Letter to the Editor: Including stats doesn鈥檛 make sense
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The politically correct crowd wins again. In case you missed it, a committee which met for several years has imported statistics from the old Negro Leagues in baseball from the past into the permanent records of major league baseball today. There were 6 or 8 different leagues from the past, most of which I have not heard of, that had their statistics imported into Major League Baseball's archives.
Therefore, Ty Cobb is no longer the career leader in batting average at .367; that now belongs to Josh Gibson, a terrific player in the Negro Leagues, who had a lifetime average of .371. Other players have had their lifetime stats enhanced, namely Willie Mays, who got a few more hits, and Satchel Paige, who got something like 28 more pitching victories. What I cannot understand is, why now?
Like everything else, there are some who want to erase the past and cancel what was done and paint the future with a different color. The Negro Leagues are what they were, at a time when segregation was rampant and Black players played the game separate from white players and money. That does not mean that the Black players were not good, some were tremendous players, but to try to correct alleged injustices in the past by including all of their efforts into today's records does not make sense. How long will it be until every sport has statistics imported into today's record books? What about the USFL, where Herchel Walker played? Will his stats be included in his NFL numbers? What about the old ABA, where Julius Erving was a valid superstar? The NBA as of this moment does not include his ABA stats. What about the new league on TV these days, will those players get their accomplishments included in NFL records?
The problem is, and most liberals do not get it, is that there was a time when things were done separately, which was wrong, but that is just the way it was. I am sorry it was like that, but I can do nothing about it. If we are not careful, the subject of reparations for those Black players who got paid very little will now be afforded money because Black players of today make far more money than those in the Negro Leagues did.
We live in a sad world, where right and wrong are backwards.
Robert Sadler
Marietta