Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
WaitingforRuffcorn wrote:
Frank Coztansa wrote:
Terry's Peeps wrote:
It'll be interesting for sure to see how the stats are incorporated into history.
I don't see how you can do anything other than add them all whatever they may be, or don't add any. If the steroid era stats are going to stay in and count, then the same should happen for the Negro Leagues in my opinion.
Those are completely different circumstances, and it makes zero sense to compare them. Let's just add the stats from the Federalist League, and raise the banner for the Chicago Whales while we are at it.
I guess I kind of fall somewhere between you and Frank regarding the numbers. If this had happened in 1980 I would have found it outrageous. 60 and 714 were sacred numbers that everyone knew. The names Tracy Stallard and Al Downing mean something to me. There was a time when I could tell you every guy who ever hit 50 in a season off the top of my head and it wasn't many. The steroid, juiced ball, small ballpark, whatever you want to attribute the offensive explosion to era changed everything. I don't even know the all-time home run record. I know Bonds holds it, but I couldn't tell you the number. The single season record, I'm pretty sure it's 73, but I wouldn't swear to it without looking it up. And I'm a pretty big fan. Even the average guy who didn't really care about the game knew 714. So did his wife.
Still, of course you're correct that it's pandering and it's pretty ridiculous to install the Bunyanesque feats of these guys, as great as they may have been, as official records. Are we going to replace Usain Bolt with Cool Papa Bell based on legend and sketchy record keeping too? Even if the record keeping were complete and relatively sound, which it isn't, there were too many guys pitching to Gibson and Charleston that couldn't have sniffed the big leagues.
It's certainly true that stats have taken a huge hit, but think of the irony of a guy who never played Major League baseball taking the home run crown from Hank Aaron and the unofficial/official champion Barry Bonds. How is that for social justice?
Also, this is ignoring what the Negro Leagues were. They were not the Majors, but with black guys. It was closer to the circus of that era. They would go from town to town and put on a show. And the gate was their salary so that was more important than the competition.
Baseball has gone to great lengths to honor these guys. Acting like they played MLB is just silly overreach that doesn't improve anyone's life. In fact it distorts and white washes history. They are in the record books. It's like they were never banned.
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Why are only 14 percent of black CPS 11th-graders proficient in English?The Missing Link wrote:
For instance they were never taught that Columbus was a slave owner.
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