sad ; He died at the was going on in 1947. Now Josh Gibson is baseball s batting average champsad
Josh Gibson’s headstone in Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as viewed on March 17, 2017. After integrating Negro League statistics as part of a three-year study effort, Gibson surpassed Ty Cobb to become Major League Baseball’s career batting leader with a.372 average. (Associated Press/Keith Srakocic)
After a three-year study project to merge Negro League successes, Josh Gibson, who passed away just three months before the league’s colour barrier was overcome, now holds many Major League Baseball records.
MLB declared in 2021 that the Negro Leagues would be reclassified to majors in order to address a “longtime oversight.” When a special committee on baseball records discovered six additional official major leagues dating back to 1876 in 1969, the leagues were excluded.
The project’s completion was declared in a statement by league commissioner Rob Manfred on Tuesday. Before the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants play a memorial game to the Negro Leagues on 20 June at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, an updated version of MLB’s database will be made available to the public.
Throughout his 16-year professional career, Gibson played catcher for the Homestead Greys, a team located outside of Pittsburgh. He amassed the majority of his stats with the team.
In a video released earlier this year in cooperation with MLB, head of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum Bob Kendrick stated, “Josh Gibson would have hit home runs in any league, in any era, had he been given the opportunity to do so.”
MLB will celebrate Willie Mays with a Negro Leagues commemorative game at Rickwood Field in June of next year.
BUZZERThe rationale behind baseball’s decision to promote the Negro Leagues to “major”
The record book adjustments cause Gibson to pass Ty Cobb’s.367 hitting average to become the career leader.
For the 1943 Homestead Greys, Gibson’s batting average of.466 is currently a historic season standard. Hugh Duffy’s 1894.440 average with the Boston squad of the National League previously held that record.
Along with surpassing Barry Bonds as the all-time season leader in slugging %, Gibson also became Babe Ruth’s career leader in the same statistic.
LISTEN: Sean, Gibson’s great-grandson, discusses the momentous shift.
Josh Gibson, who played in the Negro Leagues from 1930 to 1946, is currently the all-time greatest hitter in Major League Baseball thanks to the integration of their data. Matt Galloway discusses the significance of that acknowledgment with his great-grandson Sean Gibson.
