Baseball Reference Releases Negro League Statistics
Baseball Reference, an invaluable database for anyone interested in America’s Pastime, improved their product this week in an unexpected way.
Negro League statistics, compiled separately between 1904-1919 and 1920-1948 are now available for perusal.
That’s fantastic.
Major League Baseball funded the research which sounded painstaking and considering the box score reliance, something only Buster Olney could truly love:
It contains data culled from newspaper boxscores, covering league sanctioned games from 1920 to 1948, which was produced for a study sponsored by Major League Baseball and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. It reflects totals as compiled by the NLRAG up to 2006. As new credible information is continually unearthed, these numbers will continue to change.
It’s also intriguing that the project will continue, consistently updating a little-known yet infinitely significant period of the game’s history.
Is Satchel Paige‘s 10.2 strikeouts per nine innings at age 39 something you’d find enjoyable?
How about Josh Gibson hitting .486 over the course of the 1943 Negro League season?
I apologize now for the lack of productivity that may follow your discovery of this information. A click leads to another page leads to hours lost in the search of OPS of players long forgotten.
Not to be dismissed either are the reminders of how amazing some of the team monikers were in the early 1900′s.
Memphis Red Sox, Baltimore Elite Giants, Indianapolis Clowns, Dayton Marcos, Birmingham Black Barons, Kansas City Monarchs and my personal favorite, the Homestead Grays.
The Gibson’s and Paige’s made an indention on baseball history because of their exploits and someone was willing to tell the tale. But far too many players never crept toward Cooperstown because it wasn’t an option and no one was willing to compile their stories.
Major League Baseball did and as much grief as I like to give the decision-makers in the Commissioner’s Office, they should be commended for this.
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