Commencing with the 1909 season, Major League Baseball in this timeline is integrating!
I've been - with the invaluable input of a couple others (you know who you are, and thanks a bunch!) - working on NeL player ratings over recent times and feel I am ready to start incorporating these players into this save.
So from this point on, certain NeL players will be joining the league as rookies in the same year they made their debut in the Negro Leagues.
Not all players are being added. I feel that to include a player purely on the basis of race is almost as insulting as excluding him on the same premise. So any players with insufficient data, or who import poorly beyond redemption, or who I deem would not have made it in were the league integrated IRL, will not make the cut. This league is a meritocracy and nothing more.
For 1909, 20 such players will form part of the Rookie Draft, with
Ben Taylor,
Dizzy Dismukes and
Tullie McAdoo perhaps the best-known among them.
I can't wait to see these guys mixing it with the historical MLB players like they should have been able to all along.