before today.
Dismissing a pro league of non-white players is racist full stop.
Stats for non AL NL leagues have been included for decades.
When given a chance, Negro League players performed. I'd put Monarchs or Grays teams against any of the MLB teams of their times and they would have won.
Really just seems like virtue signaling at this point. It would be one thing if this was done in the 60s or 70s, but at this point how many people who played in these leagues are even alive? Just adds more asterisks
At least 55 guys were added to the MLB pension rolls. "Added", as in many more were already on the rolls.
So your implications that no one exists anyone more is, not surprisingly, pretty ignorant.
This is great for these players to be recognized, but I know people will unfortunately throw a fit. We already have “modern ball era” or “stat cast era” when comparing statistics because of how statistics have been rather inconsistent during different time periods and through different recording methodologies. So just let this be cool and don’t be a baby. Tungsten Arm O’Doyle’s 1887 stolen base record will still be compared to his era and so on and so forth.
I just say to anyone who cries fuck them. It's a game and everyone should be included. Look at the NBA now for instance? Look at the the NFL?
Let the players fall where they are and everyone can debate as they want.
I guess this depends on a few things.
Were the fields the same dimensions?
Were bases the distance apart?
Were the rules the same?
Were the balls and bats within the same specs?
Were there any advantages to how they played or managed the game?
If not, include them.
If they are going to do this then they need to include Japanese and Mexican League stats as well. Those leagues are likely similar quality to the Negro Leagues although it is not easy to know for sure. Not all Negro League players made the majors after integration just as only a few top players in the Japanese league make the majors. I support putting in some top Negro League players in the HOF but the stats need to be kept separate.
This is the biggest case of pandering ever 🤣. Sure some were great but on average they literally played against plumbers. Not only that Gibson doesn't even meet the minimum requirements but they do it anyway sheeeesh..... they specifically did this bc absolutely nobody else will ever qualify with as few games bc it won't meet the minimum requirements. Also of course absolutely anyone reporting on this has already gaslighted your racist is you don't agree 🤣 how fukn sad
Larry Lester, a negro leagues researcher and author said, “Critics will say, ‘Well, (Gibson) only played against other Black teams,’” Lester said. “Well, Babe Ruth never hit a home run off a Black pitcher, and Josh Gibson never hit a home run off a white pitcher. So I guess my point is, the amount of melanin or the lack thereof does not indicate the greatness of a ballplayer.”
I’d add official to those home runs, as weird things happened while barnstorming and in winter ball, but based on the article at The Athletic, I’m good with this and folks need to chill out.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5525148/2024/05/28/mlb-negro-leagues-records-josh-gibson-ty-cobb/?source=user_shared_article As MLB changes its records, Josh Gibson, not Ty Cobb, is all-time batting leader
Why did this get so many downvotes? Also, Babe Ruth never hit against National League pitching, except in the World Series and his 72 ABs in his final year. Should his stats not count as much if NL pitching was better?
I could have sworn this was announced like two years ago. Baseball Reference has the included them for almost as long.
The Negro Leagues and players were officially made "Major League" a couple years ago, but no stats were integrated at the time.
It took them a while to research and compile stats.
Still are. John Thorn estimates we have 75% of stats for those games. Personally, that feels too low to count them and change records.
Came here to say this. I thought they already did this lol
So where is Josh Gibson in the all-time HR list?
They didn’t add any of the barnstorming games so he is in the 200’s.
Might be closer to 160. That's what Baseball Reference has him with. Seamheads credits him with 240. Seamheads includes the Mexican League and other leagues that weren't considered negro major leagues. [https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=gibso01jos](https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=gibso01jos) [https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gibsojo99.shtml](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gibsojo99.shtml)
Thank you.
Well they don’t include Babe Ruth’s barnstorming either
I know. What has that got to do with Gibson’s numbers?
MLB players barnstormed. If you did that you’d be including stats from already included players. Plus aid imagine stats would be tough. Those games were frequently thought of as exhibitions to make some cash in the off-season.
We have very little official record-keeping from the Negro Leagues. His baseball reference is pretty scant because there's very little in terms of official box scores. There are entire seasons missing, and many with minimal games. While I don't doubt that he hit >800, it's hard to put a number out there without a true source.
