Move over Ty Cobb. Josh Gibson is the all time batting leader
OT: MLB to recognize Negro league stats
- Thread starter Plum Street
- Start date
The Cuban Giants (1885-1915) was the first African-American professional ball club. In 1891, some members of the team left to form the New York (or Big) Gorhams. In 1896, the name was changed to the Cuban X-Giants. Frank Grant was considered the greatest African-American player of the 19th century and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.
Cuban Giants 0 1 0 0 0 2 3 0 0 - 6
Rutgers 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 - 1
Cuban Giants: (Ben) Boyd, rf; (Frank) Grant, 3b; (Abe) Harrison, ss; C. (Clarence) Williams, cf; (Dan) Penno, lf; (Jack) Frye, 1b; (William) Whyte, p; Geo. (George) Williams, c; (William) Douglas, 2b
Rutgers: Deshler, 3b; Egan, ss; G. Francis, c; Enyard, rf; H. Francis, p; Van Dyck, 2b; Van Orden, lf; Mettler, cf, Remsen, 1b
Source: June 15, 1892 Rutgers Targum
“The attendance was large, showing that when the ‘Varsity is strengthened by outside players, and when the opponents have a good reputation, the college men and the town people appreciate and will patronize a good ball game.”
June 13, 1892
Cuban Giants 6 Rutgers 1
at Neilson Field, New Brunswick
Umpire: S. MaherCuban Giants 0 1 0 0 0 2 3 0 0 - 6
Rutgers 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 - 1
Cuban Giants: (Ben) Boyd, rf; (Frank) Grant, 3b; (Abe) Harrison, ss; C. (Clarence) Williams, cf; (Dan) Penno, lf; (Jack) Frye, 1b; (William) Whyte, p; Geo. (George) Williams, c; (William) Douglas, 2b
Rutgers: Deshler, 3b; Egan, ss; G. Francis, c; Enyard, rf; H. Francis, p; Van Dyck, 2b; Van Orden, lf; Mettler, cf, Remsen, 1b
Source: June 15, 1892 Rutgers Targum
“The attendance was large, showing that when the ‘Varsity is strengthened by outside players, and when the opponents have a good reputation, the college men and the town people appreciate and will patronize a good ball game.”
Last edited:
Not to say there is a bad reason but why not?
They played the same era, ballparks, same size, maybe less players so not watered down.,,
Virtue signaling, pandering etc - the usual boomer-dweeb kayfabe. Goodell might have helped.
But at least its better than Yankee plaque dedicated to a mafia bar raided for spreading hepatitis (unwashed glasses, utensils etc)
But at least its better than Yankee plaque dedicated to a mafia bar raided for spreading hepatitis (unwashed glasses, utensils etc)
Last edited:
because you cannot mix stats like this and hope to have a holistic homogeneous view. Separate but equal view until integration should be the approach. The only comparisons we have are the barnstorming games and in those cases the narrative gets blown up. Would rather use full integration to see the data across the whole population
for the record, negro leagues were watered down as there were a lot of really bad teams at the same time there were some AAA teams considered better than bottom half of majors such as Newark Bears were such a team as were Montreal Royals (Robinson would later play with them actually). Some of this is obviously cultural, opportunity, needing to work vs the pay they'd receive etc etc. Negro leagues had some great players, just not enough akin to minors with lots of roster fillers. One thing the nego leagues did have was entertainment! The new book on Ty Cobb and the book on Ruth 'the big fella' goes into this some.
I think integration should have happened sooner, mid 30s but it didn't. You just can't compare the leagues by any degree of reality based on skill across the bench depth
IIRC, the issue is that many games were not well documented. Large % of Nergo League games didn't have lasting box scores. Also, too much barnstorming and exhibition games vs regular league/season play. It's like MLB players counting spring training stats.
Stuff like that. If true, doesn't seem apples to apples.
Bingo!
Will the NFL now be combining with every other professional football league's stats?
Don't think this is a good idea. Segregation was a terrible thing and regretfully lasted much longer then it should have. Despite having some great ballplayers and good teams the Negro Leagues were not MLB.
These are MLB records-not sports records.
These are MLB records-not sports records.
Just a FYI. I looked up both Jim Kelley's and Steve Young's stats on the Pro Football HOF site. Their USFL stats don't appear there. If you count Kelly's Houston Gamblers numbers he cracks the top 20 all time.
Which one of those leagues had players that the NFL excluded based on the color of their skin?
Did Kelly and Young’s race prohibit them from playing in the NFL?
Of course not but they didn't play in the NFL those years, just like Negro League players did not play in MLB even though they would have by all accounts have done very well.
I am sure they would have. But they chose not to play In the NFL . The Negro league players did not not choose to not play in the MLB.
Your analogy couldn’t be more wrong
It's not a question of why they didn't play. It's just the fact that they didn't play in the ML and if they didn't how can they hold a MLB record??? It was a terrible injustice what happened to these great players but that doesn't dismiss the fact that they were not major league players.
I guess we disagree on this.
Last edited:
60-80 games PLUS 40-60 barnstorming games a year
Todd Frazier now all time single game HR leader, he hit 7 HR in one game vs the Rutgers keyboard Warriors. RutgersAl was the opener that day and gave up 2 Frazier HR in the 1st inning
Can we count Ruth’s HR vs the Bronx lions club in 1933 ?
