How Good Were the Negro Baseball Leagues?
by Mark D. Hauser It is a sad comment on our society (read: US) that this question can actually exist. It is a shame that racism was so prevalent in the first half of the 20th Century that blacks (or African-Americans if you prefer, or Negroes, as they were called back then, hence, the name of the leagues) were not allowed to play in MLB. White players refused to play against blacks and judging from the fans’ treatment of Jackie Robinson (as you know, the first black to play in MLB (1947) since the late 1800’s) at first, many of the fans did want to see the blacks in MLB. At this site, I put a disclaimer under the baseball category, encouraging voters to consider the players from the Negro Leagues. Unfortunately, it is just a guess where to rank the players from the Negro Leagues for several reasons. First, many of them never played in MLB, or when they did, they were past their prime. For instance, the legendary Satchel Paige did not start pitching in MLB until he was around the age 4
