GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Might 2, 2025, is the primary day Michigan is celebrating Negro Leagues Day after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a invoice in June 2024 to uplift the historic accomplishments of Black baseball gamers in Michigan.
In 2020, Main League Baseball introduced it could incorporate the Negro Leagues statistics, shaking up the report books and including Norman “Turkey” Stearnes, who performed for the Detroit Stars, to the ranks of gamers like Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb.
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Vanessa Ivy Rose, writer and granddaughter of Norman “Turkey” Stearnes, says it is necessary to acknowledge the efforts of Black gamers and the contributions they made to baseball.
“The Negro Leaguers have been hidden figures for quite some time and even still today. When I go to baseball games and talk to people who really love sports, some of them don’t know who ‘Turkey’ Stearnes is or Josh Gibson or Ron ‘Schoolboy’ Teasley — a Detroit legend who is 98 years old and still alive and well today,” she mentioned.
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Rose’s “Grandpa Turkey,” as she referred to as him, is now on three all-time leaderboards with the shake-up: he’s sixth in batting common, sixth in slugging proportion and ninth in on-base plus slugging.
“(He was) a five-time Hall of Famer, of course, including Cooperstown. A five-time All-Star. One of the greatest players ever to play the game — not just in the Negro League but within Major League Baseball,” Rose mentioned.
