He died at just 35 in 1947. Now Josh Gibson is baseball's batting average champ

Josh Gibson, who died just three months before the league's colour barrier was broken, is now the holder of multiple Major League Baseball records as the result of a three-year research project to integrate Negro League accomplishments.

In 2021, MLB announced that it was reclassifying the Negro Leagues to majors to correct a "longtime oversight." The leagues had been excluded in 1969 when a special committee on baseball records identified six other official major leagues dating to 1876.

On Tuesday, league commissioner Rob Manfred announced that the project had come to fruition in a statement. An updated version of MLB's database will become public before the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants play a tribute game to the Negro Leagues on June 20 at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala.

Gibson, who racked up most of his stats with the Homestead Grays just outside of Pittsburgh, could hit for average and power in a 16-year professional career spent as a catcher.

"Josh Gibson would have hit home runs in any league, in any era, had he been given the opportunity to do so," Negro Leagues Baseball Museum president Bob Kendricks said earlier this year in a video produced in conjunction with MLB.

As a result of the record book changes, Gibson becomes the career leader in batting average at .372, surpassing Ty Cobb's .367.

Gibson's .466 batting average for the 1943 Homestead Grays is now a historic season standard. Previously, that mark was assigned to Hugh Duffy's .440 average for the National League's Boston team in 1894.

Gibson also became the all-time season leader in slugging percentage ahead of Barry Bonds, and the career leader in the same category ahead of Babe Ruth.

Gibson was born on Dec. 21, 1911, in Buena Vista,