today's special Hall of Fame election for Negro Leaguers

a contrary view: https://theundefeated.com/features/mlb-elevating-the-status-of-negro-leagues-is-the-problem-not-the-solution

also saw someone asking if mlb will now be offering pensions to the handful of negro leaguers who are still alive

xp

seems like the stats thing will be complicated.

Since Negro League seasons were typically much shorter than MLB seasons, the sport’s career records for “counting” stats — such as Barry Bonds’s 762 home runs and Pete Rose’s 4,256 hits — are largely safe, if only because top Negro Leaguers are credited with having played between 1,000 and 1,600 career games, as opposed to, say, Rose’s 3,562.

For example, Gibson, who spent much of his career in Washington playing for the Homestead Grays and is considered the Negro Leagues’ most prolific slugger, is credited on his Hall of Fame plaque with hitting “almost 800 home runs.” Many of them, however, were on barnstorming tours and are not part of the official record, as determined by the Seamheads researchers, who credit him with only 238 in Negro League play — still most among Negro Leaguers.

The all-time MLB rankings for “rate” statistics, such as batting average, on the other hand, could see a wholesale rewriting. Gibson’s career batting average of .365, for example, would rank second only to Cobb’s .366 and — along with Jud Wilson’s .359, Charleston’s .350 and Turkey Stearns’s .348 — would push Babe Ruth’s .342 out of the top 10. Gibson’s career slugging percentage of .690 would edge out Ruth’s .6897 as the highest in major league history.

Single-season stats would also be affected, with Gibson’s .441 batting average in 1943 supplanting Hugh Duffy’s .440 for the 1897 Boston Beaneaters of the National League as the highest in a single season in history. Ted Williams, who hit .406 for the Boston Red Sox in 1941, would lose his status as the last player to hit .400 in a single season.

looks like mlb + elias are going to do some research to determine what goes in the record books

Didn't have time to read the Ringer piece this morning, but after "Good job," the messiness of records was the first thing that occurred to me. Interested to hear Hank Aaron's thoughts.

Not that something like this would distract his attention from COVID, but Trump still has a month to issue an executive order that all white-guy baseball records must remain standing.

b-ref updates: https://www.baseball-reference.com/negro-leagues-are-major-leagues.shtml

(this makes dustin ackley the 20,000th major league player)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2022/06/21/hamtramck-negro-league-ballpark-renovation-unveiled/7681794001/

After a $2.6 million renovation, the historic Hamtramck Stadium — one of the few remaining Negro League ballparks in America — was unveiled Monday with a ceremony and a Negro Leagues tribute baseball game.

The event honored native Detroiter Ron Teasley Sr., one of four living players from the Major Negro Leagues’ era, the Friends of Historic Hamtramck Stadium said. Teasley played with the New York Cubans in the Negro National League in 1948 and also played in the Brooklyn Dodgers’ farm system.

Teasley, a Wayne State University graduate, taught for more than 30 years and coached baseball, basketball and golf at Detroit’s Northwestern High School for more than two decades. Teasley spoke at the event, and was joined by his family and a few of the players he had coached.