Negro League Players: Stated Out, Strated Out, Historied Out

[MtheB]

Three dysfunctional hypothesese:

1) "We don't know how good the Negro League All Stars were because there is not enough data"

2) "The quotes from Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Joe DiMaggio and other players, about how Negro League All Stars were as good if not better ball players, were made just to be nice--those players really didn't mean what they said"

3) The Major League Players, when playing the Negro league Teams, didn't care about how well they played, because the games didn't matter to them" > So you think the same people, had the situation been reveresed, would they then say "well the Negro Leaguers just didn't care?"
Of course not, just as with the reverse.

I hear these, and similar, over and over again when it comes to evluating just how good the Negro League All Stars were.

Here are my thoughts:

1A) There is plenty of data, people just don't want to acknowledge the conclusions that must be inevitably be drawn from the data. These facts we know--the Negro League All Stars beat Major league All-Star teams at a 2:1 ratio. That means over a season, the Negro League All Stars, against the Major Leaguers, would win 108 games to 54 games. There is absolutely no question, its not a borderline statistic. Of course if the "limited" data showed that the Major League Teams won at a 2:1 ratio, the naysayers would of course say--"there you go, the Major Leaguers were better"--- that is so very important when evaluating the validity of data to recognize that the "lack" of data, can be manipulated to achieve either result. Unless of course, you let the data speak for itself....

2A) Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson and all those others, that said highly complementary things about the Negro League players, such as calling Pop Lloyd the best player ever seen etc---these were said at a time when racism was prevalent in baseball and elsewhere, and anyone making such a comment would stand to be ostracized for doing that. It is highly unlikely that the Babe and the Big Train would make such comments, unless they were heartfelt.
Joe Dimaggio on Satchel Page: "Greatest pitcher I ever faced"

3A) On the contrary. As there was widespread belief during that time, that the whites were a superior race, clearly, any Major Leaguer would give his utmost not to embarass himself on the field. This makes that 2:1 ratio statistic even more remarkable, clearly the Negro League All Stars performance was remarkable in light of that very fact.

There are many specific examples, involving data, that support the 2:1 ratio of winning that the Negro League All Stars had.
here is one, of many, specific individual examples:
Smokey Joe Williams, Negro league pitcher, faced Major League All Star Teams, and had a 20-7 winning/losing record against them.
Smokey Joe also pitched a no-hitter against the 1917 World Series Winner New York Giants, and Joe struck out 20 that day.
And there were several other Negro League pitchers that are mentioned long before Smokey Joe---

There is another element that is also overlooked. In the 1930's, the Major Leagues were primarily focused on power hitting and homeruns. Though the Negro Leagues had some players with tremendous power, most of the Negro League Players could do the other things to manufacture runs---steal, hit and run, bunt etc.---which gave them a distinct advantage when facing the Major Leaguers. So much so in fact, that that style of playing made its way into the Major leagues with the advent of integration.

The news media's role. My dad was at the game at Yankee Stadium when Josh Gibson hit the ball out of the stadium off of Lefty Gomez, thereby giving the Negro Leaguers a 2-1 victory over the Major League All Star Team.
Two very interesting things about that game. My dad said that the next day, not a single newspaper carried a story about the game. My dad said the only time the papers did cover those matchups is when the Major League Players won, which as we know wasn't very often. And if an african american was to be the first (and only) player to ever hit a ball out of yankee stadium, they certainly did not want to broadcast that information....so the news media played a huge role in the "limiting" of information.
A note about that ball that Josh hit that day---there is alot of controversy as to whether to ball went out of the stadium or not. Of course my dad had an interesting observation "if it didn't go out, how come it was never found?" Kids would have been all over that opportunity......

And now we come to STRAT. Because of the "official" stats, most of the Negro League players don't qualify for the 600+ plate appearances to limit injuries. This is the biggest misnomer of all. So many of these players are not selected just because of that. STRAT should project all stats to 600 Plate appearances, and then the strat community would use those players several fold more often.

[u:078e97bfaa][b:078e97bfaa]Parting Thoughts[/b:078e97bfaa][/u:078e97bfaa]No matter whether you agree if there is enough data or not, it doesn't change this: what the data shows is that the Negro League All Stars dominated the Major leaguers, and in head to head competition, individual players, such as Smokey Joe Williams, blew the Major League Players away--and he wasn't facing a smodge podge of players, he was facing the 1917 World Series Winner New York Giants.

