You can help to rename the MLB MVP award the Josh Gibson Memorial MVP Award

[Cool Papa Bell]

“There is a catcher that any big-league club would like to buy for $200,000. His name is Gibson. He can do everything. He hits the ball a mile. He catches so easy he might as well be in a rocking chair. Throws like a rifle. Too bad this Gibson is a colored fellow.”

– Hall of Fame pitcher Walter Johnson

[Cool Papa Bell]

“If Satchel Paige had a white skin, he would be worth $100,000 to any big league club that could afford to lay out the money.”

--SF Chronicle, 1/26/1936

To put that in context, Babe Ruth never made more than $80,000 for a season, and DiMaggio signed his rookie contract that same season in 1936 for $8,500.

“It is surprising some move is not planned to lift the bans and allow this fellow (Paige) and other diamond greats of his race to prove their supremacy just as they would be allowed to do in boxing and many other sports.”

--San Francisco Tribune, 1/26/1936

[Cool Papa Bell]

The sport of boxing was championed by black fighters beginning in the 1890's from George Dixon to Jack Johnson to Joe Walcott, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammed Ali, Joe Frazier, Mike Tyson & beyond.

Basketball was revolutionized by the early Harlem Renaissance Five in 1923 and then dominated in the NBA by Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, Julius Irving, Michael Jordan and too many others to count.

Football was integrated in the 1920's and stars such as Fritz Pollard, Paul Robeson, Bobby Marshall excelled, leading to the greats of other decades. Jackie Robinson excelled in 5 sports at UCLA as did many other black athletes.

Yet people are saying that somehow, with all of the athletes in other sports that when given a chance became stars...and even in the early days those chances were limited...that baseball would not have been similar if integrated earlier. Really now. That's about as disingenuous as it gets.

And that is what naming the MLB MVP Award for Josh Gibson is about. Not one man, the 3,000 plus not given the chance over 60 years of the color line, which included him. Were they all stars? No, that's silly and no one is saying that, no one ever has. But at a bare minimum 15-20% of them would have made major league rosters just based on a simple percent of population. In reality, there probably would have been many more than that, which doesn't include the number that would have then trickled down into all levels of the minor leagues. Those are estimates, but on the conservative side. And for one reason and one reason only, the color of their skin, they were not given the opportunity to even try.

How easy, right? Or convenient for whatever agenda it is, to discount players as not major league caliber or record keeping was sparse, or they played barnstorming games, or whatever excuse you want to use. Make up any excuse you want, major league hall of famers, team owners, managers at the time...not today looking back, contemporaries of their time...all disagree with you. You think you are smarter than John McGraw? More astute than Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Ted Williams, Dizzy Dean? Tell you what, I will answer that? You are not. And if you never played the game at that level, let alone many who have never stepped foot on baseball field or haven't since you were 9 years old, you are even less qualified to make any of those kinds of evaluations. Fact.

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by Cool Papa Bell

....Were they all stars? No, that's silly and no one is saying that, no one ever has. But at a bare minimum 15-20% of them would have made major league rosters just based on a simple percent of population. In reality, there probably would have been many more than that, which doesn't include the number that would have then trickled down into all levels of the minor leagues. ...

I agree. Josh Gibson faced major league quality pitching for about 20% of his at bats.

THIS is how you hit .345, or whatever.

Put Gibson in the majors, facing ONLY major league pitching, and he MIGHT be a career .290 hitter. MAYBE.

I sincerely don't understand your infatuation with Josh Gibson. He was one of the better players in the Negro Leagues, for sure, but if he was one of the greatest of all time, his numbers should reflect this. And they don't.

If you put Joe Dimaggio in the Negro Leagues, he hits .400 every year. EVERY YEAR.

EDIT TO ADD:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/r...d=gibson002jos

CAREER OPS of 1.013, in a league with about 20% MLB'ers. I can name 200 better players than this.

ALSO...25% of all his documented at bats happened between 1941 and 1945. A VERY large number of excellent baseball players, and PITCHERS, were in the military. Gibson got to face a bunch of old men, kids, and no-talent hacks. 25%.

Is it unreasonable to expect that if he gets 34 hits per 100 at bats, then facing MLB pitching ALL the time would reduce his hits by a full 20%? I think that this is reasonable, as a MINIMUM. This would take him down to around .275

Then there is the matter of games played. In 1943, the leader in RBI for the Newark Eagles, for the YEAR, was future star Larry Doby. First Negro in the American League. His total RBI, for the year? SIX.

