[Pelican]

Enjoying this discussion. Of course we tend to focus on the greats, black and white; but the true genius of retroactively integrating the game is granular: devising "major league equivalent" ratings for every Negro League player for whom we have stats. If MLB stays at sixteen teams, with no color bar in the 1920's forward, there will be fewer marginal (white) MLB players with jobs.

Eliminating the color bar in OOTP triggers decisions that have to be made about the movement of players and the effect on teams and whole leagues. Do the Negro Leagues survive, without their top players? Are Negro League teams compensated by MLB teams who sign their players? Does MLB expand to accommodate the influx of talent? Or do the marginal white players end up in the minor leagues?

As an example, I am in the early stages of a sim where the Federal League survives, and the Pacific Coast League becomes a (fourth) major league. The color bar ends, and all thirty-two teams sign Negro League players, with compensation, but depleting those rosters. Without players, the Negro Leagues in this timeline seem likely to wither and die. The minor leagues grow to accommodate the thirty-two organizations. Not sure who will survive, when the Depression happens.