Including stats of the Negro Leagues changed MLB’s record book. Here’s a look at those added
The MLB’s push to add the accomplishments of stars from the Negro Leagues re-wrote the record books overnight and it shows how those players deserved much more recognition.
More than three years after pledging to include statistics from the Negro Leagues in its official records, MLB officially added that data Tuesday. And as you might expect, there are some wide-ranging changes with it.
In addition to providing many great players from history with the long-overdue recognition that had been denied by decades of racial injustice, MLB’s push to add the accomplishments of stars from the Negro Leagues rewrote the record books overnight. As examples, Josh Gibson’s .372 average now beats Ty Cobb’s for all-time leader in batting average and Gibson also surpassed Babe Ruth as the all-time leader in on-base plus slugging, with an 1.177 OPS.
The majority of these changes happened on the leaderboards for rate statistics, rather than totals, since the Negro Leagues tended to play shorter schedules than the American or National Leagues — particularly among the set of games considered by the Negro Leagues Statistical Review Committee, the group in charge of vetting and assembling the new data. (While Gibson’s Hall of Fame plaque says he hit almost 800 career home runs, MLB won’t include those that were hit outside of major-league play, i.e. in barnstorming or independent games.)
Still, even those categories look very different than they did at the beginning of the week. Here’s a look at the all-time career Top 10s for the major batting and pitching rates listed on MLB’s official leaderboards:
Just among these career Top 10s, one-third of all the spots on the lists have changed with the addition of data from the Negro Leagues. Those changes were mainly concentrated on the hitting side — 45% of the rankings for batting average, OBP, slugging, and OPS are different than they were before this week. In addition to Gibson becoming arguably the greatest statistical hitter ever, we also see new names such as Oscar Charleston, Buck Leonard, Jud Wilson, Turkey Stearnes, and Mule Suttles join the list. The pitching side is a bit more sparse, with only 10% of the lists changed, but lefty Dave Brown gets his due for a sparkling 2.24 career ERA.
Each of those players was every bit as good as his white counterpart from the era — Charleston was the equivalent of Tris Speaker; Suttles was Lou Gehrig; Leonard was Hank Greenberg — but far fewer fans got to see them because baseball was segregated. Now they finally stand alongside other major leaguers in the record books as equals.
» READ MORE: Josh Gibson and the Negro Leagues are finally getting proper recognition, rewriting record books
The single-season leaderboards also reflect some seismic changes: Four of the top five batting averages in a season now belong to players from the Negro Leagues, as do each of the top four in slugging percentage and three of the top four in OPS.
Check out the before-and-after for the season leaders below:
Overall, one-third of the single-season top-10 leaderboards also changed. Once again, the majority of those shake-ups were on the hitting side — with 43% of those top-10 lists changing — while the pitching leaderboards only saw 15% of their lists altered. However, there are still some fun additions to the ERA and WHIP leaderboards, including Satchel Paige’s 1944 season (1.01 ERA) now sitting third all-time and George Walker’s 1940 WHIP of 0.73 becoming the single-season standard.
MLB knew this decision, and its consequences, wouldn’t be without controversy. Moreso than fans of other sports, baseball devotees spend countless hours poring over statistics and memorizing cherished records. Cobb’s .367 leading the all-time ranks was an article of faith for many, so seeing that surpassed could have been a shock. But Gibson produced his .372 average against no lesser competition; it often surprises people to learn that teams from the Negro Leagues often played white ballclubs, and more than held their own in those contests. In an alternate MLB universe without the color line, he would likely have produced similar numbers against an integrated league.
We’ll never know exactly what the statistics of Gibson and his peers would have been under those circumstances, but MLB’s records are a small step in a fairer and more just direction — and the significant changes to the top of these leaderboards shows us just how many elite players from the Negro Leagues have deserved much more recognition.