We will never know the conclusive answer. But we do know this. The Negro League all stars could play along side anyone, and their impact on the game, is clearly seen by the transition of 1930's baseball (homeruns and power), to many of the run generating teams that followed.

[ADRIANGABRIEL]

NL MVPs
1949 Jackie Robinson
1951 Roy Campanella
1953 Roy Campanella
1954 Willie Mays
1955 Roy Campanella
1956 Don Newcombe
1957 Hank Aaron
1958 Ernie Banks
1959 Ernie Banks

[N Texas Widowmakers]

Thanks for the post. It was very interesting.

[The Last Druid]

One other thing. The NL dominated the AL in the 60's in the All Star Games. It was no coincidence that there were a lot more people of color playing in the NL than in the AL.

The only African-American on the 1961 AL team was Elston Howard and he didn't start.

On the other hand the NL had:
Mays
Aaron
Robinson
Clemente
Wills
White
Altman
Roseboro

Here was the NL starting lineup
1. Wills
2. Mathews
3. Mays
4. Cepeda
5.Clemente
6. White
7. Bolling
8. Burgess

Hank and Frank couldn't even crack the starting eight.

[rburgh]

I think that it's beyond question that the Negro leagues were populated with a lot of great players. But let's not get carried away. Some samples from John Holway's book.

1922 Negro Southern League Memphis finished first at 27-10, Louisville last at 5-24. That's Cleveland Spiders territory. I doubt they had many good players. St. Louis Stars beat the Tigers 2-1, but Cobb and Heilmann didn't play, and the Tigers' pitchers were Ehmke, Bert Cole, and Ray Moore, who were respectively 17-17, 1-6, and 0-3. Babe Ruth took an "All Star" team to KC, which consisted of himself, Bob Meusel, Jack Quinn, and minor leaguers. Ruth was 4/4 but Joe Rogan held the rest of the lineup down and the Negro Leaguers won 10-5.

1931 Negro NL (Western League) KC Monarchs 18-7, Indianaplois ABC's 43-20, StL Stars 23-17. KC spent most of the season barnstorming against the House of David with portable light towers. The KC Monarchs and StL Stars combined to play a pretty good ML team after the season, and won all 3 games. The rosters included the Waner brothers, Bill Terry, Babe Herman, and a pitching staff of Heinie Meine (19-13) and Bill Walker (17-9). The Negro team was Cool Papa Bell, Willie Wells, Turkey Stearnes, Frog Redus, Mule Suttles, Newt Joseph, Newt Allen, Frank Duncan, and a staff of Matlock, Bill Foster, and Ted Trent. Hilldale played an "All Star" team, whose best player was probably Chick Fullis, and won 3 of 4.

Most of the white players in these "all star" games were nothing of the sort, and most of the black teams were spotty, too.

But the evidence is pretty clear that Charleston, Gibson, Leonard, Lloyd, Paige, Matlock, Rogan, and many other black players of that era would have been major stars in the Major Leagues of the time. Where would they have fit in the pantheon of white stars of the time? We'll never know.

The U.S. population between WW 1 and WW 2 rose from 104 million to 130 million. The black population was probably not far from today's 19% or so of the population, so the major leagues were drawing from 80+ million to 100+ million people, while the Negro leagues were drawing from 20-25 million.

Baseball was pretty much the only game in town for great athletes; the NHL existed but was almost entirely composed of Canadians. Basketball was a fringe sport. The NFL struggled to keep afloat, with the players mostly all playing both ways with limited substitutions; it wasn't collecting much of the country's athletic talent either.

To believe that Negro league baseball was superior overall to the major leagues flies in the face of logic, because of the vastly larger numbers of players available to the major leagues to choose from. To believe that the Negro leagues were vastly inferior to the major leagues, at least for the top level teams, flies in the face of the available evidence, not the least of which is Petrosian's list of the NL MVP's in the first decade of integration in the major leagues.

Probably the most correct statement is that the Negro leagues had star power comparable to the major leagues, but lacked an equivalent depth of talent. This would, in turn, have caused the statistics of the great Negro league players to become somewhat inflated compared to those of the white players of the era.