Todd Frazier now all time single game HR leader, he hit 7 HR in one game vs the Rutgers keyboard Warriors. RutgersAl was the opener that day and gave up 2 Frazier HR in the 1st inning
Can we count Ruth’s HR vs the Bronx lions club in 1933 ?
Here is where Negro Leagues stars rank among the game's best
When Eric Chalek heard the news last winter that Major League Baseball was going to begin including Negro League numbers in the official record books, he had conflicted feelings. As someone who has spent an inordinate amount of his spare time thinking about the Negro Leagues, Chalek -- a marketing
www.mlb.com
some more perspective
the leagues were not close in quality, this is just a terrible idea.
"While the Negro Leagues had talent comparable to the American and National Leagues, the differences between the two environments are substantial. The Negro Leagues had more variation in terms of the quality of play from league to league or team to team. The schedules were shorter than in the AL and NL, and the playing fields were much larger and therefore more pitcher-friendly. Even the ball itself was different. Rules were not enforced to prevent scuffing the ball, and there weren’t as many changes of the balls used during the games as in the AL and NL, meaning balls altered by dirt or spit or other substances stayed in play much longer."
an your logic here is beyond absurd
what is next, we're going to account for lost time for Irish since they couldn't work in gov't?
you cannot look through time with a current lense and you cannot try to make past wrong right by virtue signaling your way through the forest. Negro leagues had 4 maybe 5 great players but the overall quality was inferior to MLB. Hell, even the great Mackey got smoked during barnstorming games against white pitchers (no name pitchers to boot)
Did you know that Ruth, in his 19 games played against Negro teams had higher stats than in any 19 games of his professional baseball career? What about Hornsby who lit it up AFTER retiring (though Satch did k him 5x in ones games 3 yrs after his retirement). I mean there is so much out there to kill the notion of negro league players being on par it's almost laughable. Statistically speaking you had 7% of the population going up against 90% where that 90% truly had the cream rising to the top
man some of you are just beyond dense in your views on racial equivalencies
the HOF has a whole section on negro leagues and it's done up really well. should be left at that with a footnote on non integration
So “integration should have happened in the mid 30’s”. So why exactly is that? Black players weren’t good enough until then, or what? The 50 year gap between the last black player (1880’s) and the 30’s would have been fine by you but 60 years was a bit too much?
First MLB players and teams did a lot of barnstorming and exhibition games too. I've never heard them counting the stats thosefor just the Negro League. It was a legit league. Have no idea where you are getting any of all you just posted.
10/20 years ago I would have been all against this combination but after the steroids era I could give a rats ass of any all time records by players. Who really cares anymore?
Apparently mlb disagrees with you.
I didn’t state my opinion just that your analogy was idiotic and couldn’t be more wrong
if you want to debate this, please do so intelligently and not with a view determined by feelz. You clearly don't know the history of early 1900s negro leagues baseball. I mean of all I wrote and what is here in this thread that this is what you focus on says it all
go do some research and then come back. I do not suffer fools
this debate isn't about the reason for the two separate leagues but the quality of the play, the quality of the statistics.
lol stop
the gov't says men can give birth so not sure you want to hang your hat on today's virtue signaling logic
Prior to the 1920’s, and probably later, the quality of MLB play has to be considered suspect and not just on the grounds there were no black players. Scouting was an absolute joke compared to the modern game and there were no organized minor leagues to speak of. Players literally could go from the farm to the majors with nothing in between. Other potential players got “real” jobs instead of playing ball. Then take a look at the 1940’s war years. Everyone was off fighting yet those “records” count? All old records need to taken with a grain of salt and not very seriously.
What you said was “integration should have happened in the 30’s”. This literally means blacks should have not been eligible to play MLB until then. No matter what you think you said that is actually what you did say. Go back and read it and stop talking about other people being fools and about virtue signaling.
The mlb decision is not a government decision . You missed the analogy lesson in 5th grade English class .
Warren Moon had to go to Canada for the first 5 years of his career because of it.
Give to you that my analogy was not as good as it could have been. But despite what Rob Manfred thinks I don't believe that you can hold a record in a league that you never played in.
This is long overdue and MLB did the right thing. They are correcting a wrong with stats because the real wrong took too long to correct. Black professional baseball players were as good but not allowed to play because of racism. Thank God we will never go back to those times.
Exactly. If we're going than the NFL should be including statistics from the AFL, the USFL, NFL Europe, the World Football League, the XFL, etc.
Some of them did do well. Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron come to mind.
Some wish it was 1850 again. Sorry it’s never going to happen again it lives only in your mind and the unnamed board.
Really? How were they able to do it in 1969? I'm sure you are aware that your holistic homogenous view includes stats from the American Association, the Union Association, and the Federal League. The issue has always been the inability to document and verify the games, which has been done through a 4 year project.
By the way, another argument I see is that you can't compare players in different leagues, ignoring the fact that the AL and the NL never played each other. For instance, Babe Ruth never faced the Cincinnati Reds in his entire career.
the two of you are complete idiots and the reason we can't have intelligent discussion here. Worse part is, you are speaking from feelz instead of understanding the leagues, topic at hand, dynamics of the early 1900s as it relates to baseball.
both of you should be embarrassed and I hope you don't breed as we've enough educated derelicts' in the country.
I'll step out, I don't suffer fools well
There was a 3 year research project commissioned by the MLB that led to this conclusion.
