By
CNN
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Major League Baseball will incorporate the statistics of former Negro Leagues players into its historical records, meaning the leaders of some statistical categories will change, USA Today reported Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the decision.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because MLB plans an official announcement on Wednesday, USA Today reported.
Josh Gibson, one of the greatest sluggers in the history of the Negro Leagues, will become MLB’s new all-time career leader in batting average at .372, moving ahead of Ty Cobb, USA Today reported. Gibson will also supplant Babe Ruth as the career leader in slugging percentage (.718) and On-base Plus Slugging (1.177), according to USA Today.
“When you hear Josh Gibson’s name now, it’s not just that he was the greatest player in the Negro Leagues,” Sean Gibson, Gibson’s great grandson, told USA Today Sports, “but one of the greatest of all time. These aren’t just Negro League stats. They’re major-league baseball stats.”
“This means so much for not only the Josh Gibson family, but representing the 2,300 men in the Negro Leagues who didn’t get the opportunity to play [in the Major Leagues],” he said.
CNN has sought comment from MLB.
The catcher was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972. Gibson’s Baseball Hall of Fame plaque – he’s one of 35 Negro League stars enshrined in Cooperstown – says he “hit almost 800 home runs in league and independent baseball” during his 17-year career. But the majority of those homers came not in league-sanctioned games (about 50 to 75 per season) but in exhibitions played against former big leaguers and white semi-pro teams.
This comes about three and a half years after MLB recognized Negro Leagues as its equivalent and counted the statistics and records of thousands of Black players who played in the Negro Leagues from 1920 to the late 1940s. Even though that recognition happened in December 2020, MLB at the time said it needed time to review how that recognition would affect MLB record books, in part because some statistics were still being compiled and because MLB needed to sort league-sanctioned games from exhibitions.
“Many people have heard of Martin Dihigo and Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige. But what about the thousands of other men who played in the Negro Leagues from 1920 to 1948? They’re being recognized finally as major league caliber ballplayers,” Scott Simkus, one of the researchers credited by MLB with compiling and constructing the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database, said at the time. “Their statistical records, their careers are going to be considered equal to anybody who had played in the National League or American League during that period of time.”
MLB in 2020 said it was “correcting a longtime oversight” by elevating the status of the Negro Leagues — which consisted of seven leagues and about 3,400 Black and Latino players from 1920 to 1948.
“It’s sad this great history has been kept from them,” Larry Lester, co-founder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, said at the time.
Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, had said the recognition “serves as historical validation for those who had been shunned from the Major Leagues and had the foresight and courage to create their own league that helped change the game and our country, too.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
