Major League Baseball officials announced on Wednesday the elevation of the United States Negro Leagues to “Major League” status, adding the statistical records from more than 3,400 players to its archive.
MLB officials said the move was a “product of evaluation through this year,” which led the league, through a series of conversations with the authors of the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database, to decide that inclusion of records and statistics from the Negro Leagues was “long overdue.” The records added are from players who played in the Negro Leagues from 1920-48.
“It is MLB’s view that the Committee’s 1969 omission of the Negro Leagues from consideration was clearly an error that demands today’s designation,” MLB wrote in a statement.
A twitter post from MLB said the Negro Leagues “produced many of our game’s best players, innovations and triumphs against a backdrop of injustice.”
MLB is correcting a longtime oversight in the game’s history by officially elevating the Negro Leagues to “Major League” status. pic.twitter.com/gPSaTbD5Ud
— MLB (@MLB) December 16, 2020
The move comes amid a year punctuated by social justice protests leveled by athletes across all major U.S. sports leagues, calling for greater understanding of racial issues experienced by players, past and present.
“We are now grateful to count the players of the Negro Leagues where they belong: as Major Leaguers within the official historical record,” MLB Commissioner Robert Manfred wrote.
Some of the greatest Negro Leagues ballplayers of all time, including center fielder Willie Mays, pitcher Satchel Paige, catcher Josh Gibson, and left fielder Monte Irvin will have their statistics boosted following the decision.
Gibson’s .441 batting average in 1943 will now stand as the greatest batting season in history, and Paige will be marked as recording more than 150 wins, an addition of at least 146 wins that were not lodged in MLB’s record books.
According to the MLB, the leagues that will be added to its database include the Negro National League (I) (1920–1931), the Eastern Colored League (1923–1928), the American Negro League (1929), the East-West League (1932), the Negro Southern League (1932), the Negro National League (II) (1933–1948), and the Negro American League (1937–1948).
