{"id":27772,"date":"2024-05-28T21:40:51","date_gmt":"2024-05-29T02:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=27772"},"modified":"2024-05-28T21:40:57","modified_gmt":"2024-05-29T02:40:57","slug":"negro-leagues-statistics-to-be-officially-incorporated-into-mlb-historical-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=27772","title":{"rendered":"Negro Leagues statistics to be officially incorporated into MLB historical record"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Josh Gibson has long been considered one of the best baseball players to ever hold a bat, but you might not know his name. Gibson, who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972<\/a>, never had his name in the Major League Baseball record books \u2014 until now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MLB confirmed Tuesday that Negro Leagues statistics will officially become a part of MLB’s historical record Wednesday. The move will open the door for 2,300 Negro Leagues players to have their accomplishments recognized in the league’s official database.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The news was first reported by USA Today<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commissioner Robert Manfred announced<\/a> three years ago that \u201cMajor League Baseball is correcting a longtime oversight in the game\u2019s history by officially elevating the Negro Leagues to \u2018Major League\u2019 status.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gibson will now lead multiple batting categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His Negro Leagues career batting average, slugging percentage and OPS eclipse records set by major league legends Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth. His single-season records set in the 1930s and ’40s also rank as some of the highest of all time.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gibson\u2019s other achievements, mythologized in baseball history \u2014 his plaque in Cooperstown, New York, says he \u201chit almost 800 home runs\u201d \u2014 will still be omitted from the league statistics, but the home runs and RBIs and countless other stats Black players put up more than 100 years ago will now appear next to those of modern-day icons like Mike Trout and Aaron Judge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Absolutely the right decision\u2019<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Major League Baseball historian John Thorn chairs the Negro Leagues Statistical Review Committee and is tasked with reviewing thousands of box scores and other data and information as part of the endeavor. The committee was formed to integrate the provable statistics from the seven leagues within the Negro Leagues and add them to the MLB database. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project is years in the making, and it will be updated as more data is made available. Researchers continue to pore over decades of newspaper clippings, microfilm and anecdotal accounts to add to the historical record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thorn described the MLB decision as \u201cnot only righting a social, cultural and historical wrong, it\u2019s defining baseball as a game for Americans without exclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBaseball is a game of consistency, and it\u2019s also a game of change. We may be slow to change, but when we do, it can be profound,\u201d Thorn said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Major League Baseball will also honor the Negro Leagues years with a tribute game<\/a> set for June 20 at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama \u2014 the oldest professional baseball ballpark in the U.S. The game will include players\u2019 wearing period uniforms and honoring legendary center fielder Willie Mays, an Alabama native.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The updated MLB database is set to go live at 10:30 a.m. ET Wednesday, and when it does, Thorn said, there will be \u201cno asterisks, no footnotes\u201d for stats from the Negro Leagues compared with those of the American and National leagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, he said, \u201cthe numbers will be no different for Willie Mays of the 1948 Birmingham Barons than that of Willie Mays of the San Francisco Giants in 1951.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Josh Gibson has long been considered one of the best baseball players to ever hold a bat, but you might not know his name. Gibson, who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972, never had his name in the Major League Baseball record books \u2014 until now.  MLB confirmed Tuesday that Negro Leagues […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":27773,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5782],"tags":[28678,5171,28677,28676,28675],"class_list":["post-27772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ep","tag-achievements","tag-athletes","tag-negro-leagues-players","tag-official-database","tag-record-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27774,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27772\/revisions\/27774"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}