Josh Gibson had essentially three years of MLB stats. 113 bombs, and 300+ RBI. He was OUT of baseball by age 34. Longevity is an excellent indicator of quality. GREAT players play a long, full career. Josh Gibson did not. Less than 2000 at bats, for his CAREER, and a bunch of these at bats were against dad and his buddies out behind Bethany Baptist, on a ball field where center was 350 feet.

ALL of this is noise, and not useful to support your desire to have the MVP of MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL be named after a man with less than 2,000 professional at bats. You claim that the Negro Leagues was a "major league", but then state that

at a bare minimum 15-20% of them would have made major league rosters

. I believe the percentage to be a little higher, likely 25, or even 30%, but that means 70% were NOT MLB caliber players, and this inflated the totals of those players with legit MLB talent. You CANNOT deny this. CANNOT.

[Cool Papa Bell]

I sincerely don't understand your infatuation against Josh Gibson. Is someone paying you? I can't think of any other reason really. Or is the paying aspect only when you support the naming of the award?

I am glad though that you actually admit that the number of players that would be from the Negro Leagues in Major League Baseball would be higher than 20%. I said that was a conservative number based only on % of population. That number is probably closer to 50%, since you conveniently forget that no Latin players were allowed to play in MLB either. Well, 2 or 3 maybe. Today's demographics are a little more than half of the players are white. So similar splits means closer to half of the players before the color line would be white.

Using your logic, and I agree with it 100% I might add, I just wanted someone else to be the one to say it, almost half of Major League Baseball was not major league talent that any white player was playing against. Or do you not agree with your own logic? That cannot be said for the Negro Leagues since Latin players were fully playing there.

And using your logic, which is brilliant by the way in the admittance that there would be a much higher percent of let's call them non-white players in the majors, means that nearly half of the players in MLB were minor league caliber. Zero sum game, or is that not the way it works?

All this noise from you and people like you to not have an award named for the best player to ever play in the Negro Leagues but who never got to play in MLB, and by that give credit to the over 3,000 others denied that opportunity (I've said this I don't know how many times, do you not know how to read, it's not about 1 man) and to acknowledge the fact that racists cheated baseball fans and the country for decades and that was wrong.

All this noise from you and people like you that can't acknowledge that no white player in major or minor league baseball for that matter EVER had to play under the stress of jim crow or the hatred that probably people like you or at least people who think like you felt about them. It's pretty obvious you do, because someone with any inkling of understanding would get all of this.

All this noise from people like you to discredit a league that was in fact built the same exact way as white professional baseball with half it's talent at least capable of playing in MLB by your own logic, even though I had to let you say it. Because if I did, I'm just an echo chamber. Well, welcome to the echo chamber.

[Cool Papa Bell]

I have to say, I do love the numbers pulled out of Jim Crow's butt about Joe Dimaggio would hit .400 every year in the Negro Leagues. That awesome man, you just made that up. By your own logic, you're saying a guy who hit .325 for his career in a league missing nearly half the talent he should have been facing, was suddenly going to up his game that much huh?

Wow, I love Joe D, I really do, but that was some funny stuff. Hey, it's your logic, I'm just applying the other side of the zero sum game that baseball is but you and people like you conveniently forget all the time.

And I have to admit, the comment of Josh Gibson being out of baseball at age 34 is particularly disgusting. Do you even know the story about Josh Gibson? Obviously not. I doubt in a thousand lifetimes you could ever endure what that man did in his life and even get yourself out of bed let alone do what he did.

[Cool Papa Bell]

Coming up at 7:00 pm CST, a livestream with the Josh Gibson MVP Artists Roundtable. Joining today will be Tim Higgins of Hit By Pitch Cards and Jake Giammatteo of Mr Biggens Card Art.

Nearly 100 artists from 7 different countries are participating. Celebrity judges include Major League Baseball front office, broadcasting, baseball writers, artists, and other celebrities who know far more than I or most people about this effort and it's significance.

Check out the artwork submitted so far, all proceeds going to the Josh Gibson Foundation. And if you agree, and you don't have to, that renaming the MLB Most Valuable Player Award for Josh Gibson to recognize not just him but the over 3,000 players who played behind baseball's color line, then sign the petition and support the effort.

https://nlbmart.com/

If you feel this is not worthwhile and want your voice heard, then I invite you to come on to my livestream and voice your opinion. I'm having experts on the Negro Leagues come on, historians, researchers, authors, and others to tell their stories and give context. I would love to have on someone who feels otherwise. Come on guys, let's do it, just send me a DM.

Follow us on Twitch and catch up on past episodes with Pete Gorton, Sean Gibson, Larry Lester, Kevin L Mitchell, Todd Peterson and more:

https://twitch.tv/legends_sports

Follow us on Twitter for daily updates and baseball history content
https://twitter.com/LegendsSports3

[Cool Papa Bell]

I had posted they were asking for context & planning this weeks ago, but Baseball Reference officially joined the woke left at a press conference yesterday morning.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/n...-leagues.shtml

Livestream schedule for this week, each broadcast will include a 1920 Negro League update.

