History of Baseball's Negro Leagues: Great Players and the Game

The Society for American Baseball Research, referred to as SABR, is considered the most recognized authority on baseball and baseball history. In 1999, they voted on five separate lists regarding the caliber of talent that went through the Negro Leagues during its 100-year, storied history and came up with a list of 40 ballplayers worthy of note as the greatest to ever play in the Negro Leagues. I wanted to discuss who I felt were possibly five to ten of the greatest on the list, regardless of order, but then I took a closer look and found what I consider to be an unconscionable omission.

Shockingly, Jackie Robinson was nowhere to be found on that list. Will someone please explain to me how this happened, because I just don't have a clue? Players like Sam Jethroe, Larry Doby, Monte Irvin, and "Satchel" Paige were on the list, but not the man responsible for breaking the color barrier in our great American pastime. What's even more shocking is that out of all the sources that I dug through (whether I used them in this article or not), I could not find a single explanation for this other than the fact that some Negro League historians did not consider him to be one of the greats while he played there.

Listen for just a moment. How do you omit this man from that list? On a positive note, his entry into Major League Baseball was the single most culturally significant event to have happened in the history of the game. Despite his statistics, given the significance of the event, there is no way such an omission from that list should have ever happened. Unfortunately for Robinson, and many other great Negro League ballplayers, statistics and record keeping was not the League's forte back in the day, so it's hard to delineate greatness where any player is concerned.