Henry Kimbro now recognized as the 1947 MLB batting champion

You

Should be aat or near the top of the list.

 

To say that the Negro League players were not in MLB and so should be ignored is not right. They had no chance to play in MLB. But would they have done as well in MLB as they did in the Negro Leagues? That is the million dollar question and we will never know. I suspect that a lot of the Negro League stars would have been All Stars and HOF players in the traditional sense and not guys that got there after the fact (if you know what I mean) if they got to play in MLB. Willie Mays started in Negro ball and was a pretty good MLB player.

Now how to assess each year's stats is a whole can of worms. I don't know if Baseball has done this right but I kind of like their intent. Maybe not entirely correct.

 

Make all the minor league stats count too...

 

A bit off topic but to the point about recognizing baseball players that didn't play in MLB. Without Sadaharu Oh would we have certain HOF Japanese players like Ichiro Suzuki and Ohtani playing MLB ball? Great player but never played in MLB or the Negro Leagues so not eligible for the HOF.

But really important for the international development of the game.

 

Koufax was my pitching hero as a kid but being a righthander and a three-quarters arm slot pitcher he was not a guy that I patterned my game after.

Mom, why did you throw out my Sandy Koufax autographed program when I went to college? I can forgive you throwing out my Roberto Clemente rookie card that I got by trading a number of Mickey Mantle cards when I was in first grade in 1960 but that autograph I got from him in was in person. I was in the presence of genius. It was special. Worth a lot of money but not enough if I still had it.

 

Thanks Mom!

 

Moms are great.

 

C'mon Rick. You don't really think that the stats of the guys who couldn't make the Bigs are equivalent to the greats who were not allowed to play in the Bigs do you?
Tell me your tongue was firmly in your cheeks.

 

At least this run by the Bigs... and that makes it LEGITIMATE in every way they can keep scores and stats... Legitimate Major (owned and operated) League Baseball. But, on the other side, some totally other/different league gets Major League counted stats?

The best argument is for NEITHER stats to count towards the Major League Baseball stats.

 

Let us just agree to disagree.
The league you are referring to deemed the minor league players to be not good enough to play with the best. Your argument that including them is the same as Negro League stats is a straw man. The Negro League players were every bit as good as the major league players but were disallowed because of racism. Plenty of room for discussion about how they would have fared in the Majors, but allowing their stats to count is a step towards acknowledging that they were wronged by systemic racism. It is a good a moral thing to do...far more important than any discussion about stats. I am proud of an America that can attempt to right a wrong as much as I am proud that we can have this discussion.

 

Many Major League players go back and forth from AAA to the Majors... If they don't count, then neither should the other leagues stats.

But I do understand what the Major League Baseball front office is trying to do... righting a wrong... And I do understand that it was wrong to keep the AA out of Major League Baseball way back when, very wrong. But two wrongs don't make it right.

 

AAA League players get rings for any limited time on a championship team. If minor league players set records within the Majors they get credit. Your logic does not hold up at all. You are making a very false equivalency.
The "Wrong" corrected here (by Major League Baseball (who clearly disagree with you)is FAR more significant than stats which civil folks may argue. It is what baseball fans do, so here we are!