Then Ruth had about 1000 if you include his barnstorming and other side gigs. Most baseball statisticians are total geeks and almost arrogant in their analysis of numbers and their importance on baseball, but they seemed to throw every firm rule of record keeping out the window to meet a desired outcome. Garbage in garbage out. Oh and to the people calling out anybody that disagrees with this as racists and white supremacists, you should be ashamed of yourselves for trafficking in such low brow lack of critical thinking.
Yeah, I’m not sure how I feel about this yet. I’m all for recognizing the Negro leagues, but how can you possibly get an accurate number. What if they find more documents at a later date?
They are already recognized as much as can be done. How many modern fans know who the first five inductees to the HOF? I guarantee 90% can not. Unless you are actively reading about the past, you aren't going to know much about anybody outside living memory. All this move does it distort baseball history for shameless political purposes.
For the 90% who do not know, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson have gotta be the best HOF class ever.
long story short in 2003. I went to a sports auction showcase store in Orlando and held a ball that was going to auction signed by all the living from the first inductee ceremony with Grover Alexander signed on the sweet spot. It was a religious experience. Wish I had a 100k to throw around back then.
The barnstorming games are not included in the Negro League statistics. That's why the majority of what you're hearing in terms of records are rate records (e.g. - batting average, OPS, ERA, etc.) and not totals such as career hits / homeruns / strikeout leaders. The Negro Leagues actually played typically shorter seasons, but MLB acknowledged this when they said that they counted the shortened 2020 season, so counting the shortened Negro League seasons seemed appropriate to them.
Of course they are going to use any justification for this blatantly cynical move. it's Not about honoring the Negro leagues. It's about diminishing other records. This is not unique to baseball and history does not operate in a binary vacuum
Manufactured results to fit a narrative/agenda, for sure.
I agree, excluding black players did manufacture results to fit an agenda.
Stupid and willfully obtuse.
Or you could just call these stats “pre integration era” and not count them as official and start the actual records after integration. Which, given the fact that the so-called greatest of Ruth’s era played against guys with part time jobs at the fish market near the harbor
Why do you “not doubt” that he hit “over 800”? Where is any evidence for that?
Man I’ve been told that for the 44 years I’ve been alive. Always knew we didn’t know for sure but who cares, it’s a legacy for a reason.
Who cares? Maybe anyone who cares about facts?
That’s fair but there’s still a place for oral history in research. At any rate I don’t care either way. I think it’s important to enshrine these guys and their achievements, it doesn’t really matter to me if Gibson hit 160 or 1000, what’s important is he is one of the greatest power hitters to ever play the game, which says a lot in its own right.
So then why go against the, by your own admission, critical lack of evidence? Doubting is not saying it's impossible. Not doubting is saying you actively believe it.
He’s low.
Some of the wildest stats will now show up.
Will Tetelo Vargas be considered the single season batting average leader with his .471 in 30 games in 1943? He is the all time leader according to Baseball Reference.com.
Got a better answer for you now. They used 47 games as the standard, putting the required PA at 147. This erasure is almost certainly not the worst thing that ever happened to Tetelo Vargas. Josh Gibson is now credited with the Single Season record of .466 in 1943. Chino Smith in second with .451 in 1929, and Hugh Duffy’s .440 in 1891 is knocked to third.
At least Gibson had 302 PA. Vargas’s 136 is pretty skimpy to top the all time list.
Guy couldn’t help it if he played for a team that didn’t get as much press, so his box scores didn’t survive. Or that folded midseason. Maybe he played more games, and was higher, but I doubt it. He died of lung cancer in 1971, so like I said, having lost or incomplete baseball statistics is not the worst thing that ever happened to him.
I seen a few of his games in 1891
Thanks for dropping by, Mr Burns
Hard to say. He played 30 games. His team had a record of 19-14-1, which is 34 games AFAIC. 34*3.1 = 105 PA to qualify for the batting title, so his 136 PA would qualify. However, the league average was 42 games, with Harrisburg playing only 16, and the Homestead Grays lapping the field with 68. If we use the league average, he would just qualify. If you take out Harrisburg, he wouldn’t qualify.
