Josh Gibson never played in the MLB, but in the “Negro League Baseball”. (picture alliance / AP Photo / Charles “teenie” Harris)
Ty Cobb’s record was considered untouchable. As if it were set in stone. In his career, which spanned more than 20 years with the Detroit Tigers, Cobb hit the baseball on average 36.6 percent of his throws – making him more reliable than anyone else in the history of Major League Baseball.
But now Cobb has lost his record. He lost it to Josh Gibson. He never played in the MLB, but in the Negro League Baseball in the 1930s and 1940s. At that time, African-Americans like him were strictly forbidden from playing in the MLB.
MBL takes statistics into account
Gibson has a career batting average of 37.2 percent. The reason he is now listed as the player with the best batting average is because the MLB announced at the end of May that it would include and take into account the statistics of Negro League Baseball. This decision is seen by various US television stations as a step that will change the history of the sport forever.
“Baseball history changed forever today.”
“The MLB will officially incorporate Negro League statistics into the record books.”
“It’s a historic change to our national pastime.”
Gibson grandson: “This is a great moment”
Josh Gibson’s great-grandson Sean is delighted with MLB’s decision. He told PBS: “This is a great moment, not just for our families, but for all members of Negro League families. Because this is not just about Josh Gibson. More than 2,300 African-American baseball players will now be included in the MLB record books. It was finally time.”
At the end of 2020, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced that he would recognize the Negro Leagues as major leagues – and at the same time declared that he wanted to have the statistics of seven Negro Leagues examined. To do this, he put together a commission of experts made up of historians, journalists and statisticians. They were faced with a very complicated task. The Negro Leagues had drawn up their season schedules in the spring, but had sometimes improvised them in the summer.
Jackie Robinson was the first black player in the MLB
Bob Kendrick is president of the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City. He emphasizes that the statistics alone do not reflect the importance of the leagues at the time: “They helped promote our game in parts of the country that would otherwise never have seen professional baseball. The MLB was, basically, only at home east of the Mississippi. But the Negro League allowed many people to watch professional baseball.”
On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first black player to play in the MLB – thus breaking the “color barrier.” Josh Gibson did not live to see this historic moment. He died of a stroke just three months earlier at the age of 35.
2024-06-03 15:47:05
#Statistics #Negro #Leagues #recognized
