Negro League Stats Added To MLB Record: A Complex, Landmark Decision

Josh GibsonPhoto byHarrison Studio

By Mark Kolier

The RBI became an official statistic in 1920. There were official scorers that did not understand the rule, leading to errors and irregularities in the records. When it comes to counting historical records in baseball, it’s complicated.

Numbers matter more in baseball than other professional sports due to the longevity of the game and the season. This past Wednesday, the statistics of 2,300 Negro Leaguers from 1920-48 were added to Major League Baseball’s official record. Finally. Including Negro League records with all-time MLB records was jarring to some and unsurprising to others. Baseball-Reference.com has incorporated Negro League stats for almost three years since 2021. FanGraphs’ Jay Jaffe questioned the change but also had his own interesting take that the records are Major League records but not necessarily Major League Baseball records.

Josh Gibson averaged more than 100 extra-base hits per 162 games for his entire career! Recently I wrote an article about players that record the rare combination of more than 100 doubles, triples, and homers in a single season. It’s a very special list and is a supreme seasonal accomplishment. There’s more. Gibson is now MLB’s all-time career leader in batting average, slugging percentage and OPS, and he holds the all-time single-season records in all three of those categories.

Gibson in his career had 2,526 recorded plate appearances and 2,162 recorded at-bats, in 602 recorded games played. This may seem light at first. But Gibson would have played all 154 games if he had them (the MLB schedule at the time), and, knowing a little about him, probably nearly all of them at catcher had he been allowed to play in MLB. It’s not his fault by birth that his opportunity was limited to playing only against other Black players. He played many more games than the recorded 602 now in the annals of MLB. Those games were not official competition and are not included.

You’ll note the use of the word “recorded” when referring to Negro League stats because records were not always well kept or easy to find. Writer Paul White noted in his excellent piece that MLB has incorporated stats from leagues that ultimately failed or were absorbed. Why should Negro League stats be any different?

An excerpt from Paul’s article:

And every single time Major League Baseball has ever recognized any other league as being “major,” meaning equal in quality to the American and National Leagues, they have incorporated the statistics from those leagues into their official record books.

Every. Single. Time.

• They recognized the American Association as being “major league” from 1882 to 1891. Those stats are included in MLB records.
• They recognized the Union Association of 1884 and included their stats.
• They recognized the Players League of 1890 and included their stats.
• They recognized the Federal League of 1914-15 and included their stats.
• They recognized the watered-down talent of the American and National Leagues during the World War II years as still being “major league,” so all of those stats are in the record books, too.

The Athletic’s Tyler Kepner also made several interesting points in his piece on Negro League stat integration into MLB. One number caught my eye when Kepner referred to Josh Gibson’s career .373 batting average being six points higher than Ty Cobb’s. Depending on the source, Cobb hit either .366 for his career or, as Kepner noted, .367, which was the number that I grew up hearing. If you want to read how this came about, there’s a very detailed explanation in this SABR article from 2019. The incorporation of Negro League stats makes a discussion about Cobb’s all-time leading batting average a moot point.

There are other numbers that will no longer be remembered as “all-time.” While some reports have Gibson having hit more than 900 home runs, only stats from official league games are included and Gibson’s career home run total stands at 166. Barry Bonds is still the all-time home run leader with 762, as well as the single season highest on-base average of .609 in 2004.

Kepner in his article, noted that the criteria were specific:

While baseball-reference.comis the leading website for statistics, MLB keeps its own official records that sometimes differ from those on the site. Such is the case with Josh Gibson’s career numbers; MLB has him with a .372 average in 2,255 at-bats, and BR has him at .373 in 2,168 at-bats. But Gibson does not qualify for the BR career leaderboard, which uses a blanket 3,000 plate appearance minimum. MLB, however, has different minimums: 1,800 total at-bats (or 600 innings pitched) in the Negro Leagues; OR 5,000 total at-bats (or 2,000 IP) in the AL/NL; OR 5,000 total at-bats (or 2,000 IP) between AL/NL plus Negro Leagues. MLB arrived at 1,800 at-bats for the Negro Leagues minimum by taking 600 games (10 seasons of a 60-game schedule) and multiplying by 3.1.

This is important to keep in mind as there’s a method to the entire proceeding, whether you agree with that method or not. No matter what, the “new” numbers offer some great baseball conversations AND honor great Negro League players’ exploits that for far too long were not able to be appreciated. There’s still work to be done, but MLB got this one right. Finally.

About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and Substack.com.