Well, if a guy like Josh Gibson had been allowed to play, the Babe might not have even retired the home run king. Records from the segregation era are different, because the best competition wasn't allowed.
So what if a roid user is going to pass segragation's greatest? It's fitting, in a way, actually. Big deal, big yawn, in my opinion.
Right. So when it comes to personal hitting performances, baseball's history segregation only affected personal statistics in relation to what other players from that time might have done, not with regard to a player's own statistics. Ruth probably would have hit about 714 home runs regardless of baseball's color barrier -- though someone else (a black player who wasn't allowed in big-league baseball) might have hit more home runs if he had been allowed to play.
I do, however, find it odd how people like to point out that Ruth's records are somehow illegitimate because he had played in a segregated era, and point to legends about Josh Gibson's home run exploits to make their case. And yet Gibson didn't face the best pitchers of his era, either.
Pure speculation. White pitchers couldn't have gotten Josh Gibson out?
Babe Ruth was not responsible for segregation but Barry Bonds was responsible for taking steroids and HGH.
"Well, if a guy like Josh Gibson had been allowed to play, the Babe might not have even retired the home run king."
This is delusional. MULITPLE Josh Gibsons wouldn't have threatened Ruth as the HR king
"Records from the segregation era are different, because the best competition wasn't allowed."
This point cuts BOTH ways. The VAST majority of those Black League players wouldn't have stood a chance in the majors. A truly talented player in the Negro leagues would have looked like God in comparison to the guys around him.
The numbers in the Majors would be different if a Blacks had had a shot but SLIGHTLY . And that is purely a statistical truth.
By the same argument, Josh Gibson's records aren't really valid either, since Josh didn't face the best competition in his segregated league.
It is true that the best of the Negro leagues would have succeeded in the Majors during this era. But you are making several erroneous assumptions, such as: A Negro league players success in the Negro leagues would have been essentially the same in the majors. This is not the case for some obvious reasons:
a) Ball Parks -- Negro league fields were in many cases minor league ball parks, which tends to favor the hitter and the home run.
b) Pitching -- Good pitching beats good hitting. As much as you will deny it, the quality of pitchers in the Negro leagues was not what it was in the Major Leagues. Best evidence of this is to take a look at after the color barrier was broken, how long did it take for black pitchers (yes there are exceptions) to really become dominant in the big leagues? And how many of these are there compared to other pitchers in the bigs?
c) Quality players -- Blacks represented about 8-10% of the population, Whites being the vast majority of the rest. Thus the Major leagues had a larger pool of talent to draw from. This cannot be proven, only surmised, but I would guess that depth of talent in the Major leagues was far deeper then that of the Negro leagues. Thus a major leaguer was playing against better talent, when taken across the board.
Sorry, but crying racism does not dilute the success of the white players, rather it over inflates the statistics of the black players.
Josh Gibson never pitched to Babe Ruth or the 27' Yankees for that matter. Maybe Josh Gibson wouldn't have been as great either. We will never know.