The Patriot Post® · MLB, Negro Leagues Rewrite the Record Books

Until someone invents a time machine, the prospect of changing history will remain outside the realm of possibilities. In the meantime, however, the woke contagion that has been negatively impacting our nation for the last few years will continue its course.

America’s original sin, its greatest historical blight, is its treatment of blacks. They entered the nation as slaves, held in that state until the bloody War Between the States ended the practice, and then were subjected to racial discrimination for nearly a century afterward. It is a shameful stain on our national history, especially so because America was founded upon the principle of the equality of every human being; as the Declaration of Independence articulates, “All men are created equal … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” But blacks were denied those rights.

Thankfully, all Americans today enjoy equal rights protected by law. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended the legal racial discrimination against blacks. And we as a nation rightly celebrate this process of becoming more fully the nation the Founders set out to build.

As noted above, history is history; it cannot be changed, no matter how shameful or embarrassing it may be for us today. Furthermore, we cannot right the wrongs of the past. However, we can learn from the mistakes of the past to avoid repeating them.

The problem with today’s woke ideology is not that it recognizes the sins of the past; it’s that it seeks to transfer the guilt of those sins onto those living today who are wholly innocent of them. The big irony is that in doing so, those advocating this woke ideology are actually engaging in promoting the very same spirit of racial prejudice and hatred they claim to be so offended by.

So, what does all this have to do with Major League Baseball?

Well, MLB has announced that it has incorporated all the Negro Leagues’ stats and records into those of MLB. This move follows a decision in 2020 to officially recognize all the Negro Leagues from 1920 through 1948, of which there were seven, as Major Leagues.

By doing so, the historical records of MLB were shaken up quite a bit. One of the biggest changes is that Josh Gibson, who never played in the MLB, now tops the record book with a career batting average of .372, supplanting Ty Cobb (.367). Gibson also tops the all-time slugging average, dropping Babe Ruth to second. Furthermore, Gibson now tops the MLB for the highest single-season batting average in Major League history at .466.

There is no question that Gibson was a great player. He deserved to and would have played in the MLB had the league not discriminated against blacks.

But the trouble is, Gibson never played in the MLB. Was it an injustice? Certainly, but this injustice cannot be remedied by now, nearly 80 years after he played, artificially incorporating his stats into the MLB record books as if he had played.

He never faced MLB pitching, so the comparison between him and Cobb or Ruth is flawed. We don’t know, nor can we ever know, what Gibson’s career numbers would have been had he played his entire career alongside the best white players of the day. And this is, indeed, a shame. And the same goes for all the Negro League players.

Recognizing their contribution to history, it took these great athletes years to prove they were just as good and oftentimes better than many players in the MLB of their day. This allowed them to be taken seriously and for Jackie Robinson to break through the color barrier in 1947. But even more so, these Negro League players played baseball for the love of the game. It wasn’t about the stats.

Ironically, Major League Baseball is attempting to rewrite history rather than recognize it. Will there be an asterisk next to Gibson’s name, noting that he never played a game in MLB? Or put another way, what would Cobb’s numbers have looked like if he played his career in the Negro Leagues? There is no way to answer these questions, and baseball’s actions actually do an injustice to history in order to placate people’s feelings today.