MLB changes record books..adds in Negro League stats

[elextrano8]

3 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

But like I said...strip away emotions.  From a strict logical perspective, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

It makes a whole lot of sense to me, based on the logic that MLB has been officially recognizing 60-game seasons for multiple years now.

[Moose Milligan]

2 minutes ago, elextrano8 said:

It makes a whole lot of sense to me, based on the logic that MLB has been officially recognizing 60-game seasons for multiple years now.

With complete stats, correct?  

[elextrano8]

Just now, Moose Milligan said:

With complete stats, correct?  

Yep, and I find it logical to include "incomplete" stats because of the circumstances that forced them to be as such.

[Moose Milligan]

Just now, elextrano8 said:

Yep, and I find it logical to include "incomplete" stats because of the circumstances that forced them to be as such.

So that's an emotional take.  And that's fine.

[elextrano8]

Just now, Moose Milligan said:

So that's an emotional take.  And that's fine.

No, it's not. Don't be an asshat.

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, elextrano8 said:

Yep, and I find it logical to include "incomplete" stats because of the circumstances that forced them to be as such.

What they were forced to do is completely irrelevant to the concept of “should their stats count the same as stats in a different and higher league”.

If someone were arguing that they don’t belong in the HOF, your argument would have merit.

But that’s not the argument.

We don’t recognize Ichiro as the all time hit king or Oh as the all time HR king.  Yes those guys weren’t forced to be in those leagues but they exist anyway.  Should they be part of MLB records?

[Moose Milligan]

Just now, elextrano8 said:

No, it's not. Don't be an asshat.

I don't disagree that the circumstances were crappy.  

But if you're trying to logically reconcile stats that are incomplete compared to stats that are complete and say they're the same, that's hard for me to wrap my head around.  Had the Negro Leagues had complete stats and complete box scores, I'd be right there with you.

I'm also not calling you an asshat, btw.  You're the one who's getting spicy here, not me.

[elextrano8]

Just now, Moose Milligan said:

I don't disagree that the circumstances were crappy.  

But if you're trying to logically reconcile stats that are incomplete compared to stats that are complete and say they're the same, that's hard for me to wrap my head around.  Had the Negro Leagues had complete stats and complete box scores, I'd be right there with you.

I'm also not calling you an asshat, btw.  You're the one who's getting spicy here, not me.

What you are doing is telling me that something that I see as perfectly logical is actually based on emotion, simply because it does not agree with your opinion. At the very best, it's not a cool thing to do

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, elextrano8 said:

What you are doing is telling me that something that I see as perfectly logical is actually based on emotion, simply because it does not agree with your opinion. At the very best, it's not a cool thing to do

You said your logic is based on what they were forced to do.  100% your emotions are part of your reason, which was his point.

[Moose Milligan]

Just now, elextrano8 said:

What you are doing is telling me that something that I see as perfectly logical is actually based on emotion, simply because it does not agree with your opinion. At the very best, it's not a cool thing to do

Is it not based on emotion?  You want to see wrongs from the past rectified.  I don't have a problem with that.

But explain to me how a set of incomplete stats is on par with a set of complete stats.  Not just for this particular case, but for anything in general.  

And then tell me what happens if they find more stats and box scores to say that Josh Gibson in fact isn't the all time batting average leader and that it reverts back to Ty Cobb?  

[elextrano8]

10 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Is it not based on emotion?  You want to see wrongs from the past rectified.  I don't have a problem with that.

But explain to me how a set of incomplete stats is on par with a set of complete stats.  Not just for this particular case, but for anything in general.  

And then tell me what happens if they find more stats and box scores to say that Josh Gibson in fact isn't the all time batting average leader and that it reverts back to Ty Cobb?  

I do want to see the wrongs of the past rectified. I don't believe that this is actually rectifying anything.

At best, this is just making just our forever incomplete history a little more complete. That is a logical goal.

You know that stats get corrected like all the effing time? Box scores get corrected, etc etc. And not just recent games, going back as far as can be proven.

The statistical record is living and breathing thing that is constantly changing. It is, by virtue of how it was recorded for so very long, and by it's very nature, incomplete.

