Cobb, Gibson and MLB's changes to batting average leadership
Tuesday’s announcement by MLB incorporating Negro League players into the list of recognized rate stat leaders will create more than a small stir among those who object to Josh Gibson (.372) supplanting Ty Cobb (.367) as the all-time leader in batting average.
What it really does is complete a process that began four seasons ago when MLB recognized various Negro Leagues of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s as meriting ‘major’ status.
The Gibson decision – as well as the one listing him as the new leader in single season batting average (.466 for 1943 Homestead) – is most significant in the way it underscores the ephemeral way that baseball treats the math of record keeping.
Gibson’s single season and career performances are recognized based on the work of a committee appointed several years ago by MLB to evaluate which Negro Leagues were deserving of ‘major’ status and to determine which games played by those leagues were sufficiently documented to merit inclusion in an official record.
That remains difficult to discern in the case of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s Negro Leagues, when scoring and record-keeping could both be haphazard. In that sense, asserting that Gibson batted .466 in 1943 and .367 for his career amounts to a ‘best guess’ based on the information available to experts today. Even the experts would acknowledge that.
The truth is there have always been debates about record-keeping, and those debates have made the records far more fluid than most fans would realize. In fact a perfectly reasonable argument could be made that even accepting Gibson’s .466 average for that 1943 season, he still doesn’t hold the record for best single-season average.
That title could as well be given to Levi Meyerle.
You’ve probably never heard of Levi Meyerle, and you may never have heard of an institution called The National Association. The NA, baseball’s first fully professional organization, existed between 1871 and 1876, when its demise was caused by creation of the National League.
But while MLB does not today formally list the NA among recognized major leagues, many experts do, since its rosters included the best professional stars of that era. Men of the caliber of Al Spalding and Cap Anson starred in the NA.
And in 1871, Levi Meyerle won the NA batting title. He hit .492.
Because MLB has not blessed its predecessor league, Meyerle’s record is not recognized. Yet many do. Baseball-Reference, the Baseball Almanac and most front-rank statistical sites give NA records – including Meyerle’s – equal prominence with fully recognized leagues and seasons.
Meyerle and the NA aren’t the only player and league falling victim to what might be viewed as selectivity by MLB in its consideration of what numbers do and don’t count.
Take the Federal League, a challenger to the American and National Leagues that formed in 1914 and lasted through 1915. That league was populated by former and future MLB stars, and is still today widely viewed as having been a major league. But not by MLB.
Then there’s the case of Shoeless Joe Jackson, the great hitting star whose name was tarnished due to his involvement in the 1919 Black Sox scandal.
Check Jackson’s Baseball-Reference page and you will find him credited with a lifetime .356 batting average. Pending the adjustments for Gibson and other Negro League stars, Jackson’s .356 ranks third in the game’s history behind only Cobb’s .367 and Rogers Hornsby’s .359.
But if you check the same data at MLB.com’s list of career batting average leaders, you’d get the impression that nobody named Shoeless Joe Jackson ever played the game. On that list Cobb and Hornsby are followed by Ed Delahanty (.346), Tris Speaker (.345) and Ted Williams (.344).
Was Jackson’s name stricken from the official MLB list because MLB prohibits counting stats of players who’ve been barred? Doesn’t look like it; the No. 1 guy in career base hits on MLB’s list is exactly who you’d expect: Pete Rose at 4,256, and never mind that gambling issue.
Back to Gibson in closing. Although he will be listed as the leader in career average for all those who played in a major league, it's strange to think of him as the leader in MLB. That’s because, due to the color barrier in force at the time, Gibson never played in MLB.
It’s perhaps a small distinction, but a real one (and a meaningful one to many, as it reflects the professionalism of the Negro Leagues without glossing over the true reason the two professional leagues were kept separate at the time). And as for the true single season batting average leader, that’s a stumper that would even give takers of the baseball SAT agita. Is the correct answer…?
- Levi Meyerle at .492 in 1871
B. Tip O’Neill at .435 in 1887
C. Rogers Hornsby at .424 in 1924
D. Josh Gibson at .466 in 1943
E. All of the above
The correct answer is: Your guess is as good as mine.
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