The Major League has re-classified the baseball Negro leagues as the ‘Major League’ and will count the statistics and records of 3,400 players as part of its history.
Negro said Wednesday that it was “correcting long-standing oversight in game history” by lifting the leagues through the centenary celebrations of its founding. The Negro leagues have seven leagues, and the MLB holds records from those circuits between 1920-48. Negro leagues began to disintegrate in 1947 when Jackie Robinson became MLB’s first black player with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Those leagues were excluded in 1969 when a special committee on baseball records identified the six official “major leagues” of 1876.
“The MLB is of the opinion that the committee’s avoidance of the Negro leagues in 1969 was an error in seeking today’s status,” the league said in a statement.
He od Dodgers Prior to signing with, Jackie Robinson played for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro League. pic.twitter.com/n40e9vAvM1
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The MLB said the input was considered from studies by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, a group of Negro League researchers and writers and other baseball writers and researchers.
By officially elevating the Negro leagues to “Major League” status, the MLB is correcting long-standing oversight of game history. pic.twitter.com/gPSaTbD5Ud
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The League works with the Elias Sports Bureau to review Negro League statistics and records and determine how to incorporate them into MLB history.
“All of us baseball lovers have known for a long time that the Negro leagues are the best players in our game, innovating and winning in the face of injustice,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “We now thank the players of the Negro leagues for counting where they are: as major leagues in the official historical record.”
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