One hundred years later, the Negro Leagues are finally, officially, a major league too.
Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced Wednesday that seven of the historic all-Black professional baseball leagues, which operated between 1920 and 1948, will be elevated to major league status, giving what MLB described as “long overdue recognition” to approximately 3,400 players who will now be added to its official statistics and record books.
“All of us who love baseball have long known that the Negro Leagues produced many of our game’s best players, innovations and triumphs against a backdrop of injustice,” Manfred said in a statement. “We are now grateful to count the players of the Negro Leagues where they belong: as Major Leaguers within the official historical record.”
Founded during an era of segregation in baseball and society, the Negro Leagues became a popular alternative to MLB during their existence, headlined by stars such as Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, Turkey Stearnes, and Satchel Paige, before later giving future MLB legends such as Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron their starts in professional baseball.
In recent decades, historians and researchers assembled a database of statistics from the Negro League era by combing through old box scores in newspapers and archives, and also by developing formulas and calculations to fill in any holes from the often under-documented games.
