What a wonderful day in the
neighborhood!
No, not even Mister Rogers would agree with that.
It is ugly ou8side my window, with snow all over the place, show still coming down, and winds blowing everything all over the place.
But it could have been a lot worse than it was—there isn’t a foot of snow outside my door—and while it could get worse, it isn’t as ugly as it could have been.
Let me talk about another type of ugliness, one that is more everlasting and one that our professional sports leagues will never be able to live down.
There was a time when everyone was not welcome to play in these leagues, and while it was most prominent in Major League Baseball, it hit all the professional sports leagues in this country, those that showcased the best players in basketball, football and hockey.
It was most prominent in baseball because baseball was our national pastime, yet not all Americans were welcome to play the game.
Jackie Robinson finally broke that color barrier in the 1940s, and his success forced other teams to look to this vibrant talent pool, and let’s face it, the game changed forever once Robinson stepped on the field, and it changed for the better.
But what about those athletes that came before Robinson, those black athletes who were prevented from playing the game that they loved?
The Negro Leagues was the one place that they could play baseball, and if baseball wasn’t going to welcome them as it should have, well, why not set up their own league to show off their immense talent?
The Negro Leagues existed for a couple of decades as the one place that blacks could play baseball on a professional level, and the league turned out an incredible amount of high-level players, including Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and “Cool Papa” Bell.
The league was also the starting point for future Major League Baseball stars Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and yes, Jackie Robinson himself.
Paige was able to play in the major leagues, barely, but others, like Gibson and Bell, were too old to play when their turn finally came.
But their records stand out. Paige barely made it to the big time, was in his late 40s (nobody knew how ole he really was; he could have actually been in his 50s when he finally was able to play) when he got the chance, but in the Negro Leagues, he spun at least 40-some-odd shutouts and pitched more than 300 innings per year on several occasions.
Josh Gibson was another matter altogether. His feats of strength on the ball field are legendary. Not only did he reportedly hit nearly 800 home runs during his career, but he is supposedly the only batter ever to hit a fair ball out of the old Yankee Stadium, a feat that would have meant that he hit a ball somewhere between 500 and 600 feet on the fly.
Every baseball fan knows about these legends, or at least they should know about them.
And now, years after Major League Baseball recognized these players by enshrining the best of the group into the Hall of Fame, MLB yesterday fully acknowledged their presence by elevating these accomplishments to “Major League,” making them equal to anything that happened in Major League Baseball proper during those years when blacks were banned from playing the game.
What this exactly means is unclear right now, because the history of the Negro Leagues is kind of unclear, too.
Yes, the Negro Leagues existed, there is no doubt about that. The Negro League produced some of the greatest baseball players and athletes ever, there is no doubt about that.
And baseball was wrong in the first place for excluding these players because of the color of their skin, there is no doubt about that.
What there is doubt about is many of the statistics generated by the players in the Negro Leagues.
The Negro Leagues was something of a loose conglomeration of teams that were created to satiate the appetite for baseball by the non-white population, and like Major League Baseball, the biggest cities with the largest black populations usually got their own Negro League teams, places like New York and Chicago.
No, not even Mister Rogers would agree with that.
It is ugly ou8side my window, with snow all over the place, show still coming down, and winds blowing everything all over the place.
But it could have been a lot worse than it was—there isn’t a foot of snow outside my door—and while it could get worse, it isn’t as ugly as it could have been.
Let me talk about another type of ugliness, one that is more everlasting and one that our professional sports leagues will never be able to live down.
There was a time when everyone was not welcome to play in these leagues, and while it was most prominent in Major League Baseball, it hit all the professional sports leagues in this country, those that showcased the best players in basketball, football and hockey.
It was most prominent in baseball because baseball was our national pastime, yet not all Americans were welcome to play the game.
Jackie Robinson finally broke that color barrier in the 1940s, and his success forced other teams to look to this vibrant talent pool, and let’s face it, the game changed forever once Robinson stepped on the field, and it changed for the better.
But what about those athletes that came before Robinson, those black athletes who were prevented from playing the game that they loved?
The Negro Leagues was the one place that they could play baseball, and if baseball wasn’t going to welcome them as it should have, well, why not set up their own league to show off their immense talent?
The Negro Leagues existed for a couple of decades as the one place that blacks could play baseball on a professional level, and the league turned out an incredible amount of high-level players, including Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and “Cool Papa” Bell.
The league was also the starting point for future Major League Baseball stars Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and yes, Jackie Robinson himself.
Paige was able to play in the major leagues, barely, but others, like Gibson and Bell, were too old to play when their turn finally came.
But their records stand out. Paige barely made it to the big time, was in his late 40s (nobody knew how ole he really was; he could have actually been in his 50s when he finally was able to play) when he got the chance, but in the Negro Leagues, he spun at least 40-some-odd shutouts and pitched more than 300 innings per year on several occasions.
Josh Gibson was another matter altogether. His feats of strength on the ball field are legendary. Not only did he reportedly hit nearly 800 home runs during his career, but he is supposedly the only batter ever to hit a fair ball out of the old Yankee Stadium, a feat that would have meant that he hit a ball somewhere between 500 and 600 feet on the fly.
Every baseball fan knows about these legends, or at least they should know about them.
And now, years after Major League Baseball recognized these players by enshrining the best of the group into the Hall of Fame, MLB yesterday fully acknowledged their presence by elevating these accomplishments to “Major League,” making them equal to anything that happened in Major League Baseball proper during those years when blacks were banned from playing the game.
What this exactly means is unclear right now, because the history of the Negro Leagues is kind of unclear, too.
