Major League Baseball’s incorporates Negro Leagues statistics into a historical record and adding the Negro League statistics on the 12th of December to its official record in the year of the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues’ beginning. It appeared to be a positive step spurred by both racial justice and the political climate of 2020.
The stats will be an honorable way to showcase the Black leagues between 1920 and 1948, who become an equivalent of both the National and American Leagues.
According to the Sportswriter, Anthony Castrovince, the seven leagues are the Negro National League I (1920-31), the Eastern Colored League (1923-28), the American Negro League (1929), the East-West League (1932), the Negro Southern League (1932), the Negro National League II (1933-48) and the Negro American League (1937-48), and those leagues combined produce 35 Hall of Famers.
The MLB has described this feat as a “long overdue recognition,” stated by Commissioner Rob Manfred. The decision means that the approximately 3,400 players of the Negro Leagues during this time are officially part of the MLB.
The Negro Leagues’ change was applauded by Negro Leagues Baseball Museum president Bob Kendrick, and states that “for historical merit, it is extraordinarily important.”
MLB praises historian Larry Lester, co-founder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Scott Simkus, Gary Ashwill, Mike Lynch and Kevin Johnson for their creation of Seamheads’ Negro Leagues Database. It brings together newspapers, score books, photo albums and film pieces to provide the most complete statistical record of the Negro Leagues to date.
As part of the decision, MLB, and the Elias Sports Bureau (MLB’s official statistician) started a stats review process and historians and other experts are part of that process.
I am truly excited for this change in making the MLB more diverse and transparent!
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