Editor’s Note: While the MLB recognizes seven leagues from 1920-1948 as Major Leagues, there were other leagues operating before, during and after this time period. The “Negro Leagues” referred to in this reporting is referring only to the seven leagues considered to be Major Leagues. This designation was determined by criteria created by the MLB.
Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier for Major League Baseball in 1947. His actions were enshrined in baseball immortality, when every MLB retired his number, 42, and the MLB established Jackie Robinson Day each April 15, according to the MLB. Before Robinson broke the color barrier, though, he was one of many players in the Negro Leagues.
After over half a century, MLB decided to acknowledge and remember these players and teams.
The MLB has integrated statistics from the Negro Leagues into the Major League Record Book, the MLB announced May 29. As a result, the all-time leaderboards for the MLB changed and more people are starting to learn the story of Black baseball.
“It is anchored against the ugliness of American segregation, a horrible chapter in this country’s history,” said Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo. “But the story here is what emerged out of segregation. This wonderful story of triumph and conquest, and it’s all based on one small, simple principle: you won’t let me play with you in the Major Leagues, then I’ll create a league of my own.”
The reason why learning the stories of these few thousand Negro Leaguers is important is because it tells a more complete story of the the history of baseball, introducing new names and players to help bring in a new audience, Negro Leagues Historian Leslie Heaphy said.
“If you’re thinking about a tangible change — to be able to show up new characters, new role models, new so that you could potentially broaden your audience,” Heaphy said. “Of those who suddenly say, I see myself in the history of baseball, which I didn’t see myself before.”
Black Baseball Before the MLB
The MLB recognizes seven leagues between 1920 and 1948 as Major Leagues — the Negro National League (I) (1920-1931), Eastern Colored League (1923-1928), American Negro League (1929), East-West League (1932), Negro National League (II) (1933-1948) and Negro American League (1937-1948). Due to the instability of the Negro Leagues, the number of teams and length of time each league lasted varied.
Heaphy said 1948 is the cutoff because that’s when Negro Leaguers started to integrate into the MLB.
“It’s the year following the reintegration of the Major Leagues with Jackie Robinson and the others that started that process that eventually brought about the decline of the eventual end of the Negro Leagues,” Heaphy said.
While these seven leagues between 1920 and 1948 are the only leagues to be given Major League status, the origins of Black baseball can be traced back to the mid-to-late 1800s, and the Negro Leagues continued to exist after integration until the 1960s, Heaphy said.
Unlike the American and National League teams, Negro Leagues teams didn’t only play teams within their own leagues, nor did they have a set schedule, so to make money, Negro Leagues teams often picked up games against minor league, semi-pro, independent and many other teams, multiple historians said. This is referred to as barnstorming and was a key part of the Negro Leagues.
“There’s a lot of instability because of the fact that they were sort of operating on an economic knife,” said Gary Ashwill, creator of the Seamheads Negro League Database. “They were not making tons of money and so they always had to react to circumstances.”
As teams traveled throughout the country, Heaphy said they would pick up extra games between destinations to raise revenue. For example, if a team had a game in New York that ended Monday, with their next game scheduled for Friday in Chicago, they would play games in cities along the way to make more money.
However, only a fraction of the games played by Negro Leagues teams are recognized as Major League games, so the amount of games played in the official record book is far fewer than how many games actually played, multiple historians said.
“In a given season Josh Gibson and the Homestead Grays might play over a whole summer — from spring to fall — they might play 150 to 200 games,” Ashwill said. “But they might only have 60 or 70 league games, or even fewer.”
For determining which of these games would count in the updated record books, Heaphy said the MLB decided any game between two teams who were officially part of the seven leagues and counted toward each league’s respective standings would be an official game and included in the record book.
As for deciding which leagues would be given Major League status, Larry Lester, Negro Leagues historian and co-founder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, said these seven leagues were chosen because of their level of talent and how they acted similarly to American and National League teams.
“These leagues, based on existing data, showed that the teams were made up of quality ball players, they had a schedule, players had contracts,” Lester said. “They mirrored a white Major League Baseball in every aspect of the game, and therefore we deemed them to be a Major League quality.”
The creation of the Negro National League (I) — the first successful organized Black baseball league — is credited to Andrew “Rube” Foster who is referred to as the “father of Black baseball,” according to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Foster played in the pre-Negro Leagues as a pitcher from 1905 to 1917 before founding the Chicago American Giants in 1911; he then served as a player-manager for the team until 1917, according the Hall of Fame. As a manager, Kendrick said Foster was adamant about a fast, aggressive and daring style of play that would become a signature of the Negro Leagues.