Tu 6/15 1:00 pm CST- Author & SABR researcher Leslie Heaphy, who's books include work on early baseball, Negro League Baseball History, Women's Baseball, NY Mets history and more.

We 6/16- 7:00 pm CST- #JG20MVP Card Artist's Roundtable with 3 more artists competing in the Josh Gibson MVP art competition.

Th 6/17- 2:00 pm CST- Brian Powers of Bandbox Ballparks, who's work is spectacular in 3D modeling of historic and present day baseball stadiums.

Sa 6/20- 7:00 pm CST-Author & researcher Richard Puerzer, who is a SABR contributor and author of numerous baseball history books.

Follow us on Twitch and catch up on past episodes with Pete Gorton, Sean Gibson, Andew Maraniss, Rocco Constantino, Larry Lester, Kevin L Mitchell, Todd Peterson and more:

https://twitch.tv/legends_sports

Follow us on Twitter for daily updates and baseball history content
https://twitter.com/LegendsSports3

[dkgo]

According to baseball-reference nearly all of the "major league" season records are now owned by negro leaguers. Eugene Bremer has the lowest ERA for a season at 0.71, the fact that he pitched in just 6 games is apparently irrelevant. Tetelo Vargas is the batting average king for hitting .471 in just 30 games. Hilarious, I think they managed to de-value both negro league and major league history with this.

[Westheim]

Good, so the Mets' Herm Winningham is now the 1984 NL batting champ? Hit .407! (11-for-27)

[Cool Papa Bell]

You guys are so entertaining. I guess Tim Keefe with his 12 games for Troy in 1880 as the previous low was ok though, got it.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Cool Papa Bell

You guys are so entertaining. I guess Tim Keefe with his 12 games for Troy in 1880 as the previous low was ok though, got it.

105 innings in 83 games. Beats at the very least the 1 IP per game played by the team threshold.

Bremer? Even if the stats were true, 50.2 IP in 53 games doesn't cut it.

What a waste of server space to produce a list with Bremer on top.

[Cool Papa Bell]

You know that's a great point, don't bother going there. Honestly, no one will care. It really doesn't matter what is said, you and the few others can stay in your little bubble. No amount of context will change your opinions. Numbers are going to change, many will be replaced and updated. You won't care, no one will care you don't care, life will go on.

[Cool Papa Bell]

I do have to say though, it's awesome you put stock into stats where guys were pitching underhand and there was no mound and players didn't even wear gloves and you got 9 balls and 7 strikes and sometimes walks were considered hits, sometimes they weren't. Good stuff man, you go with that.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Cool Papa Bell

I do have to say though, it's awesome you put stock into stats where guys were pitching underhand and there was no mound and players didn't even wear gloves and you got 9 balls and 7 strikes and sometimes walks were considered hits, sometimes they weren't. Good stuff man, you go with that.

Walks counting as hits happened for one season. Everybody immediately agreed that it was dumb.

You consider incomplete stats that don't add up and might include games against teams of accountants as true, valid, and of value. Well, that is your prerogative. I don't expect much from people that cut up baseball cards for "art" either.

The real tragedy is that there are people in charge that should actually know better that bow to this travesty of the game.

[Cool Papa Bell]

Originally Posted by dkgo

According to baseball-reference nearly all of the "major league" season records are now owned by negro leaguers. Eugene Bremer has the lowest ERA for a season at 0.71, the fact that he pitched in just 6 games is apparently irrelevant. Tetelo Vargas is the batting average king for hitting .471 in just 30 games. Hilarious, I think they managed to de-value both negro league and major league history with this.

You know, honestly no one can make up better entertainment than you guys. There are I believe 44 single season batting records and 35 single season pitching records listed, Negro League players are listed at the top of of 3 or 4 each, yet somehow it's nearly all are owned by Negro Leaguers? What the? Did you even click past the first 1? My goodness, that's about as numbnuts a comment as it gets. Entertaining though!

[Cool Papa Bell]

You are as clodhopper as the other guy. One card artist cuts up cards, and hey that's his thing, whatever, but that became the example? My goodness. You're like talking to a 9 year old.

Originally Posted by Westheim

Walks counting as hits happened for one season. Everybody immediately agreed that it was dumb.

You consider incomplete stats that don't add up and might include games against teams of accountants as true, valid, and of value. Well, that is your prerogative. I don't expect much from people that cut up baseball cards for "art" either.

The real tragedy is that there are people in charge that should actually know better that bow to this travesty of the game.

