Colin Sheridan: Baseball finally catching up with troubled racial past

For decades the stats of black players from the NLB were kept separate from the official Major League Baseball (MLB) record books. Pic: Scott Taetsch/Getty Images)

Last Wednesday, Major League Baseball took a major - if long overdue - step, correcting the sport’s troubled past regarding race relations in America. From the 1920s to the 50s, Negro League Baseball (NLB) was the home for black players who were segregated from the other, whites-only, baseball clubs. And for decades, the stats of those black players were kept separate from the official Major League Baseball (MLB) record books. Last week, the MLB officially merged the NLB stats with their own. The immediate effect of this was many MLB records have now been supplanted by the achievements of previously overlooked black players.

Josh Gibson, for example, now holds the record for highest career batting average, surpassing Ty Cobb. Gibson's on-base plus slugging percentage also beats the great Babe Ruth, while his career on-base percentage now ranks as the third-highest of all-time.