“What I find so amazing is that it was that style of play that drew both Black and White fans who would oftentimes sit side by side watching what many would say was the best baseball being played in this country,” Kendrick said.
In February of 1920, after Foster made multiple efforts to create a league, he and the owners of seven other team owners held a meeting at the Paseo YMCA in Kansas City, where he showed up with an official charter document, according to the MLB. The result was the creation of the Negro National League (I) — the first Black baseball league to mirror and operate parallel to the Major Leagues.
The original eight teams were the Chicago American Giants, Kansas City Monarchs, Detroit Stars, Indianapolis ABCs, Cuban Stars West, St. Louis Giants, Dayton Marcos and Chicago Giants, according to Baseball Reference. Foster served as president and treasurer of the league while continuing as owner and manager of the American Giants until 1926, all the while, pursuing his vision was for Negro Leagues teams to merge with the MLB, Kendrick said.
“There were a number of legendary teams that were there in the Negro Leagues that would have given the best of the best in Major League Baseball a big fight for supremacy, if it had happened the way that Rube Foster had wanted it to happen,” Kendrick said. “Rube Foster thought he would create a league that was so dynamic that he would Force Major League Baseball’s hand to expand.”
There are 35 players and 9 executives from the Negro Leagues who have been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, according to Hall of Fame. Of those 35 players, 24 played their entire career in the Negro Leagues.
The Homestead Grays of the Negro National League (II) had the most future Hall of Famers with 11 from 1933 to 1948, according to Baseball Reference.
“Larry Doby and Monte Irvin, Ernie Banks, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays — all played in the Negro Leagues before going to Major League Baseball,” Lester said. “So this is the genesis of greatness, right there in the Black leagues.”
Similar to the MLB, the Negro Leagues had a World Series of their own from 1924 to 1927 between the Negro National League (I) and Eastern Colored League and then from 1942 to 1948 between the Negro American League and Negro National League (II), according to Baseball Reference. The Crawfords had the most titles with three championships and five pennants.
One Negro Leagues World Series Kendrick said was notable was in 1942, which saw the Monarchs defeat the Crawfords with five Hall of Famers between the two teams.
“They [Monarchs] were a dynamite pitching staff that swept the powerful Homestead Grays to win the 1942 Negro League World Series,” Kendrick said. “A World Series that was chock-filled with future Hall of Famers.”
In total, there were roughly 3,400 players in the Negro Leagues between the seven leagues from 1920 to 1948, according to Black Past.
While the players of the Negro Leagues were competing on the ball field, they were also living in a time when the United States was heavily segregated. Thus, players of the Negro Leagues didn’t have the same luxuries or even safety that white players did, said Sean Gibson, great-grandson of Hall of Famer Josh Gibson and founder of the Josh Gibson Foundation.
“He [Josh Gibson] can’t go to certain restaurants because of the color of his skin,” Sean Gibson said. “He can’t go to certain places. They also got to deal with the KKK — gotta deal with death threats. He’s done it all before he even got to the stadium.”
Among the cities that housed Negro Leagues teams, Heaphy said Chicago was consistently one of the most prominent cities for Negro Leagues. Foster was centered in Chicago with his American Giants — one of the most successful teams of its time — and also had the audience for the Negro Leagues with a growing Black population, due to the Great Migration.
In addition, Chicago often had multiple teams — similar to the MLB with the Chicago Cubs and White Sox — while also being home to the East-West Classic, Heaphy said.
“The East-West Classic, which is the biggest game — their equivalent of an All Star game — was played at Comiskey Park every year,” Heaphy said. “And they attracted 45,000 to 55,000 fans to those games, often out-drawing the Major League All Star game.”
Conserving the Negro Leagues
In 1969, the MLB Special Committee on Baseball Records retroactively added four leagues to the record book — the American Association (1882-1891), Union Association (1884), Players League (1890) and Federal League (1914-1915), according to the MLB. The Negro Leagues weren’t even considered to be given Major League status during these meetings.
As mentioned prior, Negro Leagues teams played far fewer official games compared to the MLB, so after the COVID-19 pandemic shortened the 2020 MLB season to 60 games, the MLB decided they should consider the Negro Leagues as Major Leagues, according to ESPN. Not long afterward, the MLB announced on Dec. 16, 2020 they would be giving Major League status to the aforementioned seven leagues before integrating them in the record book.
