Drowning in Information but Starving for Knowledge: Sports Journalists Frame Major League Baseball's Recognition of the Negro Leagues

Abstract: A frame analysis was conducted of coverage by sportswriters of the decision in December 2020 by Major League Baseball to formally recognize seven Negro Leagues and incorporate their statistics into the sport's official record and the decision by Baseball-Reference to make Negro League statistics available to its readers. The analysis ends with the announcement in May 2024 that the statistics of 2,300 players had successfully been incorporated. Analysis revealed and affirmed seven frames: advocacy, affirmation, amends, concern, gateway, leaderboard , and romance . Framing by journalists of the inclusion of Negro League statistics establishes the conditions for the erasure of their history and the damaging racism visited upon them by Major League Baseball by creating tension between those who favor statistical debate and those who wish to remind us of what has come before. Baked into the coverage are the seeds of persuasion for the audience to shift their means of perception of the leagues and its players "from the ear to the eye" (Postman, 1985, p. 12). Frames affirm that advocacy is less important; the focus now is on a sustained and uphill effort to complete the record. The recent frustration of advocates has been with the delay in completing the task so that the Negro Leagues can earn the highest form of legitimacy—that bestowed by Major League Baseball. A full resolution of tension would enable MLB to further submerge its racist past and entrench the idea that the game has entered a postracial stage.