The Negro Leagues are Major Leagues: Essays and Research for Overdue Recognition

by Sean Forman, Sean Gibson, Adam Jones

“It’s so important to have all of [this] information accessible to everybody. The more information that can be made available and the more visible that we can make it the better. It's the history of the whole game, not just part of it. People are finally going to get to see both sides of the story and get to understand that the Negro Leagues were very, very important, the players were very important and, most importantly, they brought the community together with a common love.” —Adam Jones, 14 year MLB veteran “We are thrilled that MLB has finally acknowledged what we already knew to be true—that the Negro Leagues were indeed major league. We are particularly happy that the numbers of these legendary players will become a part of the official record and, undoubtedly, people will become more curious about these players’ stories.” —Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum The Negro Leagues are Major Leagues is a unique introduction to the history of the segregation of professional baseball, telling the story of the Negro Leagues while simultaneously recounting how researchers, statisticians, and historians rebuilt and rediscovered the history of Black baseball that was pushed into obscurity in the wake of Jackie Robinson and integration. Recent examinations of the partially rebuilt statistical record led scholars, notably Todd Peterson, to call for the Negro Leagues to be recognized as major leagues, alongside other historical professional major leagues such as the Federal League and the Union Association. In December 2020, Major League Baseball itself declared its recognition of the Negro Leagues as major leagues, and the work to integrate the statistics compiled by Gary Ashwill and the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database into stats site Baseball-Reference.com began. To accompany the launch of the newly revamped, integrated site, Baseball Reference commissioned a set of articles to introduce Negro League history and the effort to rebuild the fragmented record of that history to a new audience. Supplemented here with additional articles on Black baseball from the SABR archives, the articles in this book represent multiple groups of pioneers. The contributors include descendants of Negro Leaguers, a major leaguer, and past and present giants in the field of Negro Leagues research. Larry Lester sits alongside 14-year major league veteran Adam Jones, Sean Gibson—the great-grandson of Josh Gibson and director of the Gibson Foundation—joins Vanessa Ivy Rose, the grandaughter of Turkey Stearnes, and Bob Kendrick, the president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Jules Tygiel and Jerry Malloy share pages with Todd Peterson, Gary Ashwill, Leslie Heaphy, Adrian Burgos, Jr., and many more.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, History, Nonfiction

176 pages, Paperback

Published January 13, 2022

Reviews

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoughtful mixture of people who were integral to getting the Negro Leagues recognized as major leagues, and SABR research making it clear it was deserved and overdue. It's a treat to hear some of these voices. I learned some things and I'll probably pick up a few more thorough books on the subject.

[Rodger Payne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. It's an uneven collection of articles and essays on integration of baseball. Some of the selections are fantastic, others are less engaging. Nearly half of the pieces were originally published in other SABR outlets. The first 60% of the book comes from articles produced for Baseball-Reference, often much more recently. The latter are a bit more analytical and the former are often historical. I appreciated the analytical work a good bit more and I actually put the book aside for awhile when I got to the often older SABR works.

[David Garza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't go into this assuming it's a history of the Negro Leagues; it's not quite that. This book came out as Major League Baseball finally (and in an overdue move) recognized certain Negro Leagues as "major league" and their statistics included in their official records. I say "certain Negro Leagues" because their more narrow definition of "league" precludes the statistics of Negro Leaguers prior to 1920, going back into the 19th century, from being included in MLB's records (for now; hopefully that will change in the future).

The first section is made up of articles giving support, evidence, and justification for recognizing and validating the major league status of Negro Leagues. The last section contains various articles (some written in the '80s) on different aspects of the Negro Leagues, ranging from the histories of teams, players, and organizers to lesser touched topics like advertising in the Black press and NgL umpiring.

A really good read for anyone interested in the history of baseball beyond the obvious timelines.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of essays from disparate writers comes with inherent issues. Either every essay is great, or the quality varies. In The Negro Leagues Are Major Leagues, the quality definitely varies. Some essays, such as those written by Jules Tygiel, Jerry Malloy, and Duke Goldman are fantastic with both breadth and a lightness to them that make the format work. Others, such as those written by Todd Peterson or Roberta J. Newman run the range of too light or overly dense and hard to penetrate. That's all to say, The Negro Leagues Are Major Leagues has it's moments and they are great, but overall it's a mixed bag.

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book included a mix of articles on Negro Leagues history, including articles from the SABR archives. The portions of the book that most strongly made the argument that the Negro League teams were, in-fact, comparable to AAA and Major League talent was important to understand why the current MLB determined that the accomplishments of players who spent years in the NNL and ECL should be recognized.

[Buck Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the stats and accounts of the major players that started and kept the Negro Leagues going. Should be a unit in any HS history class. Hopefully the country will embrace what contributions the players made to instill America's pastime in our hearts and minds.

[Steve Roylance · Rating 2 out of 5]

Outdated, repetitive and simplistic

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a lot packed into this slim volume. It includes plenty of illuminating stats along with essays that provide historical context and convincingly make the case that NLB was MLB.