“The MLB rights two wrongs with this inclusion,” Official MLB Historian John Thorn wrote in an Aug. 14 email to the Graphic. “First, the policy of segregation between 1885 and 1946 and, second, the oversight by the Special Baseball Records Committee in 1969, when it included other defunct white leagues as majors and failed to even consider the Negro Leagues.”
From there, the MLB created the Negro Leagues Statistical Review Committee, which was headed by Thorn and consisted of 16 other Negro Leagues experts, statisticians and former players, according to Baseball Reference. The purpose of the committee was to figure out how to integrate the Negro Leagues statistics into the record book and work out any difficulties that came with it.
After reviewing data, box scores and other information from databases such as Seamheads, Retrosheet and the Elias Sport Bureau, the committee made its first determination public, that being the announcement from May 29, according to Yahoo Sports.
“It’s an ongoing process because the Negro Leagues are so very different in many ways — in terms of their scheduling and things,” Heaphy said. “But that was the essential premise of that group, was simply to be the one to try to work through the questions and the problems that these statistics and this effort brought forward.”
MLB was able to integrate the Negro League statistics into the record book because the many people who have spent years making these statistics readily available for the public — Lester being an early pioneer, Thorn wrote.
Lester said his research into the Negro Leagues started off as curiosity. Growing up going to Kansas City Athletics games and going to school with the children of Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige, he became fascinated in baseball and started to learn about he Negro Leagues, but found very little information on them in any of baseballs encyclopedias.
“They played under the same rules, and therefore the only difference was the color of their skin,” Lester said. “So I felt like it was my mission to fill that void in these encyclopedias and present identical information, because I felt it was necessary.”
Additionally, there are a few databases that have also made large efforts to conserve the stats of the Negro Leagues, one of them being Ashwill’s Seamheads Database, which formed the basis for MLB’s adoption of Negro Leagues records, Thorn wrote.
Both Lester and Ashwill said the process of uncovering Negro Leagues statistics starts with searching through Black weekly newspapers from the time for box scores or something similar like a play-by-play for Negro Leagues game. Some examples of said newspapers include the Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier and Baltimore Afro-American.
“I gathered information from newspapers, from interviews,” Lester said. “I was able to find out their full names, nicknames, where they were born, birthdate, batted left or right, threw left or right. And from there, I started to compile box scores from the black newspapers. Many of the black newspapers covered these games religiously.”
For stats to be officially recognized by the MLB, multiple historians said the box score or play-by-play account for a given game needs to be found. The reason is for every hit by a position player, a pitcher has to let up that hit, so both sides need to balance. A simple mention in a game account is not sufficient evidence for MLB’s database.
Two examples of this include Josh Gibson’s alleged four home run game against the Memphis Red Sox in 1938 and Hall of Fame outfielder Willie Mays hitting an alleged home run for the Birmingham Black Barons in 1948, Thorn wrote.
“At the end of the season, for every home run that is hit, we must have a pitcher who gave up that home run,” Lester said. “We have to just balance the ledger — hits versus pitching and without that, we cannot make a credible case that these four home runs existed.”
Additionally, mainstream newspapers — such as St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Kansas City Times, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Philadelphia Inquirer — also had box scores from the Negro Leagues, thus played a big role in reconstructing Negro Leagues seasons, Ashwill wrote in an Aug. 26 email to the Graphic following his interview.
Lester said he started preserving the statistics before the internet existed. He would go to his local library and print out as many box scores as he could find, manually calculating statistics like batting averages and ERAs. After the internet was invented, he would input these box scores and statistics into a spreadsheet — the oldest box score he found dated back to 1859.
Ashwill wrote his process was about the same but also noted some stats like RBIs needed to be estimated.
“The leagues themselves weren’t able to devote the same resources to keeping their own records as the white major leagues were, because they just didn’t have as much money, didn’t have as many employees and so on,” Ashwill said.
From there, Ashwill wrote he would check the identity of the players, then create season totals that undergo multiple tests to make sure the batting, pitching and fielding totals match, and then rechecks the identity of players before being officially added to the database.
About 72% of the data between 1920 to 1948 has been discovered as the Seamheads Database has data for 9,135 of the 12,608 known games, according to Baseball Reference.
“In the 1920s, it’s 90% or better,” Ashwill said. “In some cases, we have almost all of them. To the 1940s where it actually starts to drop off for various reasons, newspapers just published fewer box scores as you went on through time.”
One challenge Ashwill said came up when searching through these old box scores is they have to rely on what the publishers saw fit to publish and conflicting reports between newspapers. As a result, it is sometimes difficult to figure out what actually happened in a game from a simple box score.