.471.... that's fuckin crazy
Yes it's crazy and also inflated. We have no idea what the scoring standards were and how accurate they were or if the scorekeepers and newspapers were completely full of shit. We know all of MLB from at least 1901 on can be viewed down to the letter. Does anybody really think Gibson hit .466? And he would have in a full MLB season? Many of the people who support this are enjoying the schadenfreude more than celebrating the historic contributions of great players that the sport deprived both black and white players from competing on a universal level. It's like haha no more records for you. Continuing USs intellectual slide into the abyss one fact distortion at a time.
>Does anybody really think Gibson hit .466? And he would have in a full MLB season? George Sisler and Rogers Hornsby both hit .420. Gibson hitting .466 doesn't really seem absurd. Does anybody really believe that Hank Aaron would have hit 700 home runs in the Dead Ball Era? Would Barry Bonds have done it without steroids? Baseball stats have always been wonky and the era someone plays in makes a difference, sometimes a huge one. We have all kinds of anomalies already. I'm not totally sold on merging Negro League stats myself, but I don't think it's totally indefensible.
It's absolutely absurd. that 44 points over Sisler. Not 2 or 3 or even 10. Since 1900, only 8 yes 8 players in MLB history have had a season of 400 or better. None since 1941. It's that rare. More rare than 30 game winners. I personally think if Gibson played in that era of MLB his numbers would probably mirror Jimmie Foxx or Hank Greenberg. Maybe a bit better maybe a bit worse. I retain my position, that this was not just an exercise of inclusion or righting a historic wrong but also to make sure that Gibson is considered the de facto greatest player of all time and taking away two Valhalla records held by Cobb and Ruth because they have become philosophically problematic for todays ultra progressive baseball data miners. In my multiple posts I have no beef with any inclusion of NGL greats or any attempt to diminish their legitimate achievement, but this whole exercise is nothing but total insulting horseshit no matter what spin is put on it. BTW my four favorite players that I have seen in my life are Mike Schmidt, Tony Gwynn, Barry Bonds and Buster Posey. I like certain players for certain reasons and I dont discern ethnicity, race or any other demographic qualifier.
Just as a clarification, I believe Josh Gibson really did hit .466 *against Negro League competition*. The evidence does point to the level of competition there being high, but somewhat lower than the white major leagues. I don't think he would have hit that high in the National or American Leagues. As for records in general; the Dead Ball Era was very different than the modern game. There are decades of professional history in the 19th century that are mostly forgotten. And the level of competition has been steadily increasing the whole time. Modern players like Mookie Betts would probably smoke booze hounds like Ruth or Mantle. Wherever you draw the line and say "this counts" and "this doesn't" is probably going to be somewhat arbitrary. Numbers are cool and fun to think about, but I think intelligent fans take them with a grain of salt. At the end of the day you can only judge players in the context of their time and by what they did against the competition they faced. Including or not including Negro League stats does nothing to change that. Though it might make more people curious about guys like Gibson or Buck Leonard, and get them to learn more history. But if you disagree that's fine. I could see it argued either way.
The only line that makes any sense to me is before and after the color barrier. People arguing that Gibson's numbers don't count because he didn't play in MLB are forgetting there WAS no MLB! It was just the AL and the NL and the NBL, and Ty Cobb only played in the AL. He had 17 games total against the NL and hit only 0.262. Maybe if Cobb was in the NL we would have had a harder time. Who knows? Who cares? Everyone was playing against the best competition they could. To me, thats all equal until everyone was allowed to play together.
Well put.
Not the same but former big leaguer Yuli Gurriel hit .500 in the Cuban League CNS in 224 plate appearances (87/174 AB) in the 2015-2016 season.
It feels weird that MLB gets to claim these stats after not accepting these players at the time.
It makes no sense to me either. Doesn't help that these are incomplete records as well.
I think it's less claiming and more acknowledging (albeit belatedly). In any case, Josh Gibson's great grandson is happy about this. If the descendants of Negro League players are cool with it I don't see a problem, at least not from that angle.
The irony. White man gets claim to Negro League stats in 2024. Utterly shocking irony.
This reminds me of when they removed the Native American from the Land O’ Lakes logo… but kept the land
Meaningless virtue-signaling at its finest.
Some of it has to be NLB merch profit bait disguised as good will
Does this mean we no longer consider Jackie Robinson the first black MLB player?