Yes, the Negro Leagues existed, there is no doubt about that. The Negro League produced some of the greatest baseball players and athletes ever, there is no doubt about that.
And baseball was wrong in the first place for excluding these players because of the color of their skin, there is no doubt about that.
What there is doubt about is many of the statistics generated by the players in the Negro Leagues.
The Negro Leagues was something of a loose conglomeration of teams that were created to satiate the appetite for baseball by the non-white population, and like Major League Baseball, the biggest cities with the largest black populations usually got their own Negro League teams, places like New York and Chicago.
And they also had teams that really didn't have a true "home," like the Homestead Greys.
Many of these teams played in major league stadiums, while some played in ramshackle stadiums, but generally, the league was more of a barnstorming league than anything else, moving from city to city and playing in whatever stadiums were available on that given day.
Thus, record keeping was a chore, and accurate records of the league are very hard to come by.
There were reports of the league in the newspapers of the day, there were box scores and such, but the record keeping was here and there at best, but Major League Baseball does have an accumulation of data about the Negro League, accurate or not.
While elevating the Negro Leagues to major league status, does that mean that Gibson’s 800 homers are now the standard against what Barry Bonds accomplished decades later? How does Paige’s 40-plus shutouts rank against Christy Mathewson, who threw more than 100 shutouts against all-white opponents?
Many of these teams played in major league stadiums, while some played in ramshackle stadiums, but generally, the league was more of a barnstorming league than anything else, moving from city to city and playing in whatever stadiums were available on that given day.
Thus, record keeping was a chore, and accurate records of the league are very hard to come by.
There were reports of the league in the newspapers of the day, there were box scores and such, but the record keeping was here and there at best, but Major League Baseball does have an accumulation of data about the Negro League, accurate or not.
While elevating the Negro Leagues to major league status, does that mean that Gibson’s 800 homers are now the standard against what Barry Bonds accomplished decades later? How does Paige’s 40-plus shutouts rank against Christy Mathewson, who threw more than 100 shutouts against all-white opponents?
Do the accomplishments of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and players of segregated Major League Baseball now wane because they didn't always play against the top competition?
And is this move to further legitimize the Negro Leagues baseball's way of tearing down its own statues because it doesn’t like what they represent?
I honestly don’t know what all of this means, and supposedly the jury is out on how to handle the records of the Negro Leagues versus those of Major League Baseball.
I am as happy as anyone that the Negro Leagues a century after their founding in the 1920s has happened, but baseball is the one sport where statistics tell the full story of success, so I am not that sure that we are at the point where we can say that all of the Negro Leagues statistics are on par with those collected by Major League Baseball, and thus, can be melded into the framework and history of Major League Baseball seamlessly.
So, who is the homerun king, Gibson or Bonds—or even Aaron if you consider Bonds’ record to be tainted.
Statistics are statistics. Casey Stengel called them “statics,” and he did so not because Stengel at that point in time was the clown prince of baseball, but because he knew exactly what he was saying.
But then again, statistics are statistics, and in this day of sabremetrics, statistics are even more important than ever before.
Is Major League Baseball supposed to throw all of that away now when putting the statistics of the Negro Leagues on par with that of Major League Baseball?
You know, I really don’t know, and I don’t think that Major League Baseball fully knows right now, either.
Just let’s be happy that the Negro Leagues have been granted major league status, and let’s take it all from there, and take it very, very slowly.
(And as an aside, and at a lesser level of importance, isn’t it time that the National Basketball Association recognize the statistics from the old American Basketball Association? They don’t right now, so the glory years of a player like Julius Erving are completely ignored as if they never happened. The time has come, I think, since today’s NBA represents the old ABA game more than the old NBA game, in particular with the prominence of action related to the three-point arc. It is time, I do believe, and I think players from the ABA should be fully recognized for their accomplishments.)
And is this move to further legitimize the Negro Leagues baseball's way of tearing down its own statues because it doesn’t like what they represent?
I honestly don’t know what all of this means, and supposedly the jury is out on how to handle the records of the Negro Leagues versus those of Major League Baseball.
I am as happy as anyone that the Negro Leagues a century after their founding in the 1920s has happened, but baseball is the one sport where statistics tell the full story of success, so I am not that sure that we are at the point where we can say that all of the Negro Leagues statistics are on par with those collected by Major League Baseball, and thus, can be melded into the framework and history of Major League Baseball seamlessly.
So, who is the homerun king, Gibson or Bonds—or even Aaron if you consider Bonds’ record to be tainted.
Statistics are statistics. Casey Stengel called them “statics,” and he did so not because Stengel at that point in time was the clown prince of baseball, but because he knew exactly what he was saying.
But then again, statistics are statistics, and in this day of sabremetrics, statistics are even more important than ever before.
Is Major League Baseball supposed to throw all of that away now when putting the statistics of the Negro Leagues on par with that of Major League Baseball?
You know, I really don’t know, and I don’t think that Major League Baseball fully knows right now, either.
Just let’s be happy that the Negro Leagues have been granted major league status, and let’s take it all from there, and take it very, very slowly.
(And as an aside, and at a lesser level of importance, isn’t it time that the National Basketball Association recognize the statistics from the old American Basketball Association? They don’t right now, so the glory years of a player like Julius Erving are completely ignored as if they never happened. The time has come, I think, since today’s NBA represents the old ABA game more than the old NBA game, in particular with the prominence of action related to the three-point arc. It is time, I do believe, and I think players from the ABA should be fully recognized for their accomplishments.)
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