Furthermore, Ashwill said the papers sometimes didn’t know anything about the players themselves and may have gotten their names wrong when publishing.
“The Newark Eagles in the 1940s had a ton of players with the last name of Williams,” Ashwill said. “And they were all multi-position players, and so it’s very hard to work out which one is which and that’s extended over a number of years.”
Multiple historians said the process of finding Negro Leagues statistics is still ongoing, so if more box scores or other data emerges, the current statistics will change. Finding 100% of the data is unlikely, so any more progress would likely consist of refining current data.
While there likely are stories from the Negro Leagues which have some degrees of untruth to them, Ashwill said he enjoys uncovering this data for the opposite reason — so he can confirm the talent some of these players had.
“There are lots of crazy tall tales and that’s true, and we can debunk some of them — sure,” Ashwill said. “But it’s also true that Cool Papa Bell really did steal more bases than anybody else. Josh Gibson really was an incredibly dominant hitter. He was basically the best hitter in every league he ever played in”
For Lester, he said uncovering these statistics is a gateway to learning about the greatness of the Negro Leagues. Baseball fans today may not have heard of many of the best players from the Negro Leagues, but looking at their career numbers can spark that desire to learn about them.
“The Negro League stats have been in the rain delay since 1920,” Lester said. “They’ve always been there, and 100 years later, they take the top off the field and they’re ready to play ball.”
Changing MLB’s Legacy
Upon integrating the Negro Leagues into the record book, the all-time record book has new names across many of its stats.
Outfielder Ty Cobb, who played in the MLB from 1905-1928, held the batting average record since he retired with a career average of .366, according to the MLB. Josh Gibson now owns that record with a career average of .372 and also owns the SLG and OPS record — previously held by Babe Ruth — with a career .718 SLG and 1.176 OPS.
“We hope that this is a gateway to a deeper understanding and learning about who these players were,” Kendrick said. “And for us, they are more than just statistics, and so it is our job to make sure that that element of this story is just as prevalent as the numbers that we’re seeing.”
In October 2020, the MLB removed Former MLB Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis’ name from the MVP award, according to the MLB. Landis was the first Commissioner of Baseball who served from 1921-1944 and denied the 3,400 Negro Leagues players from being able to play in the MLB.
After Landis’ name was removed, Sean Gibson said later that year, he saw an article in The New York Times suggesting three names that could replace Landis’ name — one name being Josh Gibson. From there, Sean Gibson went to his marketing team to make a push for Gibson’s name to be added to the MVP, creating the hashtag #JG20MVP and a website explaining why Josh Gibson’s name should be added to the MVP.
“How ironic would it be for Josh Gibson to replace the same man who denied him an opportunity to play baseball,” Sean Gibson said. “Number two, if the MVP award is named after Josh Gibson it would not just represent Josh Gibson — yes, we know the name on the actual award would say Josh Gibson, but Josh will be carrying those 3,400 men on his shoulders.”
Another player whose name is now all across the MLB record book is outfielder Oscar Charleston, who played from 1920-1941. All-time, Charleston ranks third in batting average, sixth in OBP, seventh in slugging and fifth in OPS while winning the triple crown in 1921, 1924 and 1925, according to Baseball Reference.
“He had the defensive abilities of Tris Speaker,” Kendrick said. “He had the tenacity of Ty Cobb — Charleston usually wouldn’t start the fight, but he would end the fight — and the power of Babe Ruth rolled into one dynamic package.”
The roster size of an American or National team from 1919-2020 was 25 players, but the roster size of a Negro Leagues team varied from roughly 14 to 18 players, according to the MLB. Since they had fewer roster spots, many players often had to play multiple positions.
This can be seen with who Lester said is his favorite player from the Negro Leagues — Willard “Bullet” Rogan — who had 13 hits and won two games on the mound to help the Monarchs win the first Negro Leagues World Series in 1924, according to the Hall of Fame.
“Willard Bullet Rogan — he was a pitcher and an outfielder long before Shohei Ohtani came along,” Lester said. “He could win 15 to 16 games on the pitching mound and batted close to .400 several seasons.”
Another player multiple historians said people should know the name of is shortstop Willie Wells, who’s nickname was “El Diablo” and was compared to Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith.
Across 1,039 games from 1924-1948, Wells hit .330 with a .943 OPS, was a 10-time all star, won the triple crown for the Saint Louis Stars in 1930 hitting .411 with 17 home runs and 114 RBIs and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997, according to Baseball Reference.
