Those familiar with the history of major professional baseball in St. Louis are likely aware that, prior to the 1920s, the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Browns were not typically very good teams. There were periodic winning seasons, but it wasn’t until the arrivals of Rogers Hornsby and George Sisler that St. Louis developed a reputation for extensive baseball success. It’s largely a coincidence, but the period in which St. Louis became a major player in professional baseball overlaps significantly with the period in which Babe Ruth guided the sport to its greatest popularity yet. It’s probably for the best that Dead Ball Era baseball in St. Louis be largely forgotten.

But here’s a bit of trivia for you, and I will give you a hint that the answer is not a trick question guided by the title of this article: Between 1903, the official beginning of Major League Baseball’s World Series era, and 1920, the unofficial conclusion of the Dead Ball Era, what was the winningest Major League Baseball team from St. Louis? If you need a couple more hints: this team won 87 games (in a 154-game season) and their roster included a future Hall of Famer.

The Hall of Famer referenced here is 326 game winning pitcher Eddie Plank, and the team referenced is not the Cardinals nor the Browns but the 1915 St. Louis Terriers of the Federal League. For those unfamiliar with this league, it was formed in 1913 outside the confines of the American and National Leagues, which had a prohibitive reserve clause, which effectively kept players tethered to one professional team throughout their baseball lives. The Federal League, operating outside of the existing structure of capital-M-capital-L-capital-B Major League Baseball, greatly loosened restrictions on player mobility, which, because competition leads to salary growth, made the league a far more player-friendly alternative to the AL or NL. The 1915 Terriers, by percentage points, did not win the Federal League, losing to the Chicago Whales, but a trip to the World Series was not awaiting the winner. But it was still a championship for Chicago with or without a post-season playoff, just as champions of most world soccer leagues are recognized and honored as such on the merits of regular season success alone.

The Federal League folded after the 1915 season, and it would be another fifty-four years until former St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood would mount another serious challenge to the reserve clause. During those fifty-four years, the Federal League was regarded as a separate entity from Major League Baseball, but it was recognized as a lower-case major league. I would be content with this distinction–based on the quality of players, it is hard to deny that the Federal League played at a very high level, at worst a quad-A league in modern parlance. This was a league where Ed Konetchy, probably the greatest St. Louis Cardinals player prior to the arrival of Rogers Hornsby, played.

But the decision to recognize the Federal League as part of the history of Major League Baseball was made before I was born, in 1969, the same year in which Curt Flood shook the sport to its professional core. A special committee also recognized three other professional leagues as “Major Leagues”–the American Association, which operated for a decade and the league in which the St. Louis Cardinals franchise originated; the Union Association, which existed for one year in 1884 and folded because the St. Louis Maroons, in true St. Louis fashion, were simply too dominant (the real story is a bit slimier, but if anyone associated with the 1884 Union Association complains to me, I will redact this part); and the Federal League.

This precedent can be a bit confusing–it’s not as though the National Football League has retroactively declared that the 1924 Notre Dame Fighting Irish are an NFL team, even if they were probably as good as those which played in the actual league at the time–but it’s relatively clear: Major League Baseball views itself as the arbiter not only of the American and National Leagues but of all high-level baseball that has ever been organized. Independent of this precedent, which is now further back in history than the Federal League was from the establishment of the precedent, the incorporation of the major Negro Leagues could be considered a bit strange. With this precedent, it is imperative.

On Wednesday, following precedent set by major statistical websites Baseball Reference and FanGraphs, Major League Baseball itself incorporated statistics from the seven all-Black leagues collectively known as the major Negro Leagues. It merits noting that many other leagues for Black players existed, but just as Major League Baseball draws a distinction between the formerly all-white American and National Leagues and minor leagues which existed throughout the United States, there is a distinction drawn between the cream of the crop and lesser leagues. The seven major Negro Leagues earned their reputation not by declaration but by the overall quality of their baseball.

