To “highlight the contributions of the pioneers who played from 1920-1948”, Major League Baseball Commissioner has announced that the Negro League will be “Major League” status, Sports Illustrated says.
“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,” MLB commissioner Rob 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.”
Along with the designation for the Negro leagues, MLB will also alter its record books to include the stats and achievements of individuals in the Negro leagues from 1920 to 1948.
Also, players who played in both the Negro leagues and MLB will have both “sets of statistics” included on their career’ resumes, according to The Ringer’s Ben Lindbergh. This list contains over 3,400 players set to have their names marked in the Major League’s record books.
In 1968, the Negro leagues were denied the opportunity to be acknowledged as a major league after a ruling from MLB’s Special Baseball Records Committee, consisting of an all-white voting board.
“The perceived deficiencies of the Negro Leagues structure and scheduling were born of MLB’s exclusionary practices and denying them Major League status has been a double penalty, much like that exacted of Hall of Fame candidates prior to Satchel Paige’s induction in 1971,” John Thorn, the Official Historian of Major League Baseball, said. “Granting MLB status to the Negro Leagues a century after their founding is profoundly gratifying.”
It wasn’t until early 2020 did MLB began reconsidering elevating the Negro league’s status, especially since the “100th anniversary of the founding of the Negro leagues coincided with sweeping societal protests of racial injustice.”