“Willie Wells was Ozzie Smith before we ever knew who the wizard was,” Kendrick said. “He was making those same kinds of acrobatic plays as shortstop, but here’s the difference, Willie Wells was a power hitting shortstop.”
A few more players that multiple Negro Leagues historians said more people should be aware of are: outfielder Turkey Stearnes, utility player Martín Dihigo, first basemen/left fielder Mule Suttles and pitcher/outfielder Hilton Smith, among many others.
As mentioned prior, players of the Negro Leagues were playing baseball when America was heavily segregated, as they sometimes had to sleep on the bus on road trips or fish in a local pond for food. Had these players had the same privileges as White baseball players, Kendrick said they could have performed even better.
“You cannot dismiss the social challenges that these athletes had to deal with,” Kendrick said. “It makes you wonder, if they had been privy to the same kinds of living conditions that the major league counterparts had been privy to, how much better would they have been.”
Beyond just the all-time greats and Hall of Famers, multiple historians said integrating the record books opens the gate for many modern baseball fans to learn the stories of the thousands of lesser known Negro Leaguers who are now Major Leaguers.
There are currently two living Negro Leagues players from 1920-1948: outfielder Ron Teasly who is 97 years old and played for the New York Cubans in 1948 and pitcher Bill Greason who is 100 years old and played for the Black Barons from 1948-1951.
As excited as he was for Josh Gibson, Sean Gibson said he already recognized Josh Gibson as a major leaguer, so this incorporation is more important for the lesser known players, such as Teasly finally getting to see his name in the MLB record book.
“My goal was — a man who’s in his 90s, we don’t know how much time he has — and I was definitely wanting to make sure that before he passed away that he saw that,” Sean Gibson said.
In addition to the stories of the players themselves, other aspects of MLB’s history have changed, one example being the first night game. The first night game in MLB history was originally considered to be May 24, 1935 between the Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field with a game that started at 8:30 p.m.
However, the Negro Leagues had night games five years earlier, multiple historians said. Monarchs Owner J.L. Wilkinson developed a system of portable light towers that could be taken across the country so the team could play night games. After a couple barnstorming games in Memphis and Nashville, the first official night game was held in St. Louis between the Monarchs and Stars in 1930.
“So, not only could they play a night game here in Kansas City, they can load them up on the truck and play a night game virtually anywhere,” Kendrick said. “Truth to the matter is, by the time they played that game in Cincinnati, the Monarchs and a team called the House of David had taken night baseball all the way out to Seattle.”
Going beyond baseball as a whole, Heaphy said since the segregation here is attached to baseball, it gives people today an entree into questions and conversation of what led to this and was going on as a whole at this time in American history.
Furthermore, Kendrick said this integration is now finally telling the story of baseball’s history correctly.
“He [MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred] essentially rewrote the pages of American history books to recognize the Negro Leagues for exactly what it was — a major league,” Kendrick said. “To now see the names of those players from the Negro Leagues listed amongst the great white players of Major League Baseball’s yesteryear is something that the handful of players who are still alive, are proud of, their families are proud of, and it was cause for celebration.”
Next Steps
On June 20, 2024, MLB had a Negro Leagues tribute game where they had the San Francisco Giants and Saint Louis Cardinals play each at other at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, AL — the home stadium of Black Barons.
Sean Gibson said he also co-founded the Negro Leagues Family Alliance and one of their initiatives is to have every MLB team wear Negro Leagues uniforms on May 2, the anniversary of the first Negro Leagues game. This past summer, Sean Gibson attended a meet and greet at Rickwood with MLB officials and media members present and announced this is something he would like to see happen.
“We’re hoping within the next two to three years that this is something that can happen,” Sean Gibson said. “And again we know this is not going to happen overnight but one of the things we’re doing now is trying to work with individual teams.”
For Lester, he said he wants MLB teams to hang the championship flags of the Negro Leagues teams that was closest in proximity to each MLB team. For example, the White Sox would fly the championship flag of the 1926 and 1927 American Giants right next to their own World Series Championships.
“This is a low maintenance opportunity to showcase Negro League history,” Lester said. “Have that flag flying out there in center field and fans will say, ‘What is that flag for? Well, I’m so glad you asked. Let me tell you about that team.’ So this is how you get Black fans back into the ballpark and then empower Black baseball.”
__________________
Follow the Graphic on Twitter @PeppGraphic
Contact Tony Gleason on Twitter (@tony__gleason) or via email: anthony.gleason@pepperdine.edu