The Negro Leagues had relatively short seasons compared to the AL or NL (or Federal League, for that matter), so for the most part, career leaders in counting stats remained the same as they were last week–Pete Rose is the all-time leader in hits, Barry Bonds the all-time leader in home runs, Cy Young the all-time leader in wins. But there were some dramatic changes with regard to rate stats, such as batting average and OPS. Many of these changes centered around the legendary Josh Gibson, who is now Major League Baseball’s career leader in batting average, a fact which has alienated those who enjoy the popular contemporary image of Ty Cobb far more than it likely would have bothered Cobb himself, and slugging percentage. Congratulations to Ted Williams, a prominent white advocate of recognizing Negro League players, on maintaining his career on-base percentage record–I like to think the anti-racist in you would like these changes and that the competitive lunatic in you would love to see this one remain intact.

It is easy to poke holes in the story of how Josh Gibson had a higher batting average than Ty Cobb. Notably, Gibson’s statistics in officially recognized games cover a much smaller sample size–his 2,490 career plate appearances are far behind Cobb’s total and trail the likes of Juan Lagares, Jamie Quirk, Eric Sogard, and Mark Bellhorn. The debate of precisely how strong the Negro Leagues were is one best settled by baseball historians and not twerps with blogs, though it is inarguable that the statistical record shows a much higher variance between the top players and the lesser players within it–it is reasonable, for instance, to infer that the top Negro Leagues players would have still been top-level players in the American or National Leagues but that they may not have, say, produced a 1.474 OPS as Gibson did in 1937 with the Homestead Grays. But a similar effect could be said of Ty Cobb (or, to use an example with less anecdotal baggage, Babe Ruth), who played in an all-white league that, even if it was stronger than the leagues of Josh Gibson and Oscar Charleston, was certainly not as strong as it could have been. The short version of this story is that if you claim that Ty Cobb is still the real batting average king, I will counter that Ted Williams had a .340 batting average in the integrated Major Leagues and that Tony Gwynn’s .338 came against a far more internationalized talent pool than Ted’s did.

The Pittsburgh Pirates, by virtue of sharing a city with Josh Gibson’s greatest exploits, have joyously hyped Gibson’s newfound acclaim. Major League cities with Negro Leagues heritage tend to do this. St. Louis doesn’t do zero commemoration of its Negro League history–there is a statue, albeit not a particularly prominent one, of James “Cool Papa” Bell, a legendary player with the St. Louis Stars and one with local roots, outside of Busch Stadium–but it could, and should, do more. My hope is that this official designation of their statistics as “Major League” statistics will help.

There are no living members of the St. Louis Stars, though there is notably a living link to St. Louis baseball and the Negro Leagues–Bill Greason, 99, played for four seasons for the Birmingham Black Barons (one of which, 1948, is designated as Major League Baseball) and in 1954, pitched in three games, including two starts, for the St. Louis Cardinals. Greason did throw out a ceremonial first pitch at a Cardinals game in 2014, which is a start, but there are so many stories worth telling not as a means to make white people feel that they have done their civic duty, but because the stories are interesting for the same reason that all baseball history is interesting.

Willie Wells never played in the American nor National League–by the time Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby came around and these leagues began to integrate, while Wells was still an active player, at 42, he was well past his playing prime. But at 49.5 career Wins Above Replacement despite his short seasons played, there is a reasonable case to be made that the shortstop is the greatest shortstop in St. Louis baseball history, ahead of the likes of Ozzie Smith, Bobby Wallace, or Marty Marion.

As great as Rogers Hornsby was, posting an astonishing .424 batting average in 1924, there are three Negro Leagues seasons played in St. Louis which are now listed ahead of him on Major League Baseball’s website–1921 Oscar Charleston, 1921 Charlie Blackwell, and 1926 Mule Suttles. These statistics do not diminish Hornsby’s accomplishment so much as they paint a picture of St. Louis in the 1920s as a truly remarkable place to watch baseball. Besides, everyone knows the real batting average king was 1948 Stan Musial. Or 1971 Joe Torre, who had to play against a far more diverse field. Or 2003 Albert Pujols, more than Torre and especially more than Musial.

Other sports more comfortably confront their history and contextualize their past, even if they sometimes get a bit too antagonistic towards it. The ultimate conclusion one should reach isn’t that Josh Gibson is the greatest contact hitter ever, or that Ty Cobb is, or that Ted Williams is or that Tony Gwynn is. I think you can make a case for any of the four, or make a case that the real answer is Luis Arraez because baseball is harder now, and the lack of conclusive answer doesn’t mean we need to exclude viable possibilities for the sake of simplicity. We should instead embrace the rich history, of any color, that this sport has.