[Cool Papa Bell]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Walks counting as hits happened for one season. Everybody immediately agreed that it was dumb.

You consider incomplete stats that don't add up and might include games against teams of accountants as true, valid, and of value. Well, that is your prerogative. I don't expect much from people that cut up baseball cards for "art" either.

The real tragedy is that there are people in charge that should actually know better that bow to this travesty of the game.

I love how you just pick out one thing, and yes that was just one season of walks were considered hits, but none of the other points matter I guess. No one is going to convince you, fine that's awesome, you're strong in your opinion. But if guys pitching underhand and no one wearing gloves is ok by you, then not sure why nothing else would be.

And no games against accountants, wishful thinking on your part I guess since I can pretty much guarantee you couldn't stand in there against any single one of these guys, why do you keep saying that? It's just not true.

[Westheim]

The game evolved over time. Rules were changed. Saying that the 1880s game doesn't count because guys threw underhand, they wore no gloves, and the ball could be caught on the first bounce for an out is like saying the pre-1973 AL stats don't count because they were with the pitcher batting. Or pre-1969 stats don't count because they lowered the mound.

At least we have almost (not quite) complete stats for the 1880s NL. There are like 20 to 30 major league players from before 1900 that are only known by a last name and have no other personal data available, some of which played only one game. I found at least a dozen 1930s Negro Leaguers by browsing a few pages on that Seamheads side that have nothing but a last name.

Originally Posted by Cool Papa Bell

And no games against accountants, wishful thinking on your part I guess since I can pretty much guarantee you couldn't stand in there against any single one of these guys, why do you keep saying that? It's just not true.

Fine. Explain it to me. Picked a team at random again. 1930 Detroit Stars

Explain to me why they played 89 Negro League games (95 in total), but tally just 709 games played between batters, which is decidedly less than 89 * 9. Explain to me how they did that, playing with fewer than nine guys per game. And if you can't, explain to me how you are sure that of the games listed and the stats tallied, none are against teams of accountants that they beat 24-zip.

Explain how they played 89 or 95 games and pitched under 700 innings, and pitchers tallied only 72 decisions. Explain to me how you are certain none of the wins and losses are against teams of accountants that struck out 15 times as they were beaten, 24-zip.

Explain to me how stats that are this incomplete hold any merit at all. Maybe I am a stupid person and need to have it explained very slowly. Explain how the 1930 Stars tally up correctly. Or any other team on the site. Explain how it is worth the bits and bytes of storage space in the state it is in.

But listing four or six star players and how they hung with the best of the AL/NL players in the 1940s and 1950s and how everything was awesome and we're all parts dumb and/or racist is not an explanation. It's endlessly tooting the same silly horn that's not going to convince anybody that actually values what shred of integrity the game in the Rob Numbfred era has left. I am not dissing the Negro League players at all. I am dissing the Negro League being tooted a major league with this level of disorganization very much though.

[Cool Papa Bell]

Ok, let's stop it already. Why do guys like you love to put words where no words were. Who said the 1880's games shouldn't count? I surely didn't, did I? You've actually just made the argument for all of this. You are exactly right! You can't compare eras, you can't go back and say these stats count or don't count because of mound height or they were pitching from 54 feet or there was no DH or they are using sticky substances on the ball or the ball was hand wound and now it's made by mass production. Do you not see that? You are arguing against yourself.

Baseball Reference clearly says the stats are not complete. I mean seriously, stop saying the same things that aren't true, stop saying things that no one has said. Just stop already.

"The Negro Leagues data is not complete. While the quality of play in the Negro Leagues was on a major league level, the wages, travel, playing conditions, press coverage, and record-keeping were more varied, primarily due to systemic racism. Additionally, Negro League teams played a shorter regular season schedule, but with an extensive amount of exhibitions and barnstorming games that made for seasons that often approached 200 or more games in total. These contests were not part of their league schedule and are therefore not included in this database. This is why Josh Gibson's Hall of Fame plaque says that he hit "almost 800 home runs" while our data shows 165.

It's also important to remember that the history of Black Baseball does not start in 1920 or end in 1948 and even from 1920-1948 our presentation is incomplete. There were hundreds of teams and thousands of players that make up a more complete and richer history of Black Baseball than we are able to present here, and from 1920-1948 there were many star players and teams that found it more feasible to play only a barnstorming schedule (not just in the United States and also the Caribbean, Mexico, and Venezuela) rather than participate in leagues. These independent teams were often the equal of teams we are including as major league teams on the site now. Our complete register of baseball history contains a significant record of Independent and non-major Negro Leagues. For example, we have a page for the 1917 Chicago American Giants."