MLB reclassifies Negro Leagues as a major league to 'correct a longtime oversight in the game's history' and will begin merging statistical records

Major League Baseball has reclassified the Negro Leagues as a major league and will begin the process of merging the statistics and records of its 3,400 black players into its own historical record.

The league said Wednesday it was 'correcting a longtime oversight in the game's history' by elevating the Negro Leagues on the centennial of its founding. 

The Negro Leagues consisted of seven leagues, and MLB will include records from those circuits between 1920-48. The Negro Leagues began to dissolve one year after Jackie Robinson became MLB's first Black player with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

Those leagues were excluded in 1969 when the Special Committee on Baseball Records identified six official 'major leagues' dating to 1876.

Josh Gibson, one of the most celebrated players in the history of the Negro Leagues, died in 1947 at age 35 without ever getting the chance to play in the Major Leagues

'It is MLB's view that the Committee's 1969 omission of the Negro Leagues from consideration was clearly an error that demands today's designation,' the league said in a statement.

MLB said it considered input from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the Negro League Researchers and Authors Group and studies by other baseball authors and researchers.

The league will work with the Elias Sports Bureau to review Negro Leagues statistics and records and figure out how to incorporate them into MLB's history.

'All of us who love baseball have long known that the Negro Leagues produced many of our game's best players, innovations and triumphs against a backdrop of injustice,' Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. 'We are now grateful to count the players of the Negro Leagues where they belong: as Major Leaguers within the official historical record.'

James Thomas 'Cool Papa' Bell of the St. Louis Stars of the Negro Baseball League looks on circa 1924

It's not yet clear if the statistics of Negro League legends such as Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, and Satchel Paige will challenge hallowed MLB marks. 

One complicating factor is that many Negro League players also spent time in the Caribbean or Mexican Leagues, and those statistics will not be merged with MLB figures. 

For instance, Bell, Paige, and Gibson were teammates in 1937 after Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo recruited the Negro League stars to bolster his own popularity in the baseball-obsessed country's capital, Ciudad Trujillo (now Santo Domingo). However, those figures are not expected to be included when MLB officially adds in Negro League figures.   

Of course, Willie Mays will add some hits to his record, Monte Irvin's big league batting average should climb over .300 and Paige may add nearly 150 victories to his total. 

Gibson, the greatest of all Negro League sluggers, might just wind up with a major league record, too.

For instance, Mays could be credited with 17 hits from his 1948 season with the Alabama Black Barons. Irvin, a teammate of Mays' with the New York Giants, could see his career average climb from .293 to .304 if numbers listed at Baseball-Reference from his nine Negro League seasons are accurate. And Paige, who currently is credited with 28 major league wins, should add at least 146 to his total.

While some have estimated Gibson slugged over 800 homers during 16 Negro League seasons, it's unlikely that enough records exist for him to officially pass Barry Bonds for the career record at 762.

Depending on what Elias and MLB rule, though, Gibson could wind up with another notable record. His .441 batting average in 1943 would be the best season mark ever, edging Hugh Duffy's .440 from 1894. Gibson's line came in fewer than 80 games, however, far short of the modern standard of 162.

In this August 2, 1942, file photo, Kansas City Monarchs pitcher Leroy Satchel Paige warms up at Yankee Stadium before a Negro League game against the New York Cuban Stars

Commissioner Rob Manfred said that all 'of us who love baseball have long known that the Negro Leagues produced many of our game's best players, innovations and triumphs against a backdrop of injustice'

Willie Mays (pictured here with the New York Giants in 1956) could be credited with 17 hits from his 1948 season with the Alabama Black Barons. Monte Irvin, a teammate of Mays' with the Giants, could see his career average climb from .293 to .304 if numbers listed at Baseball-Reference from his nine Negro League seasons are accurate

The move is the latest in baseball's effort erase the connections to racism that still linger within the once-segregated sport. 

In October, the Baseball Writers Association of America voted to remove Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis's name from the Most Valuable Player awards after several former recipients complained about his role in keeping African Americans out of the big leagues. 

According to an email sent to the BBWAA membership, 89 percent were in favor while 11 percent opposed removing Landis's name. In total, 313 votes were cast. 

In October, the Baseball Writers Association of America voted to remove Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis's name from the Most Valuable Player awards after several former recipients complained about his role in keeping African Americans out of MLB

Hired in 1920 as the sport's first commissioner to help clean up rampant gambling, Landis and his legacy are 'always a complicated story' that includes 'documented racism,' official MLB historian John Thorn said.

No African Americans played in the majors during Landis's quarter-century tenure. Robinson broke the barrier in April 1947, about 2 1/2 years after Landis died.  

In June, NL MVP award recipients Barry Larkin (1995), Mike Schmidt (1980, 1981, and 1986) and Terry Pendleton (1991) told the Associated Press that BBWAA was unnecessarily commemorating a dark chapter in the game's history.

'Why is Landis's on there?' said Larkin, an African American who won the award as a member of the Cincinnati Reds. 'I was always aware of his name and what that meant to slowing the color line in Major League Baseball, of the racial injustice and inequality that black players had to go through.'  

His precise role in racial issues has been debated for decades.

Landis broke up exhibitions between black and white All-Star teams. He invited a group of black newspaper publishers to address owners in what became a cordial but totally fruitless presentation.

Toward the end of his tenure, he told owners they were free to sign black players. But there is no evidence he pushed for baseball integration, either, as the status quo of segregation remained.

'If you have the Jackie Robinson Award and the Kenesaw Mountain Landis Award, you are at diametrically opposed poles,' Thorn said. 'And it does represent a conundrum.'    

Larry Doby, the first African-American player in the American League, puts his hands on the shoulders of Negro League legend Satchel Paige, his teammate on the Cleveland Indians