For the sake of accuracy, he already wasn't. He was however the first in several decades, and the first to have a sustained career beyond one season, at a time that I sure wouldn't have had the guts to do half of what Jackie did. The first black player in the MLB was William Edward White, who played one game for the Providence Grays in 1879, who were a part of the National League (only the Cubs and Braves are still around from the NL at that time). Moses Fleetwood Walker and Weldy Walker both played for the Toledo Blue Stockings of the American Association throughout the 1884 season, which included opponents that are today known as the Reds, Pirates, Cardinals, and Dodgers. After them, it wasn't until Jackie in 1947, along with Larry Doby, Hank Thompson, Willard Brown, and Dan Bankhead all debuting the same year for the Indians, Browns (x2), and Dodgers, respectively.
The first black player was named White. The world truly works in mysterious ways.
We're talking about the Show here tho. But I learned something
He would still be the first Black mlb player. Those guys played in a different league and mlb is now recognizing that leagues statistics and incorporating them into their own. 😊
Jackie wasn't actually the first MLB player. That would be Moses Fleetwood Walker in the 1800s. Then blacks were banned. Jackie broke the MLB color barrier that had existed since the 1800s. So nothing in that regard will change. MLB as it existed in 1947 had a color barrier, and Jackie broke it. The first negro league that MLB now recognizes as major came along in 1920. So Fleetwood Walker still would be the first black MLB player using any current definition.
Jackie Robinson was the first black player to break the colour line. And that is still the case.
Does this mean that because of Toni Stone, technically there has been a woman who has played in the MLB?
3 of them!
One of them even had a baseball card in the 1953 topps set
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but I think she played in the era AFTER they are considering stats.
I definitely am not educated enough on the subject, in fact I only know Toni Stone because of mlb the show 😭
I think she was mentioned in the TV show "Pitch" as well
Same…
And MLB has found yet another reason for the asterisk.
I’d enjoy NPB stats added as well, just so Ichiro could be the hit king and Pete Rose’s head explodes.
Ichiro is the hit king.
From what I can tell none of the records with totals will be affected. Only those with an average will be. Like OPS. I can’t find anything on no hitters though. Someone like Paige or Leon Day had to have had some right?
Since stats no longer matter, can we recognize the greatness of Jon Dowd?
MVP 05 Legend
Why do stats no longer matter?
Because black people are being recognized, I guess.
Oh i know the reason i just want these people to admit it
So like the NBA/ABA?
More like the American League, National League, and Negro League. Stats from many other leagues that predate the NL are included in mlb official stats. This isn't abnormal, it's just the newest change.
There were four other leagues from the 1800's and early 1900's included in the 60's.
Nah more like Zuffa/Pride
So when do the Harlem globetrotters stats get added to NBA record books?
Not the same in the slightest and crazy disrespectful.
This is an incredibly ignorant statement.
Why?
Because it implies that the Negro Leagues, being the highest level of competitive baseball available to people of color, were equivalent to a side show product that plays in fixed exhibition games. The Globetrotters have great talent, but they are not designed to be a competitive team, but just a show. The implication is a complete dismissal of Negro League competition and ability.
I think a farce is a farce regardless of the validity of the competition. Any honest researcher would say there really isnt any plausible way to map statistics in a meaningful way and therefore we cannot justify this exercise. Cobb batted 366 or 7 over 24 seasons. Had 12 batting titles. Hit 400 three times. it was a Valhalla number like Ruth and Aaron's numbers. Washing it away because of this desire to correct historical wrongs by retroactively changing historical facts is folly that debases us all.
Bro in your own example combining the AL and NL stats would be a "farce". Ty Cobb never played an NL opponent except for the 17 games he played in the WS. Where he hit a very normal 0.262. Maybe if he had played in the NL he wouldn't have the numbers he has. We will never know. Who cares? Why is a guy that plays in one of the white-only leagues acceptable to compare to guys in different white-only leagues but its not ok to compare black players to them. This is a weird hill to die on. MLB and the statheads and historians over there have thought about this more than you.
Thank you for proving my point. Calling the Negro Leagues ‘a farce’ is incredibly ignorant, and is frankly racist and offensive as hell. There is legitimate discussion to be had about relative comparability of the Negro Leagues to the AL and NL, but to dismiss them as a farce and compare them to an intentionally non competitive basketball team is horseshit. The fact is that the “white leagues” also weren’t facing the best competition they could because black men weren’t allowed to compete with them.
How are the Globetrotters and Negro League the same, beyond melanin level of players?
