Is there a place where I can find a comprehensive index of Negro League stats, (including players and teams and awards and such), like baseball-reference.com does for the American and Nat’l Leagues?
I’m not a fan, so maybe I misunderstand. But I googled “negro league baseball” and got more that 7,000 hits, the first few look to have info exactly as you describe.
Peace,
mangeorge
There’s no comprehensive listing of Negro League stats simply because the leagues didn’t keep comprehensive statistics. Much has been lost.
The Baseball Encyclopedia started publishing the information a few years back (my old 9th edition has it), but it’s obviously incomplete.
RexDart- not sure how close you are, but the Negro League Hall of Fame is in KC, (not sure if Mo or Kansas.) I hear it is quite a place.
I’m only a couple hours away, and had been planning to go visit there at some point. In fact, I was at an inaugural dinner for some part of that Hall featuring some old KC Monarchs players back in roughly 1992, when I was a teen and used to live in KC. I got to meet and collect autographs from a number of the former Monarchs players.
If what RealityChuck says is right, then I probably won’t find the comprehensive sort of stuff I was looking for. But I’ll check out the googled sites and see if I can piece together what I was looking for.
From all I hear it is great, but you 're probably right-more stats on internet than there.
The lack of comprehensive stat keeping and recording has lead to a lot of myhtology and stories around the stats, so validity has unfortunately flown out the window.
As a person deeply interested in the negro leagues, part of me longs for true stats to dissect and compare to the Major league players. But, the other part of me knows that the stories that have been allowed to build because there is no statistical bias to rein them in are probably much more fun to listen to.
Not only that but the statistics, even the one’s we have, are considered wildly distorted.
Given the negro league teams money-generating habit of barnstorming against local high school and college teams and including those numbers in the stats you can see how easy it would be to rack up some serious numbers without facing top flight competition.
Don’t get me wrong, they needed the money and that’s perfectly legitimate way to get it. But to include some of those games in official stats always struck me as a no-no.
It’s amazing. It’s down in the 18th and Vine District, which has been vastly renovated. The NLHOF is connected to the Jazz Hall of Fame, which is worth another day of touring.
Last time I went, we ran into Buck O’Neill, local celebrity and Negro League veteran. What an amazing person! We were there on Satchel Paige’s birthday, so they let everyone on their little field to take pictures with the Satchel statue. Very cool place, and I highly recommend it for anyone who passes through Kansas City.