One of our Culture’s Greatest Mistakes in Valuation: The Negro Leagues

Those who know me realize that I am a big sports fan. My favorite sport to be a fan of is baseball. Negro league history is one of my passions and I actually belong to an organization whose purpose is to recreate the statistics of the Negro Leagues.

My favorite player ever is Joe Black. A great pitcher in 1952 who that year became the first black player to win a world series game and who won Rookie of the Year for the National League. After his playing career, he became a champion of former Negro League players. His short career was one of honor, pride, and gentleness toward others despite the fact he suffered severe discrimination due to the color of his skin.

One of the greatest power hitter ever was Josh Gibson. His record against the highest caliber of Negro League pitching indicates that he would have outslugged any of the Major League players of that era, including Babe Ruth. There is solid evidence that Gibson hit a 580 foot home run in Pittsburgh. That would rank him with Ruth, Mantle and Fox as the players who could hit the ball the furthest. He never played in what we consider the real major leagues.

I think the best baseball played from 1920 – 1950 was in the Negro Leagues. Only the ignorant or those with worse motives insist that Major League Baseball was the best being played in America in the first half of the 20^th century. Most knowledgeable experts of both the Negro Leagues and Major League Baseball claim that Josh Gibson is the greatest power hitter the game has ever seen. These same experts rate Satchel Paige heads and shoulder above any other pitcher of any era.

What is the point of this rather one-sided conversation? Cultures and societies are not the only ones capable of making huge mistakes in evaluating what has greatest value. My understanding of baseball is that the point is to win. Any owner from 1920 – 1950 could have fielded a team of black future hall of famers who would have won the World Series every year. Hatred, in the form of bigotry and discrimination, kept them from realizing the goal toward which they were working.

How easily I fall into the same trap of allowing other things to derail reaching the goal toward which God has called me.

Trey