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

[Cool Papa Bell]

The Negro Leagues are Major Leagues, except for those who don't want them to be.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Cool Papa Bell

If people like you had said something about this years ago, maybe more research would have been done, maybe more people would have been interested, maybe the stats would be more complete.

Yeah, all my fault for not fixing racism in the 1930s. Or the 1970s, when most players still would have been alive.

Originally Posted by Cool Papa Bell

But oh no, not even on your radar but you act as if now trying to get it right is some affront to baseball history.

Not the attempt to get it right. The half/half state in which the stats are now, and declaring them good enough when they're not. That is the affront to baseball history. As I have explained for six pages now.

Originally Posted by Cool Papa Bell

You know what was an affront? Not including them. Not including to play, not including their work, not including their efforts, not including their statistics, not including them in society in general.

While generally true, most of that is a bone you will have to pick with the white people that ran the AL and NL a hundred years ago. Or literally anything else. Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the Olympics and FDR pretended he didn't exist, which is a disgrace, and yet he's still ranked consistently as one of the best presidents the country ever had and he's still on the dime.

That being said, and while I agree with a lot you say above - not on the statistics. Pen and paper for keeping proper statistics were available to Negro League players and officials. They weren't prohibited from keeping accurate stats. If they had kept accurate stats, we wouldn't have teams with 89 games played and pitchers with 72 decisions between them, and teams with less than 8 player-games played per team-game played. And for that reason alone they can't be included in f.e. the ERA leaderboard. Because that 0.71 ERA of Bremer's could be literally anything else.

That's my gripe.

But you're not getting it and will write just another 100 words why I'm a racist, which is a tiresome act of yours.

Originally Posted by CONN CHRIS

I would step in to suggest that you quit while you're behind but you've dug yourself a fortress so far beneath Stone Moutain that I doubt you would hear me at this point.

Sorry, but as long as nobody from the other side gives an honest answer to my earlier question, I will respectfully disagree and pretend that I'm not that far behind after all.

[Cool Papa Bell]

You literally don't get it, and that's fine, but I offer again. Come on my livestream and let's talk about it. Until then, your tired same ol same ol arguments racists have been using for decades if not longer will put you in with them.

[Cool Papa Bell]

Explain how this is not Major League. This is 1927 and coverage like this in Black newspapers was common. It's as good or better than most other newspaper coverage of baseball. You know the saying right? If it quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, must be a duck, right? Your quacking doesn't sound like a duck though, no matter what veil you try to hide behind.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Cool Papa Bell

Explain how this is not Major League. This is 1927 and coverage like this in Black newspapers was common. It's as good or better than most other newspaper coverage of baseball.

That's good. Now you just need that for all games and seasons and we're good.

[Cool Papa Bell]

You're so funny. That have it all, or at least most of what they can find and have been confirming and compiling. It's kind of how research works, you don't just post the same tired nonsense on message forums and hope it all comes together for you by some miracle like you do.

How about you stop complaining about things you know literally, and I mean literally, nothing about and pitch in. Seamheads can use the help. Baseball Reference has been asking for it. Instead of quacking like a racist duck, get on the right side of history for once. Unless that's you. Then you keep on doing what you're doing. Because I know people like you. Have been dealing with them for decades. It doesn't matter what stats are produced. What standings are shown. What proof there is. You don't really care. You said that in your very first post way back when here. You think aren't major leagues, it's all just a lefty PR stunt, the blah blah blah woke left. If that's how it is, no proof is ever going to be good enough for you. And it will come. And it will not be good enough for you. That's the way people like you operate. It's not about stats, you have no clue about any of them. It's about your perception. So come on, let's talk about it. Until then, I will always refute anything you say with another post. Many have already told me why am I wasting my time with the likes of you. But if I don't, then anyone else reading this may somehow think you are right. And quite frankly, you are not right. You're very wrong in fact, but are hiding behind the last veil left. The same one that was used to systemically for decades to create the topic behind this whole conversation.

