Mark Madden: Adding Negro League stats to MLB is dishonest, factually incorrect

As of Tuesday, MLB’s all-time batting average leader never took a swing in MLB.

That’s stupid.

Black players being excluded from MLB till Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 is a dark, inexcusable piece of baseball history. It’s also something that can’t possibly be fixed. It’s a wrong that can’t be righted.

Everybody who perpetrated the exclusion of Black players is dead. Everybody who directly benefits by Negro League statistics being combined with MLB stats is also dead.

There’s no revenge to be had, no reward to be given. What happened, happened. It can’t be changed.

Josh Gibson’s great-grandson gets to do a media tour. That’s what’s tangible.

Gibson was an all-time great player. We already knew that. He’s in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

He’s now MLB’s all-time leader in career batting average, single-season batting average and lifetime OPS. Without playing one day in MLB.

The intentions are good. The result is comical.

Negro League seasons were short, the stat-keeping inexact. Gibson never played more than 69 games in a season, never had more than 302 plate appearances.

Gibson’s Hall of Fame plaque says he hit “almost 800 home runs.” But officially, he hit 166. That’s quite a disparity. Negro League teams played a plethora of exhibitions. They barnstormed.

The Negro Leagues had big-league talents. But weren’t run like MLB.

In 1943, when Gibson hit his “record-setting” .466, his Homestead Grays finished first in the Negro National League with 53 wins, 14 losses and a tie. The Harrisburg Stars finished third with a record of 8-8. Must have been a lot of rainouts.

If these are records for “professional baseball,” then the career home-run leader is Sadaharu Oh, who hit 868 home runs in Japanese baseball.

Records for MLB should be limited to games played in MLB.

Thinking that is dubbed racism by the woke mob. But it’s just common sense.

Baseball used to have a sacred record book. Now it’s a joke. So is the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Everybody used to know baseball’s big numbers off by heart.

Babe Ruth had 714 career home runs, 60 in a season. Who had 3,000 hits. Who had 300 wins. Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941, the last man to bat .400. Those stats were part of America’s sporting culture.

But racism fouled Hank Aaron’s chase and eclipsing of Ruth’s career home-run mark. (But Aaron rose above. He was a magnificent man.)

An idiot commissioner neutered Roger Maris hitting 61 home runs.

Performance-enhancing drugs forever kiboshed all the home-run records.

The all-time batting average leader never played in MLB.

The all-time hit and home-run leaders aren’t in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Pitchers get pulled when they’re pitching a no-hitter.

The “wins” statistic means nothing for pitchers. It used to be what mattered most.

Never mind the designated hitter. Baseball has ghost runners now.

Baseball uses a clock now. That’s ridiculous but less so than the fact that baseball needed one.

Baseball has been getting dumber for a long time. That won’t stop.

The Negro Leagues were not part of MLB. To include Negro League stats in MLB stats is dishonest and factually incorrect.

But we’re at a point in time where honesty and facts never have meant less.