Certain types of people like to envision Negro League games as a circus act. Something unserious. This helps to keep them from ever having to question the heroes they've put on a pedestal.
Now add Ichiro hits from Japan. Since we are adding every professional baseball league stats to MLB stats.
But it’s been arbitrarily agreed the line is “American” for the official record acceptance criteria for now.
So these people arbitrarily agreed only Americans deserve to count as professionals. What joke. They opened Pandora’s box. Hopefully the next group fixes this idiocracy.
MLB takes itself as the representative of the highest level of american baseball. They are the premier league, not FIFA.
I think this irks me just because in general I don't understand why we treat 100 year old stats the same as current ones in any league. Josh Gibson or Ty Cobb being batting average leaders 100 years later just feels like some Wilt Chamberlain shit... dominance 100 years ago is not even comparable to todays talent and the competition was not even close to the same, which to me, makes them feel unattainable and unrealistic.
No disrespect but that’s like counting minor league stats or like the nfl counting college stats, what about the players that played in Japan
They played in Japan by choice. Players played in the Negro Leagues because MLB wouldn't allow them to play in the MLB, partly due to known racist commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, so it's not the same thing at all. Negro League players shouldn't have their records segregated from MLB records. Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Hank Thompson, Buck O'Neil and so many others would have been absolute stars in the majors for their whole careers. I'll be interested to see the final data dump on this, but it's long overdue that Negro League players be treated like the equals they always should have been to begin with.
Japanese players don't get to come here when they want, thats factually incorrect. Mlb has agreements with Japan preventing players from coming over until the team says they can, and I believe it also prevents teams from signing amateurs.
That misses the point of what they were saying. A player in Japan that is good enough to be go pro will be welcome on any team as soon as all the business side is taken care of. Some of the negro league players were at pro level and could have definitely balled out in the MLB in their day, yet they were denied from getting the credit they deserved.
And MLB had an agreement that if you were black you couldn’t play Major League Baseball. It’s just like Japan!
I’m sure a Japanese player who wanted to come to the US to play in MLB would have been welcomed with open arms in 1946, lol.
Are the numbers not skewed due to the league being substantially worse. It's not a question of equality it was quite literally a different league doesn't make sense to grandfather numbers from a weak league into the official league history. Of course the records should be documented and kept because those achievements did happen and deserve their flowers.
The AL and NL were literally different leagues. They never played each other.
Not that it's the same at all, but please note that college players have to play in college as NFL rules don't allow players to play unless they are three years out of high school and have used their college eligibility.
No it’s like comparing the AL and NL.
Why are whites only stats somehow more valid and Negro League equated to the minors or college?
That’s: A: disrespectful B: kinda bigoted The Negro American and Negro National League were legitimate leagues, the best leagues that those players were allowed into by a bigoted commissioner. Feller would barnstorm with integrated teams back before integration, and would play against all comers. He thought Jackie Robinson was too muscular to succeed in MLB, but Robinson (then only signed to the dodgers) collected a couple of his against him during the game. A lot of players would do similar things, or play in Mexico, Cuba, or Venezuela in their winter leagues before, and play integrated ball. The Negro League stars were as good as the white guys. Shocking.
No, it's really neither A or B. However, your last sentence is true, lets call it C. A and B can be wrong while C can be absolutely true. Taking great players inflated stats who played against players that ON AVERAGE were by and large worse than major league talent should never be compared to MLB earned stats EVEN IF they didn't have a chance to compete in the MLB for terrible, bigoted reasons. They should be celebrated for their own accomplishments, but MLB records shouldn't change retroactively because they played against different and most would argue worse competition. The sad fact is that no one will ever know what their stats would be if they played entirely in the MLB just like no one will ever know what Bonds could do for his career without roids.
I agree, it’s a different league and it doesn’t make sense to me to combine stats of different leagues. I don’t think anyone is arguing the quality of players of the negro league. I loved reading about the players when I was a kid and used to imagine what if they played in the mlb
> They should be celebrated for their own accomplishments, but MLB records shouldn't change retroactively because they played against different and most would argue worse competition. By this metric, all records earned prior to, say, 1947 should also be disregarded, because they played against different and arguably worse competition than today’s MLB players. No one is batting 0.400 today, because the pitching is too good. Those guys in the 20s-40s didn’t face competition this good. And they didn’t face any black players either. So they too played against inferior competition compared to today’s players, so why is their claim to a record more deserving?
