Negro League Stats included in official MLB records

BillyCoxDodgers3B · #1 06-03-2024, 11:43 AM

I'm not sure how exactly the stats are calculated, but if there is any sort of leeway given as described above, then all non-NL payers obviously deserve to have their numbers similarly padded. Wow, Babe Ruth hit 1500 HRs? Amazing! Where would Babe Didrickson rank among professional baseball's all-time greats?

The only solution that works for me (and I stress, for me because it's clearly not happening) is to leave everything as it was. This is what happened in real life. How hard is that to leave alone? We can hate that it happened, making sure to teach our children that it was wrong and that some of the best to ever play were denied opportunities because of racism. It has to be left separate in order to accurately teach the history of the game/American society and to make it less confusing for future generations. By all means, keep celebrating these players. Keep putting up gravestones for those without one. Honor and respect them all, but accept that there's a historical stain that will always be there and needs to remain in place for the sake of accuracy, and due to that, the leagues are forced to stay segreated. That was life at the time. Would it sound silly to anyone else if every African American, dead or alive, was retroactively given permission to drink from Jim Crow Era water fountains and open access to all the other freedoms they were historically denied?

By all means, the NL stats need to be as accurately recalculated as possible using period data, but they should be limited to official games played. Otherwise, it's as silly and pointless as counting every Babe Ruth exhibition and barnstorming stat.

Topnotchsy · #2 06-03-2024, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

I'm not sure how exactly the stats are calculated, but if there is any sort of leeway given as described above, then all non-NL payers obviously deserve to have their numbers similarly padded. Wow, Babe Ruth hit 1500 HRs? Amazing! Where would Babe Didrickson rank among professional baseball's all-time greats?

The only solution that works for me (and I stress, for me because it's clearly not happening) is to leave everything as it was. This is what happened in real life. How hard is that to leave alone? We can hate that it happened, making sure to teach our children that it was wrong and that some of the best to ever play were denied opportunities because of racism. It has to be left separate in order to accurately teach the history of the game/American society and to make it less confusing for future generations. By all means, keep celebrating these players. Keep putting up gravestones for those without one. Honor and respect them all, but accept that there's a historical stain that will always be there and needs to remain in place for the sake of accuracy, and due to that, the leagues are forced to stay segreated. That was life at the time. Would it sound silly to anyone else if every African American, dead or alive, was retroactively given permission to drink from Jim Crow Era water fountains and open access to all the other freedoms they were historically denied?

By all means, the NL stats need to be as accurately recalculated as possible using period data, but they should be limited to official games played. Otherwise, it's as silly and pointless as counting every Babe Ruth exhibition and barnstorming stat.

Only official games are being counted. But comparing Ruth's barnstorming to Negro League barnstorming is comparing two very different things. The Negro Leagues were forced to barnstorm due to the realities of their existence. Ruth barnstormed to make more money. More importantly, the sheer quantity of games was radically different. The Negro League stars allmost definitely played many more unofficial games than official games. Ruth played a tiny fraction.

I'm not arguing for including unofficial games. Just pointing to a complexity in comparing.

jsfriedm · #3 06-03-2024, 03:40 PM

I think counting Negro League stats as Major League stats is a bad idea for two reasons:

1)It is a superficial way of making people in the present feel better about the past. The reality is that Negro League players were not allowed to play Major League Baseball. That is the whole reason there were Negro Leagues in the first place. Going back and declaring them major leagues now is like retroactively declaring slavery illegal and then saying no one was ever actually enslaved in the United States. Yes they were. You can deal with that fact, but you can't change it.

2)The Negro League stats we have, as many have pointed out, are terribly incomplete and the truth of players' performance is irretrievable. So it doesn't help to pretend that we have the real stats for Paige, Gibson, etc. We don't, and the numbers we do have will never do them justice.

Gorditadogg · #4 06-03-2024, 05:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsfriedm

I think counting Negro League stats as Major League stats is a bad idea for two reasons:

1)It is a superficial way of making people in the present feel better about the past. The reality is that Negro League players were not allowed to play Major League Baseball. That is the whole reason there were Negro Leagues in the first place. Going back and declaring them major leagues now is like retroactively declaring slavery illegal and then saying no one was ever actually enslaved in the United States. Yes they were. You can deal with that fact, but you can't change it.

2)The Negro League stats we have, as many have pointed out, are terribly incomplete and the truth of players' performance is irretrievable. So it doesn't help to pretend that we have the real stats for Paige, Gibson, etc. We don't, and the numbers we do have will never do them justice.

I disagree. I think the project was well-researched over many years, not superficial in any sense, and the purpose was to better inform people of the history of the game. The result of the project was an awareness that the various Negro Leagues were comparable in level of play to the American and National Leagues, and in that sense should be considered major leagues, for purposes of US baseball and its historical stats.

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Peter_Spaeth · #5 06-03-2024, 11:23 PM

Guess it helped this card. Wow.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/375448380819

Bored5000 · #6 06-03-2024, 11:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Guess it helped this card. Wow.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/375448380819

I was watching that one as well. Holders of Josh Gibson's 1976 Shakey's Pizza card look to have hit a windfall as well.

BillyCoxDodgers3B · #7 06-04-2024, 04:57 AM

That's just silly. A card released three decades after a player's passing should not carry such value. I am not a fan of autograph/relic cards, but those make a bit more sense to carry value if issued posthumously. There's (at least supposed to be) something contemporaneous to the player housed within.

I understand that there are players featured in the set for whom this was their first ever card release. To that extent, it makes sense why people would want an example to fill a void. But it's a novelty set, issued in the first wave of the rebirth of card collecting. This wasn't even Gibson's first card. The Toleteros was also a posthumous release, but the value there makes more sense. Why the sudden boom in price for a 1970's issue that was basically created for card collectors? Just because many collectors may not be able to afford the Toleteros, then this card automatically escalates in price?

If I owned the Gibson, sure, I'd admit to a bit of hypocrisy as I was cashing in!

Also, can somebody please enlighten me as to if this set carried more than a nominal value even into the 1990's? I have foggy memories of them being worth next to nothing, but perhaps my mind is playing tricks on me.

Peter_Spaeth · #8 06-04-2024, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bored5000

I was watching that one as well. Holders of Josh Gibson's 1976 Shakey's Pizza card look to have hit a windfall as well.

Who knew?

vintagerookies51 · #9 06-05-2024, 08:55 AM

The only valid point people have here are the possible inaccuracy of stats from the Negro Leagues. Trying to compare this to adding Japan league stats is a joke. That league was across the world. The Negro Leagues would have played in the same league if segregation didn't exist.

Negro League players won something like 10 NL MVPs in their first 13 years they were allowed to play. Maybe the MLB had more depth, but the best Negro Leagues players were always as good as the best MLB players. Can you imagine if players like Willie Mays and Hank Aaron had been whitewashed from history like Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, and Oscar Charleston? IMO this is a great move by the MLB to recognize some of baseball's all-time greats that were partially forgotten about due to past injustices.

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