MLB gives Negro Leagues ‘Major League’ status

[NFA] Major League Baseball is giving the Negro Leagues of 1920 through 1948 "Major League" status, MLB said on Wednesday.

Freddie Joyner has more.

Major League Baseball announced on Wednesday that they are elevating the Negro Leagues of 1920 through 1948 to "Major League" status, calling the move a correction of "a longtime oversight." The records and statistics of Black players who competed in a separate league after being forced out of the MLB due to racism and “Jim Crow” laws will now be incorporated into MLB history.

This decision comes a century after the Negro Leagues were first formally introduced.

Two of the League's more prominent stars were Satchel Paige - who was a five-time All-Star pitcher and inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971, and Jackie Robinson who became the first Black player in MLB's modern era in 1945.

A statement by Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, read QUOTE: "In the minds of baseball fans worldwide, this serves as historical validation for those who had been shunned from the Major Leagues and had the foresight and courage to create their own league that helped change the game and our country too.” Roughly 3,400 players competed in the seven Negro Leagues from 1920 through 1948 but were denied equal recognition to their white counterparts.

Current MLB Commissioner Robert Manfred responded to the news, saying: "All of us who love baseball have long known that the Negro Leagues produced many of our game’s best players, innovations and triumphs against a backdrop of injustice," Adding, "We are now grateful to count the players of the Negro Leagues where they belong: as Major Leaguers within the official historical record."