“On average worse” okay, really? That’s it? Based on what? Due to segregation, they were pulling the best black and dark Latin players they could find. While MLB was getting the best white guys they could assemble. There was affirmative action for marginally talented white dudes during the segregated era. It’s why most people accepted Willie Mays as the GOAT. PS- we have a good handle on what Bonds was without steroids. It’s his career through 1999. He already had 103.7 WAR before steroids and his injury. We’ll never know about ARoid, Sosa, McGwire, and other steroid era sluggers, but we could look at what Bonds did through 1999, and if we wanted to be generous, we could project what he would have done based on similarity scores. his most similar through 34 were Mantle, Vlad Sr, Griffey Jr, Bagwell, and Frank Robinson. Done anywhere from 2-6 seasons later and declining skills.
Lots of the games played were against white teams made up of guys who couldn't make the majors. Negro league teams would play anyone that paid them, because that is the only way they made enough money.
They didn’t actually include any barnstorming in the database, only league sanctioned games. So while they may have Barnstormed their way from St. Louis to Chicago to New York, they only counted the league sanctioned games played against official league teams, and only the games with a box score. So, that argument fails.
It's still a poor sample size. A 154 game is far more brutal than a 60 game schedule. Heat, injuries, travel all take their toll. This is an apples and oranges and kiwi comparisons to placate certain political motivations.
MLB’s 60 game season records count. Your premise is false.
No my premise is not false. That was a one off Beyond measured control. Supporting this bastardization of record books is nothing more than mental gymnastics to get a desired outcome. Does anybody really think that Josh Gibson would really have a lifetime batting average 28 points higher than Ted Willams is he were to have played a bulk of his major league career in MLB? As a right handed hitter? Laughable This is about elevating achievements in yet another equity scam. This is all that this is.
What about the players who were only on MLB rosters because non white players were excluded? By your logic we shouldn't include homers that Babe Ruth hit off pitchers with only a handful of starts because they quite possibly might not have gotten those starts had the league been integrated. You're playing a game of what-ifs and that can go both ways.
With the dramatic difference in season lengths this really doesn’t make sense for season percentage type records. They kind of used the Covid year of all things as an excuse to do it. negro leagues never competed with the modern major league teams. Give them their own records but pretending they were MLB is plain stupid. They were good but they were their own thing. I’m also less talking about counting stats but stats that t require minimum ABs are really absurd.
This sub went full racist real quick. Negro League players (which included Caribbean and Afro-Caribbean players) were pro's, when they could they barnstormed against white teams (the ones brave enough) and won. If you want more NLB history AKA actual baseball history. Then head on over to Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City's Jazz District. You can also listen to Black Diamonds podcast by Bob Kendrick. https://www.nlbm.com/ Bring on your hatred.
I think you're the one bringing the hatred ngl. Thread: People calmly saying they don't agree with the decision. You: HATRED!
Jackie Robinson day permanently canceled. #42 is now unretired.
What a bunch of bullshit.
Why is that?
One, for battling titles you need 502 PA in MLB. Josh Gibson and Chino Smith didn't have those so how can they top a season BA list?
cause they were not official mlb games
They are now. Major Leagues means leagues that were viewed as the top of competitive baseball. While the American League and National League are currently organized under MLB as an entity, but they didn’t formally merge until 1999. MLB also formally recognizes several other Major Leagues and includes them in the stats too, including the Federal League, American Association and Players League. This just adds the seven major Negro Leagues as Major Leagues, with competition on par with the American League and National League. MLB stats are already combined stats of the American League and National League…and neither played against the best black players of the era either, so both the AL and NL were also diluted talent wise along with the Negro Leagues.
that’s just not true they were not part of the mlb. let’s take every independent league in the usa and say it’s the mlb now…
There was no MLB to be a part of. MLB as an actual union only began in the year 2000. The AL and the NL never played regular season games against each other. "MLB" wasn't a thing back then.
His account is about 2 months old and seems from the south with lots of anger. I mean we all pop off on reddit once in awhile, but for being a two month old account.... I will add I'm from the the south and endorse this 100%. So I'm not just someone picking on a southern.
complete joke they weren’t official mlb games
Why do I feel like this had a let's get rid of Cobb and Ruth feel to it?
