How do you rate the Negro League greats when discussing the history of baseball?

[z28jd]

I think what a lot of people here say is true and it can be compared to something like picking out players from a specific state now to play against everyone else. They would still have great players, but overall the talent would be lacking.

Everyone has to remember how popular baseball was back then and how small a percentage of the population was able to play in the Negro Leagues. If you right now made a team just of players born in Texas, they would have great players and their All-Star team could beat other MLB teams. But if you tried to put together a 30-team MLB league of just players born in Texas, you would have a lot of guys well below MLB quality. The greats would still be great though, regardless of the league. Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, etc would still be Hall of Famers, not doubt.

I think that's a lot like what integration would have been. I sometimes find it comical when people use that excuse to talk down Babe Ruth. How many Negro League players would be good enough for the majors back then? Let's say 35, while remembering the small size of MLB back then. Half of those players would be in the NL and never face him. Half of that remaining 17-18 would be position players. You have eight players left for eight teams, and how many do you think the Yankees would have? Probably the best available 1-2 guys. Then figure in that how much better would those players be than the guys they were replacing? Probably not a huge difference when you're getting down to about 5-6 guys. You're talking about 20-30 at-bats a season where he's facing slightly better MLB pitchers. Maybe his stats suffer a little, but so would everyone else and he would still be that much better than them.

If you look at it the other way though, those Negro League players would be facing much better players on average, so their stats would suffer more, plus they would still being seeing the best players of their own league.

I think the population size and ability to play ball often gets overlooked. Segregation wasn't just happening in the majors, it was everywhere at the time, and that affected the ability to play ball regularly for some. Think of how many white players got to play college baseball, then they went out to the minors or semi-pro and played during the summer