[ezpkns34]

Since the MVP award can be won by position player or pitcher, I always thought it made the most sense to name it after Babe Ruth

That said, I assume the thread has veered way off of the original discussion by now, so apologies for any interruptions

[Cool Papa Bell]

Originally Posted by ezpkns34

Since the MVP award can be won by position player or pitcher, I always thought it made the most sense to name it after Babe Ruth

That said, I assume the thread has veered way off of the original discussion by now, so apologies for any interruptions

Oh no way man, appreciate the input! There are 3 names being considered, I believe a decision will be made in July. Branch Rickey, Frank Robinson, Josh Gibson. All 3 are worthy candidates. Josh Gibson is representing not just himself but the 3,400+ players who were not given an opportunity to play in organized baseball because of the color of their skin. Not just African-Americans, but any person with dark skin whether they be Hispanic, Indian, Native American, didn't matter. At all levels, not just MLB. Racism stole and continues to steal so much from every one of us, even racists themselves since it places them at odds with everything they see going on around them and allows them to use it as a crutch for many wrongs they see about themselves and their own lives.

This was just a thread that was meant to highlight the effort, but somehow it got highjacked by nonsense. And I am not going to let that happen.

[Cool Papa Bell]

And oh! If you agree, you can sign the petition.

http://jg20mvp.com/

If you don't, that's ok too. And if anyone wants to discuss why you think that the Negro Leagues are not major league, then send me a DM and come on my livestream and we can talk about it.

[Cool Papa Bell]

For anyone with an open mind or looking to learn more about something you may not have been aware of all these years.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/a...gillette.shtml

Oh! And before I get some nonsense about working for Baseball Reference or getting paid to do this, I don't and I'm not.

[BMW]

Ever since I got my 1985 Baseball Encyclopedia I've fallen in love with the game and the numbers behind it. I now have a library of yearly guides going back to the 1800s, along with other treasures like many of Bill James Abstracts. And a metric ton of junk wax era baseball cards.

Baseball to me started with the numbers but eventually I came to love learning about the history of the game as much. Now, the numbers are a starting point and I learn so much later as I read more and delve deeper.

I was always upset that so much of history was lost from the Negro Leagues. Invariably much of it will be lost permanently, but I'm overjoyed at all the work people are putting in researching and bringing their numbers back where we can see them again.

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by Cool Papa Bell

This was just a thread that was meant to highlight the effort, but somehow it got highjacked by nonsense. And I am not going to let that happen.

Naming the MVP award from a man that never played MLB IS the nonsense. Harriet Tubman would be just as good a choice.

[Antonin]

Originally Posted by Westheim

...I've been accused of lacking perspective in this topic because I didn't grow up amid racial tensions (paraphrasing freely). I very much feel like the opposite is very much the case when it comes to these horrendously incomplete statistics. Maybe some of you should start looking at them while covering the player picture with a hand.

If you didn't grow up "amid racial tensions," then I don't know why you think you have anything to say in this discussion. Especially when you speak with such bitterness.

Are you really writing from Germany? If so, the idea that a guy in Germany wakes up every day quaking with rage because an American sport might name its most valuable player award after a black guy that everyone agrees was a really good player is just a teeny bit...strange.

It would be like me complaining bitterly day after day after day about what the English Premiere League calls its MVP award.

To many of us who did grow up "amid racial tensions," your agenda is obvious. We've heard it all our lives.

[Cool Papa Bell]

Originally Posted by dsvitak

Naming the MVP award from a man that never played MLB IS the nonsense. Harriet Tubman would be just as good a choice.

But it having been named for someone who didn't play in MLB prior was ok. Got it.

[cephasjames]

Originally Posted by dsvitak

Naming the MVP award from a man that never played MLB IS the nonsense. Harriet Tubman would be just as good a choice.

"Major League Baseball" (MLB) is an entity, while "major league baseball" is the highest level of the sport of professional baseball. You are correct that Josh Gibson never played in the MLB. But he has played baseball at the major league level. The stats he produced at the major league level should count, as all major league stats do.

The issue is that the records for the negro leagues are not as thorough as for the NL and AL (and FL, UA, AA, and even the NA). This, it seems is attempting to be rectified. I understand why people want these stats, even incomplete, added to major league history. But I also understand why people don't want incomplete stats added... because they're incomplete.

Also at issue is the idea of a "season." As we saw last year, a season can be 60 games. But does a season shorter than 162 or 144 games count as much? Do single-season records count as much in a 60 game season or a 43 game as they do in 144 or 162? We all know that the longer a season is the harder it is to maintain "crazy" stats like batting (far) over .400. But does that invalidate records because seasons weren't "long enough"?

I think these are fair questions to wrestle with.

[CONN CHRIS]

Originally Posted by cephasjames

You are correct that Josh Gibson never played in the MLB. But he has played baseball at the major league level. The stats he produced at the major league level should count, as all major league stats do.