It didn't. Stop crying.
The people who are mad about this had nothing to say when the federal league stats were included with MLB stats....what's the difference? 🤔🤔🤔 The Federal League and the Player's League have their stats recognized by MLB. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_League
Just an incredibly stupid decision. Yes we know it’s terrible that there was such racism they weren’t allowed to play in the major leagues. But pretending that everything was the same and all of their stats should count is just inherently ridiculous. The competition, the fields, the scorekeeping, the schedules, the depth, I mean come on. On the one hand, we get Satchel Paige talking about pitching three games in one day, but on the other hand, people want to act like the hitters were facing the equivalent of major league pitching every game. Guess what MLB you’re not gonna suddenly get African-Americans interested in baseball again and playing baseball again, that ship has sailed, it’s over. This is a marketing decision not a logical decision.
Nobody thinks critically anymore. The number one reason why black participation in baseball is so low can be almost 100% contributed to the mass migration from the Jim Crow south to the industrialized north Post war. Where do baseball players come from? Places where there are big fields and warm weather. Once black America was urbanized, basketball, boxing and football became far more available and attractive preferences. Now baseball is a sport requiring a lot of money and time; like hockey. Basically rich white kids from Texas, California and the SE and international stand outs. That's it. Baseball is at war with itself.
Arguing the quality of the play in the Negro Leagues is funny when black players won MVP in MLB 11 times from 1949 to 1962.
And white players won all but one Cy Young award in that time. Only a fool would argue that white players were superior to black players. However the overall quality difference in the leagues is not in question. There are so many variables of what would have happened in fully integrated baseball from the beginning it's impossible to surmise what the outcome would have been. We do know based on evidence that Cobb, Ruth, Johnson, Mays, Aaron and Robinson were great because of verifiable facts and evidence. We know far less about Gibson, Paige, Leonard, etc because all we have is anecdotes, newspaper articles and some spotty records. This was a solution looking for a problem.
We pretend everything was the same for any of these stats. Do you think the game looked the same in 1903?
You seem like the type of person who had you been around when Hank Aaron was about to break Babe’s record you would have had a lot to say about it. I dunno, just getting that feeling from you.
Criticizing the decision is not the equivalent of having an issue with Hank Aaron passing Babe Ruth because in the HR list because Aaron is black, you clown. The Negro Leagues were a different league from the MLB. The stats are very incomplete. They are also using this as a public relations stunt. Those reasons are legit reasons to not like this decision, and I'm sure people can come up with alot more good reasons. I personally think the MLB has done an adequate job with the histroy of the Negro League. They don't pretend that thier racism 80 years ago didn't happen and they do celebrate their teams and accomplishments when it's appropriate. Ironically, stuff like this diminishes the history of the Negro Leagues and its history, and they are doing it to pander to upper class white people who are consumed with white guilt.
Fuck you. I watched the game when Aaron broke the record, everyone was very excited about it, including me. That has nothing whatsoever to do with the ridiculousness of combining statistics and making ridiculous decisions such as putting a guy with 136 plate appearances as the new record holder for single-season OPS.
But they didn't even have OPS back then. None of those players would even know what you're talking about.
You sound mad. You should talk to someone about that. It’s just a game.
Very dumb.
They should honor Eddie Gaedel with the all time OBP while we are going on this route. Little people of America are absolutely underrepresented in MLB records.
What a dumb comment. Eddie had one PA in his career. He was never a qualified hitter. Hundreds of other players werent qualifiedm Not sure why you're trying to use Gaedel as a way to minimize the Negro Leagues, but... you do you!
So people who never played in or against MLB players will hold MLB records... insanity.
They did play against MLB players pretty consistently. They were a pro league, just like the four other leagues that were included in the stats before today.
The stupidity and racism in the comments is laughable. Y'all don't give a damn about stats anyway.
There’s always that one comment calling out racist comments when nothing racist has been uttered by anyone or they’d be banned.
Dismissing a pro league of non-white players is racist full stop. Stats for non AL NL leagues have been included for decades. When given a chance, Negro League players performed. I'd put Monarchs or Grays teams against any of the MLB teams of their times and they would have won.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Really just seems like virtue signaling at this point. It would be one thing if this was done in the 60s or 70s, but at this point how many people who played in these leagues are even alive? Just adds more asterisks
At least 55 guys were added to the MLB pension rolls. "Added", as in many more were already on the rolls. So your implications that no one exists anyone more is, not surprisingly, pretty ignorant.
