It has been repeated so often, it practically goes without saying: when Shohei Ohtani stole his 50th base and hit his 50th home run of the season last Thursday in Miami, he did something no player in the history of Major League Baseball had ever done before.
Or did he?
When Major League Baseball incorporated the “official” statistics of Negro League players in May dating back to 1920, the league acknowledged those statistics were incomplete. Researchers estimate that the 1920-48 Negro Leagues records are about 75 percent complete. What mysteries lie in that extra 25 percent?