CNN
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Major League Baseball (MLB) has incorporated the statistics of former Negro Leagues players into its historical records on its website, meaning legendary leaders in some categories like Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb have now been replaced in the record books by players who were not allowed to play on the same fields as them during segregation.
Josh Gibson, one of the greatest sluggers in the history of the Negro Leagues, is now listed as MLB’s new all-time career leader in batting average at .372, moving ahead of Ty Cobb at .367.
The MLB website shows Gibson also overtaking Babe Ruth in career slugging percentage.
“We are proud that the official historical record now includes the players of the Negro Leagues. This initiative is focused on ensuring that future generations of fans have access to the statistics and milestones of all those who made the Negro Leagues possible,” said MLB commissioner Rob Manfred in a statement.
“Their accomplishments on the field will be a gateway to broader learning about this triumph in American history and the path that led to Jackie Robinson’s 1947 Dodger debut.”
CNN has sought comment from MLB.
Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images
Josh Gibson slides home safely during the 1944 East West Negro League All Star game at Comiskey Park in Chicago.
Gibson was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.
“I know Josh Gibson had a great career in the Negro Leagues. He is considered one of the greatest players of all time, but we always considered Josh Gibson a major leaguer anyway. It’s just now that he is recognized in the Major League Baseball stats,” Sean Gibson, the slugger’s great grandson, told ABC’s Good Morning America.
The power-hitting catcher’s Baseball Hall of Fame plaque – he’s one of 35 Negro League stars enshrined in Cooperstown – says he “hit almost 800 home runs in league and independent baseball” during his 17-year career.
However, the majority of those homers came not in league-sanctioned games (about 50 to 75 per season) but in exhibitions played against former big leaguers and White semi-pro teams.
“It’s a big day,” Negro League Museum president Bob Kendrick told Yahoo Sports. “The great thing about it is that we’ve been saying that quite a bit over recent days and weeks as it relates to the Negro Leagues.
“This is the result of a lot of intensive effort by some incredible historians and researchers who have completely dedicated themselves to trying to do something that people thought probably wasn’t possible.”
This comes about three and a half years after MLB recognized the Negro Leagues as its equivalent and counted the statistics and records of thousands of Black players who played in the Negro Leagues from 1920 to the late 1940s.
Even though that recognition happened in December 2020, MLB at the time said it needed time to review how that recognition would affect MLB record books. That was in part because some statistics were still being compiled and because MLB needed to sort league-sanctioned games from exhibitions.
“Many people have heard of Martin Dihigo and Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige. But what about the thousands of other men who played in the Negro Leagues from 1920 to 1948? They’re being recognized finally as major league caliber ballplayers,” Scott Simkus, one of the researchers credited by MLB with compiling and constructing the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database, said at the time.
“Their statistical records, their careers are going to be considered equal to anybody who had played in the National League or American League during that period of time.”
Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images
The Negro League’s Newark Eagles pose at home in Ruppert Stadium for a team portrait in 1939. Monte Irvin is in the back row, far left, and Mule Suttles in the middle of the back row.
MLB in 2020 said it was “correcting a longtime oversight” by elevating the status of the Negro Leagues — which consisted of seven leagues and about 3,400 Black and Latino players from 1920 to 1948.
“It’s sad this great history has been kept from them,” Larry Lester, co-founder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, said at the time.
Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, had said the recognition “serves as historical validation for those who had been shunned from the Major Leagues and had the foresight and courage to create their own league that helped change the game and our country, too.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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