MLB to integrate Negro League Stats

[metirish]

As MLB changes its records, Josh Gibson, not Ty Cobb, is all-time batting leader

The Athletic

By Tyler Kepner
36m ago
169

It has been an article of faith for nearly a century, as if chiseled onto a tablet by Abner Doubleday himself: The leading hitter in major league history is, and always will be, Tyrus Raymond Cobb.

But history evolves. We know that Doubleday did not, in fact, invent baseball. And as of Wednesday, Josh Gibson will replace Cobb as the leading hitter in the official records of the game. At .372, Gibson’s career batting average eclipses Cobb’s by six points.


Major League Baseball will announce on Wednesday the results of a newly integrated statistical database covering records from Negro Leagues that operated from 1920 to 1948. The formal acceptance of the data comes three-and-a-half years after MLB officially recognized the Negro Leagues as major leagues in December 2020.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/552514 ... ed-article

[kcmets]

Sounds like kind of a dumb idea.

(I did not read the NYT article yet)

[MFS62]

My dad (may he rest in Peace) passed away in 1997 at the age of 90.
He was a baseball fan all his life. He saw them all, including Cobb, Hornsby, Ruth, Gehrig, Williams, Musial, Aaron and Mays.
I once asked him who was the best hitter he ever saw.
Without any hesitation, he said, "Josh Gibson".

Just sayin'.
Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

Unfortunately this change won't give Henry Aaron enough home runs to pass Barry Bonds.

[Edgy MD]

I kinda thought this was done already.

[nymr83]

Unfortunately this change won't give Henry Aaron enough home runs to pass Barry Bonds.

That would have made it all worth it!

[Frayed Knot]

I kinda thought this was done already.

At first they declared that the NNL & NAL were on a par with the AL & NL, separate but equal so to speak.
What they're saying now is that they're no longer separate, even though they clearly were.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Good ol' Charlie Pierce on the inclusion of Negro League stats into the main body of MLB stats, which I'm a little surprised didn't get its own thread (till just now). My favorite line is the one about federal matching funds.

I am a complete agnostic on the ongoing religious war among baseball savants between the old-school types and the modern figure filberts. As long as I can still sit in Fenway on a cool summer evening with a dog and a cold one, even though I now have to apply for federal matching funds to afford it, I couldn’t care less what some rookie shortstop’s WAR is. Tell me that it’s significant in evaluating him and I’ll accept it, but you can’t make me give a damn. I’m still busy being furious that current management squandered Mookie Betts. Anyway, Major League Baseball did a good thing this week. It allowed the incorporation of the statistics from the Negro Leagues into the formal MLB record book. This has necessitated some adjustments in the historical record. From MLB.com:

[***]

Oh, how that must stick in the craw of that vicious old Confederate [Ty Cobb]. Gibson also knocked Babe Ruth out of the top spot in career slugging percentage.

I hope baseball takes the logical next step and applies an asterisk to every record set between 1883, when Cap Anson threatened to pull his Chicago team out of scheduled games if any Black players were allowed to take the field, and April 15, 1947, when Jackie Robinson took his first swings in a Major League ballpark. Sorry, Hack Wilson. Fair is fair.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/p ... e-funding/

[Edgy MD]

Sticking with the saw that Ty Cobb was the embodiment of racism is bad enough, but calling him "the old Confederate" is more than a bit unfair, as Cobb in fact came from a long line of abolitionists.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Cobb was an old confederate. "Confederate" was singular. Who cares about Cobb's family? Hitler's mother was kind to Jews. What? Cobb wasn't a racist? What the hell does Cobb's family have to do with anything here? And they weren't even MLB players. Pierce wrote "old confederate", not "old confederacy ".

[Edgy MD]

Cobb played in a racially segregated league, which implicates him — and everybody up to and including heroic princes like Christy Matthewson and Lou Gehrig — in racism. Beyond that, Cobb as a savage misanthrope steeped in racial animus is a popular myth largely descended from a single source that appears to have little credibility.

[Edgy MD]

“So that’s a very good thing. It must be some kind of record for a 93-year-old.”

— Willie Mays, asked about gaining 10 hits on his all-time total