As MLB changes its records, Josh Gibson, not Ty Cobb, is all-time batting leader The Athletic By Tyler Kepner 36m ago 169 It has been an article of faith for nearly a century, as if chiseled onto a tablet by Abner Doubleday himself: The leading hitter in major league history is, and always will be, Tyrus Raymond Cobb. But history evolves. We know that Doubleday did not, in fact, invent baseball. And as of Wednesday, Josh Gibson will replace Cobb as the leading hitter in the official records of the game. At .372, Gibson's career batting average eclipses Cobb's by six points. Major League Baseball will announce on Wednesday the results of a newly integrated statistical database covering records from Negro Leagues that operated from 1920 to 1948. The formal acceptance of the data comes three-and-a-half years after MLB officially recognized the Negro Leagues as major leagues in December 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5525148/2024/05/28/mlb-negro-leagues-records-josh-gibson-ty-cobb?source=user-shared-articlehttps://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5525148/2024/05/28/mlb-negro-leagues-records-josh-gibson-ty-cobb?source=user-shared-article