04/25/24
February 07, 2002
Major League Baseball (yes the very same organization monitoring all our thoughts) fesses up to the skeletons in their closet with a new section of their site dedicated to honoring those in the Negro Leagues. There are team histories, profiles of players, and even a story about women that played in the league. Is this progress?
I am waiting for a movie about the Negro Leagues. Why hasn't there been a definitive one produced? With characters like Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, etc., it's perfect material. Bingo Long's Traveling All-Stars is about the only one I can remember. And when you talk baseball, you have to talk Ken Burns. In that documentary, some of the most poignant moments were the interview segments with Buck O'Neill of the Kansas City Monarchs. He burns when he talks about baseball. One moment I remember particularly is when he talks about going to an old slave-trading market with Satchel Paige...they just stood there silent for ten minutes, then Paige said "We have to remember this" (probably wrong quote, but you get the idea). And so many of the interviewees talk about how Baseball's Golden Age was not in fact the Golden Age because not everyone was allowed to play. Buck O'Neill just says how he never thought of it that way and how it was a privilege just to play the game, and asks not to be pitied. O'Neill was magic when he talked in those interviews. Probably the highlight of what was already a great docu. But the history of baseball is indeed shameful in its race relations. Any amount of coverage of The Negro Leagues is a step in the right direction. Judge Mountain Landis and the "Gentlemen's Agreement" represent a terrible chapter in our nation's history and are a blight on the game. Everyone should see a documentary about this history and learn the real history of the game, that even now you have to delve deep to find.
posted by kafkaesque at 01:21 PM on February 07, 2002
i agree with Samsonov14, the history is pretty much out there and acknowledged -- and has been for a long time. the 50th anniversary of jackie robinson breaking the color barrier was a huge news story for like a month in 1997. (april 15 has even been proposed as a nat'l holiday.) there are 18 negro league players in the basball hall of fame, which is extremely selective about who gets inducted. what struck me about the link is how well designed the mlb.com is. i'd never really ventured out of the real-time game-center pages before. it blows the socks of nfl.com and (the especially lame) nba.com.
posted by danostuporstar at 02:06 PM on February 07, 2002
How does baseball reconcile records that may have been broken or whatnot during the Negro League era? From what I understand there are some players who had insane numbers, but nobody realy heard about them. Are those records just classified as "other" or could they be integrated into the official record book cannon? [NFL.com is sort of hit and miss as the individual teams run their own sites. The Cowboys site is pretty good, the 'Skins site is more a press release reprint site]
posted by owillis at 03:18 PM on February 07, 2002
OWillis, the simple answer is they don't reconcile those stats and yes, they are classified in separate ways. Many a Negro League star put up gaudy numbers over the course of their careers. The previously mentioned Josh Gibson is a great example. He hit over 800 home runs in his career including 75 in one year. Now, those are insane numbers and while he is rightfully recognized as a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame (class of 1972) it's tough to compare his stats to those of his contemporaries in MLB. Ruth played at the same time and Gibson's numbers are better than the Babe's. Nevertheless, they didn't play against the same competition, they didn't play the same number of games and they didn't play in the same stadiums, so there is no easy way to group them together in the record books. It's a shame that we'll never know, but at least Gibson has his plaque in the hall and he's getting the recognition he deserves.
posted by 86 at 04:30 PM on February 07, 2002
owillis: we can only estimate what those statistics would have been had players in the negro leagues batted and pitched against other major league talent and in major league parks. that's not to say that books on records can't include records from the negro leagues; i'm just saying that it would be difficult to accurately mix players in both leagues and have a good idea of who goes where in the top 20 or so. (you could probably have a pretty good idea by estimating; i'm just guessing that MLB would reject the notion for the stats would not be precise.) however, i do believe there is a panel that suggests to the baseball veterans committee players from the negro leagues to add to the hall of fame. speaking of negro league baseball, you might want to read august wilson's "fences," which is partly about a former negro league legend named troy maxon. (i'm assuming it's fictional, but what do i know?)
posted by moz at 04:34 PM on February 07, 2002
It's great that Major League Baseball has this section on their site. There's a lot of interesting information there. It is progress, because it raises and maintains awareness about a shameful part of our past. (I remember Negro League hats and jerseys being trendy a couple of years ago, I suppose around the time of the anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking the color barrier, but I think most people don't know that much about the leagues themselves.) It's important for Major League Baseball to say "baseball must also admit to being ahead of the nation in drawing the color line." Buck O'Neill's asking not to be pitied (via kafkaesque) is supported by this article's point that "the stars of the segregated baseball leagues may have been among the most empowered, least victimized black men to fall under the shadow of Jim Crow." Still, it would have been better if seeing Satchel Paige strike out Babe Ruth had been a regular part of Major League Baseball instead of an exhibition novelty. owillis' question about the records is interesting. I suppose you could make the argument that the records should not be integrated because they were separate leagues—and how would you account for records set in barnstorming games versus local amateur teams versus records set against professional teams playing by set league rules?—but this gets a little too separate-but-equal for me. I'd include the Negro League records if Major League Baseball acknowledges the records from the other, earlier major leagues (the American Association, the Union Association , the Players' League, and the Federal League) that evolved into today's majors. Also, if the Hall of Fame is the Major League Hall of Fame, and not just a Hall of Fame for the sport of baseball, then the records should count because the players are in the hall.
posted by kirkaracha at 04:36 PM on February 07, 2002
You can't include these records with the MLB records.
posted by illinijeff at 01:10 PM on February 08, 2002
That's definitely a little progress, but it's not as if the MLB had been actively hiding the Negro League's history. If you want to pick on a sport, how come we never hear about the Negro Yachting League? When Captain William Pinkney gets the recognition he deserves, THAT will be progress.