In this, the 100th year since the beginning of baseball's Negro Leagues, Major League Baseball is considering reclassifying at least two of the different leagues made up of African-American players as "major leagues."
As Dan McLaughlin notes in National Review, the push would do more than attempt to be another step in redressing the historical wrong of baseball's segregated era which stretched from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th. "Major League" has a specific definition for the organization, and the reclassification could bring about a change in the record books.
McLaughlin points out that there have been other major leagues in addition to the two we recognize today. They were usually attempts to create a third league to rival the American and National Leagues which did not succeed. The criteria are not concrete, but things like a regularity of schedule and record-keeping play the largest role. Quality of play is a factor as well, but given the wide range in that arena among the thousands of players who have suited up in one of the two current leagues over their history, it can't really be the determining one.
Such a decision would be the right one, McLaughlin writes. While it would not make things right for the men prevented from taking their shot at the Show because of the color of their skin -- even for the few Negro Leaguers who are still living -- it would stop the continuation of the injustice. In the same way that Jackie Robinson demonstrated that melanin had no role in creating a quality ballplayer, the move would show that historical injustice could not prevent the proper recognition of Negro League organization, talent and importance.
The move would have its own problems, of course. In addition to their league games Negro League teams often played many games in barnstorming tours against local or semipro teams. They dominated, as one might expect a team of professionals to do. Do those games count in figuring statistics? White major leaguers would create winter barnstorming teams as well -- they often played Negro Leaguers during them -- and they didn't count those hits or wins in their own official totals. Should the Negro Leaguers count their stats against the white barnstormer teams but not against the locals?
And the two dominant teams for much of the Negro Leagues' history were the Kansas City Monarchs and the Homestead Grays. Add the Indianapolis Clowns and Newark Eagles to them and you have a huge chunk of the Negro Leagues World Series champions before you -- realistically some of the actual Negro National League and Negro American League teams weren't much better than the local opponents on a barnstorming tour.
McLaughlin thinks those problems can be ironed out and he's probably right. Plus statistics are a baseball fan's preferred subject for arguments, so adding an entirely new set has great appeal for some. And while I agree that this kind of reclassification would be the right thing to do another argument makes me hesitate. As the 2013 movie 42 illustrated, stepping across Major League Baseball's disgraceful color line took a tremendous effort from and a tremendous toll on Jackie Robinson. I worry that naming the NNL and NAL as major leagues would be a step down the road to diminishing the significance and cost of his accomplishment.
I know, I know, that sounds unlikely. Baseball more than other major sports lives within and around its own history. The fact that every team officially retired jersey number 42 -- even teams which didn't exist when Robinson joined the Dodgers -- and that the entire league holds a recognition day in which every player wears that number on that one day should make it difficult for Robinson's monumental role to be lost to history. I agree. But then I remember how Millennials and Generation Z tend to handle history and my worry returns.
