MLB integrating its record books with the Negro Leagues works for the wrong reason
This column was supposed to be about Major League Baseball combining its statistics with the the Negro Leagues was a terribly noble but ultimately just a terrible idea.
Because you can’t re-write history. Because the leagues were only separate, and anything but equal.
As a baseball fan, I’m not sure that’s a great idea, but after talking to two men who played in the Negro Leagues, I get why the people who made this decision did it.
Sam Allen and Pedro Sierra are Negro Leagues alums, a precious group of men whose stories can never be told enough. On Saturday afternoon at the MLB’s All-Star village at Choctaw Stadium, the men patiently took pictures with fans who lined up to meet American legends whose contributions to society are finally recognized, even if they can’t be quantified.
Talking to these men is a humbling experience because you know what they experienced is for most of us incomprehensible.
“People insulted you all the time,” Sierra said. “But my father told me, ‘Hear them, but don’t listen.’ You got used to it.”
Sierra played the Indianapolis Clowns and Detroit Stars of the Negro Leagues, from 1954 to ‘58.
“If you had a charley horse you played throughout. If you pitched one day, the next day you played the outfield. It was fun, but it was hard. You played Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and on Friday it was a doubleheader,” said Allen, who played for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues in the late ‘50s.
“Saturday, a doubleheader. Sometimes a doubleheader on Sunday. And you’re playing in a wool jacket in this heat? It’s work. Then you get on the bus for four or five hours to the next game.”
The pay was anywhere between $100 to $150 a month.
From a historical statistical perspective, combining the data from different leagues is a bad idea. MLB would never combine the statistics from Nippon Professional Baseball Organization in Japan with its own record books. MLB would never include in its own history books the numbers from Liga Mexicana de Béisbol in Mexico.
One of the pillars to MLB is its history; it’s a game built partially on its obsession with statistics. It’s what still separates itself from the NFL, NBA and NHL.
No other sport has numbers like “.406.” There is no equivalent to “4,192.” Or “5,714.”
It’s one of the reasons why so many Baseball Hall of Fame voters refuse to vote for a player who was widely known as a steroid user. Barry Bonds is one of the greatest players ever, but the man took a lot of quality performance enhancing drugs to break Hank Aaron’s career home run record.
One of the other pillars of MLB in its history is its place in America’s civil rights movement. What MLB did by pushing for Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier changed America.
Here in 2024 we know there were so many other great players from the Negro Leagues beyond just Robinson who would have been outstanding Major League players. All-Stars. Hall of Famers. Few Americans ever saw them.
“We always had that ambition to play and to show that baseball was not only to be played by white people. That we players of color, and Latino, that we just needed the opportunity,” Sierra said. “We never had any doubt about our capacity.”
Allen said, “In the beginning, Negro League teams played against Major League teams 250 times, and the teams from the Negro Leagues won over 200 times.”
Extensive research says Allen’s claim is close to accurate.
Earlier this season, MLB held a regular-season game between the Giants and Cardinals at Rickwood Field, located in Birmingham, Ala. It is the oldest pro baseball stadium in the U.S., and it was once the home venue for the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues.
It was a wonderful event that provided an opportunity to learn more about the Negro Leagues, its players, and the tragic reality of why they ever existed.
During the FOX Sports pregame, former New York Yankees outfielder Reggie Jackson detailed his experience of playing there in the minors. An experience there was hell. A hell that came well after the Negro Leagues ended.
“We contributed a lot to baseball history,” Allen said. “When you think about baseball history now you don’t just think about Babe Ruth. You think about Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell. These are the guys you need to know about.”
From the statistical perspective, combining these record books is a reach.
From the human perspective, giving a group of men their deserved due is not only humane, but justifiable.
