[mrreality68]

Originally Posted by Mark17

It only makes sense that from 1900 through 1950, there would've been at least one black player who merits inclusion on the list. From what I have read, Josh Gibson was considered perhaps the best, by his peers. I have to have him as my catcher based on that logic.

People want to discount him due to lack of accurate statistics, inferior competition, or whatever. But if he was the best of his contemporaries, and his contemporaries (blacks) as a group, were comparable to other ballplayers, then I don't think the stat thing is enough to exclude him.

Put another way, if we made a list of the top 100 players since 1950, I'll bet about half would be black. I'm thinking, that ratio was probably less, but not by much, during the 1900-1950 era.

So I'm thinking Red nailed it with the first post in this thread, after swapping in Walter.

Here is an interesting article where ESPN ranked the Top Catchers of All time. They have Josh Gibson #2 and Bench #1.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/pag...-catchers-ever

After Reading it I would actually agree that Josh Gibson should be #1 All Time at Catcher