Baseball Reference Is Changing Player Identification Names From Nicknames Based On Race, Ethnicity, And Disability To Given (Or Birth) Names

Sean Forman, the founder and CEO of Baseball-Reference.com, announced last week that the website has "begun the process of evaluating the identifying names and nicknames for historical players" that "are based on a player's real or perceived ethnicity, a player's disability, or a trait the media decided to call attention to".

Forman admits this process is "long overdue" and he apologizes for his "mistake" and "error" of using those identifying names "for the last 20 years without concern".

For most of that time, I have told myself that the identifying names were out of our hands and that we'd be rewriting history by changing them. That self-imposed restraint was wrong and further study has…