Major League Baseball to add Negro Leagues stats to official records
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Satchel Paige of the Kansas City Monarchs talks with Josh Gibson of the Homestead Grays before a game in Kansas City in 1941. Photo: Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics via Getty Images
Major League Baseball will announce Wednesday it will add statistics from the Negro Leagues to the Major League historical record, MLB has confirmed to Axios.
Why it matters: The announcement means that MLB could get new all-time records to be held by some Negro League players — barred from MLB during segregation but called the greatest of all time by those who saw them.
The big picture: The inclusion of seven professional Negro Leagues that operated between 1920 and 1948 into MLB records comes as replica jerseys and caps from the era have become popular with a new generation of fans.
- Negro League players are now in new virtual reality games and in "MLB The Show" series for PlayStation, Xbox and Switch.
- The murder of George Floyd in 2020 forced a national racial awakening. MLB responded by elevating the Negro Leagues to "major" status meaning their statistics and record joined Major League history but didn't overtake MLB records.
- For more than half a century, records from the Negro Leagues had been kept separate from the MLB and were simply ignored even before then.
What they're saying: "All of us who love baseball have long known that the Negro Leagues produced many of our game's best players, innovations and triumphs against a backdrop of injustice," Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement.
- "We are now grateful to count the players of the Negro Leagues where they belong: as Major Leaguers within the official historical record."
- "We are now grateful to count the players of the Negro Leagues where they belong: as Major Leaguers within the official historical record."
Zoom out: The Negro Leagues combined to produce 35 Hall of Famers, per MLB.com.
The intrigue: Negro Leagues legend Josh Gibson will become MLB's single-season record holder in batting average (.466 in 1943), slugging percentage (.974 in 1937) and OPS (1.474 in 1937), per Russell Dorsey of Yahoo! Sports.
- Barry Bonds, MLB's all-time homerun leader tainted by the steroid scandal, held previous records for slugging and OPS in a season and career.
Background: The Negro Leagues were made up of supremely talented Black and Latino players who were barred from the segregated American and National Leagues.
- Players such as Gibson, pitcher Satchel Paige, centerfielder Cool Papa Bell and slugger Cristóbal Torriente are said to have been better than most MLB Hall of Famers in their positions.
- In 1969, an all-white, all-male body known as the Special Baseball Records Committee met to discuss which leagues should earn major league status.
- They decided on four fledgling leagues (in addition to the AL and NL). The Negro Leagues' candidacy wasn't discussed.
What we're watching: More decisions in the coming weeks could upend records held by MLB legends like Ted Williams and Babe Ruth.
- MLB is reviewing the statistics to see how many at-bats or innings pitched qualify for new records.
Go deeper: The Negro National League's lasting legacy, 100 years on