This is all somewhat analogous to what we do with the CT Boxing Hall of Fame of which I am a board member. While it is not a hard criterion, we consider world titles as a 'super' factor that trumps most if not any question marks for a candidate (this is a state HoF, for larger halls, a world title needs more to elevate a candidate). When considering Prof. Charles Hadley, a man that was born in the South in the pre-civil war era, we were faced with an unimpressive 'official' fight record. In the era, records were poorly kept any way but especially for black fighters who had the extra indignity of often having to sign contracts for fights with white boxers that would call for them to have to score a knock out in 6 rounds (or some other arbitrary round) to get a victory or more often, just be barred from fighting whites at all. There are some great historians that have pieced together more accurate records of the time through researching newspaper accounts but even then, the press was often 'in' on the tipping of the scales.

In any event, when we considered Hadley, his seemingly unimpressive record was not even a topic of conversation. He had been the Colored World Heavyweight Champion for a period of time. He had been considered the best in the division he fought in by his peers and the press. End of discussion. He wasn't a 'world champion' he was a World Champion without respect to what the society he lived in did to mar his official records that would be handed down to us.

[cephasjames]

Originally Posted by Westheim

That's good. Now you just need that for all games and seasons and we're good.

Do you think stats need to be "complete" before they should be added? As in, all the stats collected from all the games from all the years. Or are you okay with partial stats being added as long as they are updated when more information comes in?

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Antonin

Especially when you speak with such bitterness.

Please don't assume my level of bitterness when you're struggling to take up a neutral point of view yourself ("we have to work twice as hard to get half as far").

Originally Posted by cephasjames

Do you think stats need to be "complete" before they should be added? As in, all the stats collected from all the games from all the years. Or are you okay with partial stats being added as long as they are updated when more information comes in?

At the very least, the stats for a season (f.e. 1937) should be complete in the sense that a team's record and their pitchers' games started, records, and innings pitched add up, and the same for their batters for games started and plate appearances / at-bats so rate stats aren't getting completely outta whack.

Bremer's got a 0.71 ERA from the data that is there. But his team, the Cincinnati Tigers, appear to be missing data from at least 15 games against other Negro League teams. How many of those did Bremer start? How many runs did he give up? He could have tossed three more shutouts and his ERA would be 0.46, or he could have been whacked around a bit for 15 runs in 12 innings, and that data *happens* to be missing, and his ERA would be 2.73. How can he be the gold standard?

The same will be true for the majority of pitcher-seasons and batter-seasons in the database. How they can be included - for rate statistics *especially* - in their current state is beyond me.

Not every sac fly and every caught stealing is gonna be tracked down, which is fine, because that data also isn't available for AL/NL for many pre-WW2 seasons either. RBIs weren't even an official statistic for the early days of baseball.

But a distinction has to be made between countable stats and rate stats. With the latter, incomplete stats lead to ridiculous results. (Mind that Bremer's 50.2 innings pitches are still short of the 1 IP/G mark for his team and should disqualify him from the start)

[UltimateAverageGuy]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

Well, when the name calling starts, that's the time for me to leave. To sum up, then: you think you're "doing something" by advocating for MLB to change the name of the MVP award. I, on the other hand, think that "doing something" means doing something that tangibly benefits the black community, and that "raising awareness" of Josh Gibson by naming an award after him is the equivalent of "sending thoughts and prayers" to the families of a mass shooting's victims. It's an empty gesture that primarily makes you feel good about yourself while doing very little for the people that you are ostensibly trying to help. And why is it necessary to raise awareness of Josh Gibson anyway? He's in the freakin' Hall of Fame! Didn't that raise enough awareness of him? And if not, then why do you think naming an award for him will make a difference?

Forget it, don't bother answering those questions. Like I said, I'm done here.

As a black man, let me say this is PERFECT.

[rudel.dietrich]

Can I be for naming the MVP award after Gibson or another candidate but not so sure I like what baseballreference.com did?

The Negro Leagues were for sure a major league. But for better or worse (much worse than better) they were a separate league.
I love that the stats are now on BR.com
I do not love how they are mixed in with other stats. They should be accessible and prominent, but separate from ML stats.

I would not like if they included stats from the Federal League or other leagues as well.

I think basketball reference does it the correct way. They have ABA stats and NBA stats. You can pursue the leaderboards separately or look at them combined.


I very much realize that the Negro leagues is a very tricky and touchy subject.
It was not formed as a rival league. It was formed because blacks were literally deemed as lesser human beings not worthy of playing with whites.


At the very least it would be nice if Baseball reference included filters so that I could pursue research into the leagues independently if I wished.