If they find more stats that says that Ty Cobb is the batting average leader, then it reverts back to him. It's simple, and dare I say, logical.

Edited May 29 by elextrano8

[Moose Milligan]

Just now, elextrano8 said:

 

If they find more stats that says that Ty Cobb is the batting average leader, then it reverts back to him. It's simple, and dare I say, logical.

Right, thanks for making my point.   Can't tell the whole story without all the stats.

 

[elextrano8]

2 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Right, thanks for making my point.   Can't tell the whole story without all the stats.

 

We don't actually have all the stats...ever.

Edited May 29 by elextrano8

[ChosenOne21]

25 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I've got to side with SG on this one, for the most part.  And it's not because I'm some red-ass conservative who doesn't like "woke."

It's obvious, but it needs to be said anyway...a great injustice was done to these players.  And I do believe that they had every bit of athletic ability that their MLB counterparts had.  I do believe the MLB before 1947 (and really, well into the 50's and early 60s) would have been light years better with these players.  

But stripping away emotions and looking at things strictly from a logical perspective, it's hard to reconcile.

@Frobbyclued me in, their seasons were shorter, that's why Josh Gibson's slugging percentage is so high. They didn't play as many games that were official but played a lot that weren't...from what I understand, the barnstorming stats aren't being added here.  The statistical records, admittedly, are incomplete.  

Again, looking at it from a logical perspective...it just doesn't make sense.  What we have here is an incomplete story (again, not the fault of those players) being added to one that is complete.  

Ty Cobb had 11,440 at bats.  Josh Gibson had 2168 that we know of.  I have a hard time reconciling that and saying that he's the all-time batting average leader.  I have a hard time reconciling that all of a sudden, his slugging percentage is higher than Babe Ruth's in about 6,000 less at bats.  

And what happens if they do more and more research and find out that he's actually not the all time batting average leader, are they going to take that away from him?  

To @Frobby's point about the quality of the leagues...the quality of the leagues took a nose-dive as MLB became integrated.  Where do you start and stop with that?

Willie Mays just got 10 more hits added to his career total.  10 hits is all he got in the Negro leagues?  His home run total is still at 660 because there's no box scores of hitting a homer despite accounts that he did on August 11th 1948 because it was written about in two newspapers.

But they can't give him 661 because there's no box score?  How come they can't make Hank Aaron the home run king again, didn't he hit a few homers in the Negro Leagues?  Where are those stats and how come they're not added?

At the end of the day, I don't really care too much, this isn't going to be something that keeps me up at night.  And it's a good thing that Josh Gibson and others are getting their due.  I can't argue with that.

But like I said...strip away emotions.  From a strict logical perspective, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I pretty much agree with this, though I'd add that, mathematically, it'd be pretty hard for the Negro Leagues to have the same talent level as MLB. In 1930, the USA was 88.7% white. For ease of use, we'll call everyone else "black" which gets us to 11.3%. This means MLB had nearly eight times as many people to draw talent from as the Negro Leagues. This doesn't mean that there weren't players in the Negro Leagues who would have/did have great MLB careers, there are many examples of players who did. But unless you believe blacks are eight times better at baseball than whites or eight times more likely to seriously pursue a career in baseball (I don't believe this, or the reverse. I imagine they are/were pretty much equal, or at least not nearly different by a factor of 8.), then the Negro leagues were likely a significantly lower level of competition than the MLB.

Not trying to deny that these men were done a great injustice by not being given the opportunity to play in MLB. Just saying most of their numbers wouldn't directly translate.

As for making up for past injustices, I imagine most, if not all the men who played in the Negro Leagues are dead or soon will be. The ability to make restitution to these men has largely passed. And I don't think it appreciably helps modern black youth like baseball more by adding the Negro League stats to MLB (though, I could be wrong about this.).

[Moose Milligan]

2 minutes ago, elextrano8 said:

We don't actually have all the stats...ever.

I think we have all the stats from Cal Ripken's career.  I think we have all the stats from Ted Williams' career.  

If you're equating to someone finding an extra hit for Ty Cobb in the 80s, or someone getting a base hit instead of an error that's corrected later that evening after the game, or a rushing yard adjusted the next morning, that's not the same thing as what we're discussing.