Negro Leaguers are not forgottenBy Rob Neyer
ESPN Insider
Archive
Earlier this week, I wrote about the top candidates for the upcoming Hall of Fame election. Bruce Sutter has a shot this time around, but he's probably the only one. And it's quite possible the BBWAA simply won't elect anybody.
Worry not, though; there will be a lot of new Hall of Famers in 2006.
At least a dozen. More than a dozen, probably. And perhaps many more. More new Hall of Famers than we've ever seen at once.
How? First, a little history...
In 1966, when Ted Williams was inducted into the Hall of Fame, he said, "And I hope that Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson somehow will be inducted here as symbols of the great Negro players who are not here because they were not given a chance."
It's impossible to know who took Williams' words to heart. In 1971, Satchel Paige was finally inducted into the Hall of Fame. A committee was appointed to evaluate other candidates, and from 1972 through 1977, eight more Negro Leaguers were admitted to the Hall of Fame, after which the committee voted to disband. Responsibility for considering Negro Leaguers was passed to the Veterans Committee.
From 1978-2001, the Veterans Committee elected nine more Negro Leaguers (thanks, in part, to occasional nudges from the keepers of the Hall). Frankly, one can reasonably argue that 18 Negro Leaguers in the Hall of Fame is just about right, if one compares that number to the number of non-Negro Leaguers from the same period (1900-47) and considers the respective population figures of that period.
But the goal, of course, should be to elect all the Negro Leaguers with the ability (and durability) to play Hall of Fame-level baseball, if given that chance. Unfortunately, without any sort of comprehensive statistics for the Negro Leaguers, most of what we know about those players is simply opinions passed along by the players themselves. Those opinions certainly are valuable -- my guess is that the great majority of the Negro Leaguers in the Hall of Fame deserve to be there -- but we can also guess that some great players have been forgotten, because they didn't play for the right teams or didn't do things that looked impressive. What we needed was more information.
And thanks to Major League Baseball, now we've got it. Five years ago, MLB gave the Hall of Fame $250,000 to fund a "comprehensive study on the history of African-Americans in Baseball, from 1860-1960."
According to the Hall of Fame, the study "includes sanctioned league game box scores from almost 100 percent of games played in the 1920s, in excess of 90 percent of the box scores from games played in the 1930s, and box scores from 50-70 percent of games played in the 1940s and 50s, during which time the various leagues began to disband and newspapers ceased to report game information. The end result is the most comprehensive compilation of statistics on the Negro leagues that have ever been accumulated."
With all this information, the Hall of Fame decided to revisit -- or rather, to essentially mandate -- the election of more Negro Leaguers. This was inevitable, considering that the current Veterans Committee -- composed mostly of players from the 1950s, '60s and '70s -- hasn't yet elected any of the candidates from the '50s, '60s, and '70s (or any other decade).
The Hall appointed a screening committee of historians, and earlier this year the screening committee winnowed a list of 94 candidates down to 39 candidates. And in late February, a 12-member voting committee will meet to consider those 39 candidates. And every candidate who receives at least nine votes will, next summer, be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
That final list of 39 includes eight players (and one writer) from before the big-time Negro Leagues, plus four team owners. Essentially, that leaves 26 Negro Leagues candidates for whom we have real statistics.
Oops. Did I say "we"? I meant "they."
Because "we" -- by whom I mean, everybody in the world but an incredibly small group of men (and one woman) -- won't get to see comprehensive statistics until long after the balloting process.
Why?
Because there's going to be a book. Maybe two of them. In February, National Geographic will publish "Shades of Glory", a general history of the Negro Leagues that will include statistics for many of the great players (and probably league leaders, too). And later, there might be an encyclopedia containing all the statistics that have been discovered.
I understand why the Hall of Fame doesn't just post every scrap of information on its Web site. It has done something great, and they want to present their baby to the world professionally and profitably. I can wait another few months, and so can you.
What bothers me, though, is the insularity of those few individuals who are privy to the information. They're all smart people who have forgotten more about the Negro Leagues than I'll ever know. But there's not a statistical analyst among them. Not one.
Why is this a problem?
Herbert "Rap" Dixon and Clarence "Fats" Jenkins, both on the ballot, were teammates with the Harrisburg Giants in the 1920s. Was Harrisburg's ballpark, the West End Grounds, a hitter's ballpark? Nobody seems to know. Worse, nobody seems to care.
Have you ever heard of Rap Dixon and Fats Jenkins? I've read almost everything ever written about the Negro Leagues, so I'm sure I've seen those names in print. But I have to admit, they mean absolutely nothing to me. Which quite possibly says more about my lack of knowledge than about their lack of greatness. And I can't imagine anything more thrilling than the "discovery" of an unknown player who was so great that he deserves a plaque in Cooperstown.
