Since last Monday, Osvaldo Virgil stopped being the first Dominican to play in the Major Leagues, the country added another batting title and Tetelo Vargas became the hitter with the highest percentage in a season.
This is the case for those who visit baseball-reference.com, the popular virtual encyclopedia with 10.2 million unique visits every month, only behind MLB.com, which reaches 37.2 MM, according to Aelieve, an agency specialized in traffic in the Web.
The reference site for fans, players and communicators included the statistics it was able to compile from the Negro leagues, six months after Major League Baseball accepted the high level of those circuits, which were contested during the era of racial segregation.
The MLB, which only approves the statistics compiled by the Elias Sport Bureau company, is working on incorporating the numbers of those leagues into its database and is expected to make it public next fall.
But Baseball-Reference fired the gun, adding six Dominicans to the league’s all-time roster.
Pedro San, a Montecristeño right-hander who played three seasons for the Cuban Stars East in the Eastern Colored League between 1926 and 1928, is henceforth the first Quisqueyano recognized as a pioneer.
San is joined by the utility Tetelo Vargas, who has six campaigns between 1927 and 1943 going through four leagues; the gardener Néstor Lambertus (1929), the left-handed Sijo Gómez (1929), the shortstop Horacio “Rabbit” Martínez (1935-1947) and the receiver Enrique “Mariscal” Lantigua (1935), who was the only survivor of the Rio tragedy Green in 1948.
Will there be controversy?
A homologation claimed for decades by minority defense groups in the United States, but which is not alien to controversy, especially due to the way in which statistics were collected in these now aggregated leagues.
Legend has it that Josh Gibson hit about 800 home runs, which would surpass Barry Bonds’ record of 762, but there are only 165.
For example, Tetelo Vargas now appears as the batting leader of the 1943 season with an astronomical .471, displacing Stan Musial, who to date is recognized with .357.
There the controversy begins. Vargas only sold out 136 appearances and had 57 hits, while Musial had 701 and had 220 hits. MLB rules establish that for a player to opt for the title, he must 3.1 visits to the plate per games played by his club, about 502 in the 162-game schedule.
Vargas’ New York Cubans played 33 games that year, but in that same league the Harrisburgh Stars played 16 and the Homestead Grays 67.
For Baseball-Reference, that .471 for Vargas becomes the highest batting percentage a player gets the title with. He joins Juan Soto (2020, .351), José Reyes (2011, .337), Hanley Ramírez (2009, .342), Albert Pujols (2003, .359), Manny Ramírez (2002, .349), Alex Rodríguez (1996, .358), Julio Franco (1991, .341), Rico Carty (1970, .366) and Mateo Alou (1996, .342) among the leading Dominicans.
“There will be many new books on baseball trivia coming out in the next few years.”
“A lot of the websites need to be updated to include the greatness of the Negro league players.”
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