Negro Legue Get Validation

On December sixteenth, twenty twenty, Major League Baseball made an announcement following the one hundredth anniversary of the starting of the Negro Leagues that the Negro League stats would count as record in Major League Baseball, giving validity to the league that only started due to segregation and produced some of the greatest players that we may have never heard of. Today, we're going to dive into how this happened in the quality of the Negro Leagues today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide as you daily learn more about sports history, increasing your sports knowledge. In today's trivia question to listen nout for is who now has the highest career batting average all time in baseball history thanks to adding the Negro League stats. Listening throughout the episode to get the answer, and if you miss it, I'll give it to you at the very end. Now, first, we guests start with how the Negro Leagues actually began and before nineteen eighty seven, there wasn't a color barrier to baseball. Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother Weldy Walker played professional baseball in the eighteen eighties. However, in eighteen eighty seven, baseball started becoming organized and they banned black players through unwritten rules, as teams did not feel they could be successful having black players. As a result of this, black players began to form their own teams and play independent leagues and have barnstorming tours. Now, a barnstorming tour is similar to what the Harlem Globetrotters are or the Savannah Bananas, where they travel around the country playing exhibition games, playing in front of crowds of all types, and that way they can generate income as they may not be able to have a league like Major League Baseball. But in an episode we covered previously, we'll put a link in the description of this episode about how the Negro National League started. It all started with Rube Foster, who was a former pitcher and became known as the father of baseball as he envisioned a professional league that could rival Major League Baseball with just Negro players as they weren't allowed to play in the major leagues now. He struggled with this concept, especially financially, as it was the nineteen twenties, which was great until the Great Depression, and you were dealing with black players who couldn't get paid as much, who people wouldn't pay as much to see the black players, and it was just financially hard. But over time they did develop some stable teams such as the Chicago American Giants and the Kansas City Monarchs, who's best known for having Jackie Robinson on their team before he integrated into baseball. And as they continued to grow this league, players began to become better equipped to play and the games on the field played better. Now. One thing you will notice if you do dive into these stats and won't put a link into all the stats that have been integrated into baseball now, they don't play as many games as it was more of a financial burden on them, and we don't have stats on every game. But so, how did Major League Baseball decide to let these stats be included into the official stats. Well, the main reason was led by Steamhead Negro's league database. This database was not just hearsay. They looked at box scores, newspaper articles, scre sheets which are very hard to find from the nineteen twenties to when they officially to when they officially ended in nineteen fifty eight to when they fizzled out around nineteen forty eight. But this was a group of people that really looked into everything going all the way back from eighteen eighty six to nineteen forty eight when baseball really got integrated and it started to change the game. And the reason why Baseball really wanted to add these in is not only were these stats credible, they weren't just hearsay. They weren't just stories, which we if you listened to this actual page episode, there's a lot of stories made up about this time in this period, which are like fishing stories, which the more you tell out the the story, the crazier the numbers. But they looked at the actual numbers that they could find, and they only included ones that could verify. And they couldn't verify it, they didn't include it, which made Baseball think that this was verified, so they could count these and it showed also that the play that they had in the negro leagues at the time rivaled the Major League baseball. They wouldn't include the stats if the play was sub par, but it wasn't. These players were great. Almost all the players that started to integrate became all stars, became MVPs, became Cy Young winners, they integrated and had great success, which proved that the players in the quality in the Negro leagues was just on par or if not better even than the Major League baseball because they didn't because they focused on the quality of players, not the color of their skin. So the question is what really changed from adding these stats, And there was one big change that came from this, and it was Josh Gibson. Now, if you don't know Josh Skipson, it's not surprising as he put up great stats, but sadly he passed away before they started in a great baseball at the age of thirty five. And even though he was thirty five, if he was able to play, he probably would have made a major impact. And when they took his Negro stats, he had a batting average of three seventy two for his career, which meant he passed the batting average of Ty Cobb, who had a three sixty seven batting average for his career, which changed the record for the highest batting average for a career, which is now held by Josh Gibson and likely may never be broken, so he will always be in the record books for this change. This also he also became the career leader in slugging percentage, passing Babe Ruth and on bass percentage. Josh Gibson was a guy we was a player we need to cover in a future episode, and we will as he played fantastic as he was a twelve time All Star in the in the Negro Leagues, playing from nineteen thirty to nineteen forty six, and is included in the Pirates Hall of Fame as well as the Washington National Ring of Honors. And in nineteen seventy two he was actually inducted into the Pro Baseball Hall of Fame, and now his stats are also on display. Other changes that happen is players like Willie Mays who started in the Negro Leagues and made it to the majors, added increase his batting total, moving him up the hits total, increased his hit total, moving him up. And Satchel Page, who we covered on our previous episode, only had twenty eight wins to his name before this change, was able to move it all the way up to one hundred and twenty five wins. Now you'll notice most of these are percentages. Most of these changes, such as Josh Gibson's, were percentages as they didn't play as many games, as they would only play sixty to eighty games a season compared to over one hundred played by Major League Baseball, so the total numbers weren't played, but it also increased a lot of other things, and Jackie Robinson himself actually increased his total hits because of his time played with the Miners. So what this really changed was the prescription of the Negro leagues. As we look back, we now see how influential and how great the Negro League was back in the day, and now we have the chance to honor it now. It's estimated that only about seventy two percent of the records from nineteen twenty to nineteen forty eight were included in this amount, as they were the ones that could be stantiated because there's lots of games that didn't have news coverage, didn't have box scores, didn't have anything to confirm this, so there could have been more hits. There could have been even more, but they also had to scrutinize this as there were games they had just half information, but they couldn't include the whole thing because they couldn't include what happened throughout the entire thing. So throughout all this there was more than just the Negro National League. There was the Eastern Color League, the American Negro League, East West League, that the Negro Southern League, the Negro American League. But through all of this, though, and we mentioned Barnstorming earlier, they did not include any of the barnstorming events as they were exhibitions. So there were many games and many things included in this change to the stats, but they were not included in every single aspect. Now, the fact that we had to have a Negro league at the time is pretty shocking by today's standards. Unfortunately, time has different stories and things were different back then. Sadly, if things would have been like today, we probably would have seen records that may have never be beaten. But we don't get that chance to go back. At least Baseball went back and added these records to change the narrative and show how great this league was so throughout the years. Everyone else can know the same. And I want to thank you for listening to today's episode. If you want more baseball history, check out my Baseball History, where your host Dan takes you through all you need to know about Baseball and listen to this promo for his show. My Baseball History is a long form interview podcast with and about the people who make baseball what it is, whether it's a former player, coach, batboy, historian, artist, or collector. On each episode, I'll talk to someone new who has some sort of association to the game. I'm your host, Dan Wallack, and you can follow along with me and my guest every episode through the pictures and links in the liner notes at shoelesspodcast dot com. Or listen to My Baseball History wherever you're listening right now, and. We'll put a link in the description so you can check out the My Baseball History podcasts. And if you enjoy today's episode, please leave us a rating or review wherever you're listening. It really helps other people know how great the show is so they can come check it out as well. And we continue to grow and give you even more daily sports history. And did you catch the answer to today's Drivic question? When the Negro League staff were added, who's now the all time leader in batting average? And the answer is Josh Gibson, who had a career batting average of three seventy two, passing ty Cobbs three sixty seven