Quote:
Originally Posted by Topnotchsy
You may take the 1800's stats with a grain of salt, but they are included in the baseball record books. And some of those leagues were also roughly at AAA level (not comparing to modern day, just comparing to the other leagues of the time).
The reality is that we've accepted a range of levels as Major Leagues for a very long time. And the elite in the Negro Leagues were clearly as good as the best in the Majors. We have barnstorming games as evidence. And we have the incredible play of the black players who played in the Majors after integration. Jackie won the ROY in 47 and MVP in 49. He wasn't remotely the best player in the Negro Leagues. Campanella won 3 MVP's. But there's a good chance he was no Biz Mackey, and he certainly was no Josh Gibson.
The MLB was diminished in those years because they didn't have the great black players (if the track record since integration is an indication, it's likely 30%-50% of the biggest stars in the game. Arguably those stats shouldn't be counted either along the same line of reasoning.
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This. But it doesn't go far enough.