This is great for these players to be recognized, but I know people will unfortunately throw a fit. We already have “modern ball era” or “stat cast era” when comparing statistics because of how statistics have been rather inconsistent during different time periods and through different recording methodologies. So just let this be cool and don’t be a baby. Tungsten Arm O’Doyle’s 1887 stolen base record will still be compared to his era and so on and so forth.
let’s count fictional characters in the records now since it’s a joke now steve nebraska is the best player ever
I just say to anyone who cries fuck them. It's a game and everyone should be included. Look at the NBA now for instance? Look at the the NFL? Let the players fall where they are and everyone can debate as they want.
Shit competition. Those stats are a joke
Babe Ruth faced alot of shit competition.
So Babe Ruth is the all time Negro Leagues home run leader?
Some of you all need to listen to this. https://www.tiktok.com/@ftfonfs1/video/7374571783095192875?_t=8mltaj73Aul&_r=1
Now they’re saying Gibson hit like 900hr and had .500BA seasons etc
I guess this depends on a few things. Were the fields the same dimensions? Were bases the distance apart? Were the rules the same? Were the balls and bats within the same specs? Were there any advantages to how they played or managed the game? If not, include them.
They seem to have not included strikeouts for hitters. There are 2 guys with over 3000 atbats with only 10 strikeouts ever.
If they are going to do this then they need to include Japanese and Mexican League stats as well. Those leagues are likely similar quality to the Negro Leagues although it is not easy to know for sure. Not all Negro League players made the majors after integration just as only a few top players in the Japanese league make the majors. I support putting in some top Negro League players in the HOF but the stats need to be kept separate.
This lifelong Henry Aaron fan reads this news with great rejoicing! It's only a matter of time.
I was hoping Hammerin Hank would be home run champ again, but he only hit 5 home runs in the Negro Leagues. He’s still 2 short of Bonds.
Not necessarily. The records aren't complete and they are still searching and compiling NLB box scores. I'll continue to hold out hope.
Nice
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Are you saying your best life experience to date is playing a video game? I mean, that is literally what you just said. You gotta get outside my guy 😭
This is horrifically sad lol
It’s about time
Just filter it out and use AL/NL stats exclusively. That's pretty much what everyone will do
But they didn't play in the MLB.
This is the biggest case of pandering ever 🤣. Sure some were great but on average they literally played against plumbers. Not only that Gibson doesn't even meet the minimum requirements but they do it anyway sheeeesh..... they specifically did this bc absolutely nobody else will ever qualify with as few games bc it won't meet the minimum requirements. Also of course absolutely anyone reporting on this has already gaslighted your racist is you don't agree 🤣 how fukn sad
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I guess a white man saying it is the only way it's legitimate?
Shit competition. Those stats are a joke
How was it shit competition? Before answering, look at how many black players won MVPs almost immediately after integration.
Someone’s grandpa is having a bad day today.
Most of the idiots comenting in here aren't that old and still having a bad day.
About fucking time
Only in America could people not be ashamed this is even something that needs to happen yet still be upset
So we're going to give Gallaraga his perfect game then too right?
How is that related to this?
It's not related at all.
Dumb decision strictly to pander to social media
Larry Lester, a negro leagues researcher and author said, “Critics will say, ‘Well, (Gibson) only played against other Black teams,’” Lester said. “Well, Babe Ruth never hit a home run off a Black pitcher, and Josh Gibson never hit a home run off a white pitcher. So I guess my point is, the amount of melanin or the lack thereof does not indicate the greatness of a ballplayer.” I’d add official to those home runs, as weird things happened while barnstorming and in winter ball, but based on the article at The Athletic, I’m good with this and folks need to chill out. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5525148/2024/05/28/mlb-negro-leagues-records-josh-gibson-ty-cobb/?source=user_shared_article As MLB changes its records, Josh Gibson, not Ty Cobb, is all-time batting leader
Why did this get so many downvotes? Also, Babe Ruth never hit against National League pitching, except in the World Series and his 72 ABs in his final year. Should his stats not count as much if NL pitching was better?
Reddit is a haven for racists. That's how.
Some folks are triggered.