[macnole]

I'm actually more amazed this discussion even is occurring. I think the post-integration facts speak for themselves.

I think the paucity of data is a bane to statisticians for any baseball being played at the time.

In fact, I wonder how some of the early "white-side" HOFers would have done in an integrated setting facing NeL players. I'm sure the HOF would look quite different, and some revered white stars would have put up more ordinary numbers due to facing better overall competition.

Limiting the pool of eligible humans who could compete limited the quality of competition, regardless of what color the skin was.

[LMBombers]

No one will ever know how well some players actually were in comparison because of a lack of similar competition. Was Sadaharu Oh a better power hitter than Hank Aaron or Babe Ruth? We will never know. This debate could go on forever and people will have differing opinions.

[Mr Baseball World]

There is an interesting discussion in this topic. I don't see it as a debate about determining one or the other was vastly superior but rather how exactly did they compare. There is no precise answer which is what makes for good debate. Sometime over the weekend I will ask questions because I want more information and there is so much information to look at to make a comparison.

[MtheB]

So we now have exactly the kind of examples I was talking about. Not casting dispersions on anyone,--several people have responded that there is no way to compare.
But there is.

Lets look at the Smokey Joe Williams example.
He faced the 1917 World Series Champions the New York Giants. He struck out 20. He no-hit them.

Did any major league pitcher ever no-hit a Negro league all star team?
The answer is: no.

Could this be considered a fluke?
It could be, except for two unrefutable facts:
--Smokey Joe struck out 20 in the process. Thats just clear plain old domination.
--Smokey Joe's win-loss against major league all star teams was 20-7, a 3:1 winning ratio.
So clearly, that dominating no hitter was no fluke.

Does this mean that Smokey Joe was as good as Walter Johnson or Lefty Grove?
You would be hard pressed to argue otherwise.

So there is existing data, and facts, that make it absolutely clear that the Negro League all-star players, were just as good, maybe in some cases even better, than their ML counterparts.
And given the Negro Leagues smaller player pool, due to their percentage of population, this is certainly remarkable.

It is truly a shame (the on-going saga of the negro league players) that in STRAT, most of them are saddled with the 15 game injury bug,--which has nothing to do with reality, as--
most of those players played hundreds of games including league games, all star games, barnstorming games --etc. so any issue of longevity and durability should be completely the other way around--i.e. the way STRAT has done it, its upside down and backwards.
This is something that needs to be changed.

[MtheB]

SMOKY JOE WILLIAMS
By John M. Coates

Once tabbed by Ty Cobb as "a sure 30-game winner in the major leagues," Smoky Joe Williams is often mentioned by oldtimers as black baseball's greatest pitcher, superior even to Cannonball Redding, Bill Foster, Frank Wickware, and Satchel Paige. (In the twilight of his career with the Homestead Grays, Williams bested Paige, 30 years his junior, in two out of three games.)

Smoky Joe Williams was born in 1876 near San Antonio, Texas, and was 33 years old, hurling in the obscure Texas leagues, when he defeated the famous Leland Giants, 3-0, in an exhibition game in 1909. His opponent on the mound that day was Rube Foster, who signed him on the spot to a contract with that Chicago club.

Williams is best remembered for his years with the New York Lincoln Giants from 1912 through 1923, during which time he beat the likes of Walter Johnson, Grover Alexander, Jess Barnes, Eddie Rommel, Jeff Tesreau, and Rube Walberg. One of his greatest efforts was an off-season no-hitter against John McGraw's New York Giants in 1919, although Williams maintained that his finest game that season was another no-hit game against former teammate Dick Redding. Sid Mercer, Bozeman Bulger, and other sportswriters of that period rated Williams with the best major league stars. He was rated on a par with Christy Mathewson by Bulger, one of Matty's closest friends.

In 1925 Williams joined the Homestead Grays of Pittsburgh, where he remained until hanging up his spikes in 1933. In his first five seasons there, he was charged with just six defeats. On August 3, 1930, at age 54, he faced the Kansas City Monarchs' Chet Brewer in one of the first night games ever played in Negro ball. He whiffed 27 Monarchs that evening, yielded one hit, and won 1-0 in 12 innings. The matter-of-fact, almost casual way the game was reported in the press can be considered a tribute to the pitching genius of Williams. His spectacular efforts by that time were almost routine.