Major League Baseball announced Wednesday that it would be righting a decades-old wrong by officially recognizing the Negro Leagues as a “major league” — putting Negro League stats into the record book and giving thousands of Black players the official designation of being major-league baseball players.
The news was announced by the commissioner’s office as part of its yearlong celebration of the Negro Leagues’ 100th anniversary. In its announcement, MLB said:
With this action, MLB seeks to ensure that future generations will remember the approximately 3,400 players of the Negro Leagues during this time period as Major League-caliber ballplayers.