The first trading cards of Herschel Walker, Julius Erving and Joe Namath were from their years playing in the United States Football League, the American Basketball Association and the American Football League, respectively. (Mark Podolski – The News-Herald)
Change can be difficult for many people to accept.
There are a few cases, but everyone is happy.
Right or wrong is in the eye of the beholder.
The record books will be shaken up when Major League Baseball announces on May 28 that it will recognize statistics from seven different Negro leagues from 1920 to 1948.
For example, and this is a big example, Josh Gibson's career batting average of .372 currently ranks first all-time, surpassing Ty Cobb's .367 in the early 1900s.
Another big record is Babe Ruth's career slugging percentage of .690, which is now surpassed by Gibson's .718.
There is other talent out there, but it's talent that matters, and reports suggest that there is plenty of it in the Negro Leagues.
Eight of the Hall of Fame players began their careers in the Negro Leagues, notably Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Satchel Paige, Roy Campanella and Larry Doby.
During the era of racial segregation in the United States, the Negro Leagues were the only option for black baseball players.
Is MLB's decision the right one? It's commendable for MLB, but it raises another topic: what about the statistics of the Japanese league?
Ichiro played 19 seasons in the major leagues and had 3,089 hits. He had another 1,278 more hits while in Japan, giving him a total of 4,367 hits, surpassing Pete Rose's previous record of 4,256.
For the purposes of this discussion, we will focus on sports leagues based in the United States.
MLB's decision to include Negro League players in its record books raises questions that obviously can't be answered, but are quite interesting to think about.
It's a nice fantasy to imagine what it would have been like if Gibson, who played in the 1930s and 1940s, had faced players like Bob Feller, the greatest player in Cleveland history.
In other sports, specifically basketball and football, we've gotten similar responses from players in now-defunct leagues such as the American Football League, the National Football League, and the American Basketball Association.
We all know that Joe Namath was an NFL football great, and we all know that Julius Erving was an NBA basketball great. Neither of them started their careers in the NFL or NBA. So why not label the all-time records in each sport “Pro Football Records” and “Pro Basketball Records”?
Of course, some will argue that the AFL, USFL and ABA pale in comparison to their big brothers, the NFL and NBA.
How the AFL, ABA and USFL have been run and financed has been well documented over the years.
The AFL existed from 1960 to 1970. The ABA existed for 10 years from 1967 to 1976. The USFL existed for a much shorter period from 1983 to 1985.
The AFL and ABA essentially merged with the NFL and NBA, and many believe the USFL should have merged with the NFL, but financial problems during the league's operation and a court case in which the USFL sued the NFL (arguing that the NFL had a monopoly on the sport of professional football) sunk the fledgling league.
Beyond all of this, the biggest thing that gave the AFL, ABA and USFL an advantage was the level of talent: top-tier.
Namath began his career as the Jets quarterback in 1965, when the New York team played in the AFL until 1969. In the final year before the NFL-AFL merger, Namath's Jets pulled off one of the greatest upsets in sports, surprising the overwhelming favorites, the Baltimore Colts, in Super Bowl LIII.
Irving began his career in the ABA and, like Namath, played in the league for five years before the NBA-ABA merger saw the Nets, Nuggets, Pacers and Spurs join the NBA.
Irving became an instant NBA sensation with the 76ers. He led Philadelphia to four NBA Finals, winning the championship in 1983. In 1980-1981, Irving was named NBA MVP.
His 18,364 NBA points don't even rank in the top 50 all time. If you add in his ABA points, Irving has 30,026 points, which is good for eighth all time behind Wilt Chamberlain, which is a reasonable number for a player with the reputation of “Dr. J.”
Other ABA players include Hall of Famers Rick Barry, George Gervin and Moses Malone. Malone was an NBA MVP. Barry was the 1976 Finals MVP and Gervin won the scoring title four times in five seasons, including three consecutive seasons.
The level of talent the USFL has acquired in just three seasons has been impressive.
The league persuaded three consecutive Heisman Trophy winners to leave the NFL, including Georgia running back Herschel Walker (1982 winner), Nebraska running back Mike Rozier (1983 winner) and Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie (1984 winner).
There were also four Hall of Famers who played in the USFL: quarterbacks Jim Kelly and Steve Young, defensive end Reggie White and offensive lineman Gary Zimmerman.
The disbanding of the USFL was a big boost for the Browns, and it undoubtedly helped them reach three AFC Championship Game appearances in four seasons in the late 1980s.
Cleveland acquired linebacker Mike Johnson, running back Kevin Mack, offensive lineman Dan Fike, cornerback Frank Minnifield and kick returner Gerald “The Ice Cube” McNeil from the USFL.
When it comes to the pro football record books, the significant single-season records by USFL players would be No. 1 if they truly qualified as “pro football records,” but they aren't.
In 1983, Rams rookie running back and future Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson ran for 2,105 yards, a single-season record.
In 1985, Walker played his final season with the New Jersey Generals before joining the Dallas Cowboys where he rushed for 2,411 yards with 438 receiving yards. Critics will say that the talent in the USFL is not as good as the NFL when it comes to the league as a whole, and Walker's totals came in 18 games, while Dickerson recorded them in 16 games in 1983.
This isn't the first hallowed record to be controversially broken: For decades Roger Maris held the single-season home record (61), which has since been broken, but in 1961 he still managed eight more games than the previous record of 60 set by Babe Ruth in 1927.
No one can argue that players like Namath, Irving, Malone, Gervin, Barry, Walker, Kelly and Young, who played in leagues comparable to the NFL and NBA, weren't good enough.
Yes, everyone had the choice to play in a different league. Unfortunately, black baseball players during the segregation era did not have that option.
The NFL and NBA merged with the AFL and ABA likely because there wasn't enough talent available, and when the USFL folded, the surplus of talent helped many NFL teams, including the Browns.
The history of professional football cannot be told without mentioning the AFL and USFL, and the same can be said for professional basketball and the ABA.
When we combine the statistics of players from these leagues, the complete picture becomes clear.
