Overview
The Black professional leagues of 1920–1948, recognised as major leagues in 2020 and folded into the official record in 2024.
The Negro Leagues were the professional baseball circuits organised by and for Black Americans during the era when Major League Baseball excluded them. The first, the Negro National League, was founded by Rube Foster in Kansas City in 1920; others followed, including the Eastern Colored League and the Negro American League.
In 2020 Major League Baseball recognised seven of these leagues, covering the seasons from 1920 to 1948, as major leagues. In 2024 their statistics were incorporated into the official record — a revision that made Josh Gibson the all-time leader in batting average, slugging percentage and OPS.
Season Format
Recent Champions
Most recent first. Seasons still in progress are marked.
History
Black players were pushed out of organised baseball by the late 1880s through an unwritten agreement among owners. Independent Black clubs continued, and Rube Foster organised them into the Negro National League in 1920 to keep control and revenue in Black hands.
The leagues were central institutions in Black American life, with the East–West All-Star Game at Comiskey Park drawing crowds of 50,000. Their players — Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Oscar Charleston, Cool Papa Bell, Buck Leonard — were the equals of any in the game.
Jackie Robinson's signing in 1945 began integration and, in doing so, destroyed the leagues' economics: their best players were signed away, their audiences followed, and the last league folded in the early 1960s. The Baseball Hall of Fame began inducting Negro Leagues players in 1971.
Governance
The leagues were independently organised by Black owners and operators. Their history is held by the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, and their records are now part of MLB's official statistical database.