How Baseball Data Hub Handles Negro Leagues Statistics

In December 2020, Major League Baseball recognized seven Negro Leagues that operated between 1920 and 1948 as major leagues. Their statistics were added to MLB's official record in 2024. Baseball Data Hub includes those seasons, but combining them with the American and National League record raises questions about sources, schedule length and incomplete records. This guide explains how the site answers them.

Which leagues and years

The site covers the seven leagues in MLB's 2020 decision, all within the 1920 to 1948 period:

• the first Negro National League (1920–1931)
• the Eastern Colored League (1923–1928)
• the American Negro League (1929)
• the East–West League (1932)
• the Negro Southern League (1932)
• the second Negro National League (1933–1948)
• the Negro American League (1937–1948)

Barnstorming and independent games outside these leagues are not counted as major league statistics, even when they appear in the underlying data.

Where the statistics come from

The Negro Leagues figures on the site are Retrosheet's, compiled from surviving box scores. They are not identical to the totals MLB adopted in 2024, which were drawn from the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database. The two projects have worked from overlapping but not identical sets of box scores, so a player's totals can differ by a few hits or games between them.

Both compilations share one limitation. Many Negro Leagues games were never officially scored, and many box scores that once existed have not survived. The figures cover only the games for which a box score survives, so they are a floor rather than a complete count of what these players did.

On player profiles

A player's profile includes his Negro Leagues seasons. Josh Gibson's profile shows his full recorded career, and a player who crossed over, such as Larry Doby or Monte Irvin, has one career line that combines his Negro Leagues and AL or NL seasons. Doby's 273 career home runs are 253 in the American League plus 20 in the Negro Leagues. The profile also has a separate Negro Leagues section, with those seasons on their own, so the two parts of the career can be read apart.

On the leaderboards

The all-time leaderboards come in two versions, and the choice matters most for Negro Leagues players.

The default board is the traditional record book: the AL, the NL and the other nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century major leagues, with Negro Leagues seasons left out. It is the list most older reference books print.

The combined board is MLB's official record since 2024. It adds the Negro Leagues seasons and prorates the qualification minimums for the shorter schedules. Negro Leagues clubs typically played about 69 league games a season, against about 149 for AL and NL clubs of the same period, so a Negro Leagues season qualifies for a single-season rate record with 185 plate appearances, and a career played mostly in the Negro Leagues qualifies for the career batting average board with 1,389 at-bats instead of 3,000. Without that adjustment, Gibson's .466 in 1943, the official single-season batting average record, could not appear at all. The qualification guide covers the rules in full.

Each default board links to its combined version, for example the career batting average board and its combined counterpart. There is also a separate Negro Leagues leaders page ranking players on their Negro Leagues statistics alone.

Season, team and game pages

The season pages show AL and NL standings. Negro Leagues clubs have their own team-season pages, reached from player profiles and the teams directory. Box scores exist for Negro World Series games, alongside the AL and NL postseason; the game logs guide explains that coverage.

Clubs and franchises

Negro Leagues clubs moved between leagues more often than AL and NL clubs did, and some changed names or cities from one season to the next. The site groups their seasons the same way as other clubs, by team code and franchise, so a club that changed leagues keeps one history. The Chicago American Giants, for example, played in both Negro National Leagues and in the Negro American League, and one franchise page covers both. The team codes guide explains how codes and franchises fit together.

Where to start

For readers new to the Negro Leagues record, a few profiles show the range of what the data covers:

• Josh Gibson, the catcher whose 1943 season holds MLB's official single-season batting average record.
• Oscar Charleston, whose recorded seasons run through most of the recognized period.
• Buck Leonard, Gibson's longtime teammate on the Homestead Grays.
• Turkey Stearnes and Cool Papa Bell, two of the outfielders whose statistics were rebuilt from surviving box scores.
• Martín Dihigo, who pitched and played the field, and has both batting and pitching records.
• Satchel Paige, whose profile joins his Negro Leagues seasons with the American League career he began at 42.

The Hall of Fame pages list the Negro Leagues players inducted over the years, many of them decades after their careers ended.

Reading the numbers

Three things are worth keeping in mind:

• A season total can come from a few dozen games, so rate statistics swing more than they do over a 154- or 162-game season.
• Counting totals, such as career hits or home runs, will always look low beside AL and NL careers, because the schedules were shorter and part of the record is lost.
• The figures can change as researchers find more box scores, and the site picks up those corrections when its sources publish them.