To the extent that Miguel Cabrera is ascending in the historical list of hitters, details are being presented that confuse the fan regarding the place he occupies.
After he fired a pair of hits Monday at Minneapolis to match and displace Lou Brock, the website www.mlb.com ranked him 27th, while the comprehensive database at www.baseball-reference.com ranked him No. ranks 28th.
The difference is because MLB only recognizes as major leagues the National League (1876 to present), the American League (1901 to present) and, as of last year, seven different Negro Leagues that operated between 1920 and 1949.
For its part, the other specialized digital portal recognizes both the Negro Leagues and five other institutions that, in their respective times, were considered the highest category in the United States:
- National Association (1871-1875)
- Union Association (1884)
- American Association (1882-1891)
- Players League (1890)
- Federal League (1914-1915)
In the specific case of Cabrera, the confusion arises from Cap Anson, who in the list of mlb.com ranks 30th with 3011 hits and in baseballreference.com figure 24 positions higher, in seventh place, with 3 thousand 435 undisputed.
This is because Baseball Reference adds the 343 hits he connected in his first five seasons in the National Association between 1871 and 1875.
Read also: Miggy’s next goals: Brock, Waner y Molitor
For the purposes of the follow-up that the Leader Newspaper has been giving to the feat that Cabrera is carrying out, his position on the list of hitters is the one assigned by the baseball reference database, 28th.
Then, he is 29 hits behind Panamanian Rod Carew (3,053) in 27th place, 31 hits behind Rickey Henderson in 26th place and 36 behind Craig Biggio (25th on the list).
