Major League Baseball on Wednesday announced that they are recognizing the Negro Leagues as a major league and will include statistics and records of players and teams in the game’s official statistics.
The 1920-48 Negro Leagues join the American League and the National League as the “Major Leagues” for that period in time. Before Jackie Robinson broke professional baseball’s race barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, Black players were barred from MLB play.
“All of us who love baseball have long known that the Negro Leagues produced many of our game’s best players, innovations and triumphs against a backdrop of injustice,” MLB Commissioner Robert D. Manfred Jr. said in a statement. “We are now grateful to count the players of the Negro Leagues where they belong: as Major Leaguers within the official historical record.”
