History, standing corrected

 I wish I were somewhere else this morning, and not because I'm unhappy with where I am. I wish I were somewhere else because I like to be entertained, and the somewhere else I'd like to be would be entertaining as all get out.

See, I wish I were wherever Ty Cobb is. Because, God, that would be some kind of fun.

I figure the racist old sociopath is throwing an epic poop-fit this morning, bellowing shattering oaths because a black man just supplanted him in the record books. I see him calling out to his fellow old racist, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, and saying "Mountain, can you believe this? They're changin' history on us! How dare they!"

To which Landis would no doubt say: "Hey, I tried to keep 'em out. Can't lay any of this on my doorstep."

"This", of course, is Major League Baseball announcing that Negro League records for more than 2,300 players were officially incorporated into the baseball record books, forever altering some longstanding numbers.

This includes Cobb's lifetime .367 batting average, which now is second to Josh Gibson's .372. Gibson's .466 average for the 1943 season becomes the alltime single season record. Charlie "Chino" Smith's .451 average in 1929 moves into second place, supplanting the former alltime leader -- Hugh Duffy, who batted .440 for Boston way back in 1894.

This being the riven days of 2024, when straight-up crazy runs around stark naked in public, I'm waiting for some elected loon to call this "wokeness," the loon epithet of choice these days. I would hope, and frankly expect, this is one instance when the elected loons hold their tongues. But you'll never go broke these days underestimating the sheer bat-shittery of some of them.

So, someone somewhere will say something about "revisionist history." Count on it.

What they'll miss is the irony of being right for once, but not the way they think. This is revisionist history, in the sense that it's history that needed revising. It's history standing corrected, to be more precise. It's the completion of a history that for a century has been glaringly incomplete.

Adding Negro Leagues numbers into the official baseball records, after all, is adding the numbers of the only established professional entity excluded from those records. Yes, most of the records in the book are from the National and American leagues. But also included are records from the American Association (1882-1891), the Union Association (1884), the Players League (1890) and the Federal League (1914-1915). 

All of those had one thing in common: They were lily white, or virtually so.

The Negro Leagues, of course, were not. Yet they were far more legitimate, and certainly more successful, than most of the aforementioned. The only reason they were excluded from baseball's official record was ... well, we all know why they were excluded.

Now, finally, that injustice has been undone. That it should have happened long before 2024 is a shame MLB must rightfully bear, and for which Tuesday's announcement only partially absolves it.

In any event, hears to Josh and Chino and Oscar Charleston and all the rest. Welcome home, gentlemen. Welcome home at last.