Let me tell you what's going to happen, though. Somebody you've never heard of -- for the sake of argument, let's say it's Fats Jenkins -- is going to be elected. Eventually, we will have access not only to Jenkins' statistics but also to all the statistics that have been found. And then somebody will figure out that Jenkins' .324 batting average really wasn't that impressive, considering that the batting average in his leagues was .290, and that he spent much of his career in hitter-friendly ballparks. And that Jenkins, in context, really wasn't any better than Don Buford or Augie Galan.
That's a hypothetical, of course. Based on what little I know, I would guess that the real Fats Jenkins was better than Don Buford and Augie Galan. But was he better than Brett Butler? Was he better than Roy White? Jimmy Sheckard? The 11 men and one woman on the voting committee know more than I do. But they do not, I submit, know as much as they should.
It's not too late, though. The voting committee doesn't meet until the end of February. The Hall of Fame isn't going to make the statistics available to all of us (which would be the best thing). But why not give them to somebody who knows what to do with them? I know a number of people who are both qualified and circumspect: Clay Davenport, Pete Palmer, Tom Tippett ... there are a dozen well-known and superbly qualified sabermetricians who could take the existing data and place everything into some sort of context.
And then, if Fats Jenkins and a dozen other unknowns do get elected to the Hall of Fame on Feb. 27, maybe nobody will have to apologize for it later.
ESPN Insider
Archive
Earlier this week, I wrote about the top candidates for the upcoming Hall of Fame election. Bruce Sutter has a shot this time around, but he's probably the only one. And it's quite possible the BBWAA simply won't elect anybody.
Worry not, though; there will be a lot of new Hall of Famers in 2006.
At least a dozen. More than a dozen, probably. And perhaps many more. More new Hall of Famers than we've ever seen at once.
How? First, a little history...
In 1966, when Ted Williams was inducted into the Hall of Fame, he said, "And I hope that Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson somehow will be inducted here as symbols of the great Negro players who are not here because they were not given a chance."
It's impossible to know who took Williams' words to heart. In 1971, Satchel Paige was finally inducted into the Hall of Fame. A committee was appointed to evaluate other candidates, and from 1972 through 1977, eight more Negro Leaguers were admitted to the Hall of Fame, after which the committee voted to disband. Responsibility for considering Negro Leaguers was passed to the Veterans Committee.
From 1978-2001, the Veterans Committee elected nine more Negro Leaguers (thanks, in part, to occasional nudges from the keepers of the Hall). Frankly, one can reasonably argue that 18 Negro Leaguers in the Hall of Fame is just about right, if one compares that number to the number of non-Negro Leaguers from the same period (1900-47) and considers the respective population figures of that period.
But the goal, of course, should be to elect all the Negro Leaguers with the ability (and durability) to play Hall of Fame-level baseball, if given that chance. Unfortunately, without any sort of comprehensive statistics for the Negro Leaguers, most of what we know about those players is simply opinions passed along by the players themselves. Those opinions certainly are valuable -- my guess is that the great majority of the Negro Leaguers in the Hall of Fame deserve to be there -- but we can also guess that some great players have been forgotten, because they didn't play for the right teams or didn't do things that looked impressive. What we needed was more information.
And thanks to Major League Baseball, now we've got it. Five years ago, MLB gave the Hall of Fame $250,000 to fund a "comprehensive study on the history of African-Americans in Baseball, from 1860-1960."
According to the Hall of Fame, the study "includes sanctioned league game box scores from almost 100 percent of games played in the 1920s, in excess of 90 percent of the box scores from games played in the 1930s, and box scores from 50-70 percent of games played in the 1940s and 50s, during which time the various leagues began to disband and newspapers ceased to report game information. The end result is the most comprehensive compilation of statistics on the Negro leagues that have ever been accumulated."
With all this information, the Hall of Fame decided to revisit -- or rather, to essentially mandate -- the election of more Negro Leaguers. This was inevitable, considering that the current Veterans Committee -- composed mostly of players from the 1950s, '60s and '70s -- hasn't yet elected any of the candidates from the '50s, '60s, and '70s (or any other decade).
The Hall appointed a screening committee of historians, and earlier this year the screening committee winnowed a list of 94 candidates down to 39 candidates. And in late February, a 12-member voting committee will meet to consider those 39 candidates. And every candidate who receives at least nine votes will, next summer, be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
That final list of 39 includes eight players (and one writer) from before the big-time Negro Leagues, plus four team owners. Essentially, that leaves 26 Negro Leagues candidates for whom we have real statistics.
Oops. Did I say "we"? I meant "they."
Because "we" -- by whom I mean, everybody in the world but an incredibly small group of men (and one woman) -- won't get to see comprehensive statistics until long after the balloting process.
Why?
Because there's going to be a book. Maybe two of them. In February, National Geographic will publish "Shades of Glory", a general history of the Negro Leagues that will include statistics for many of the great players (and probably league leaders, too). And later, there might be an encyclopedia containing all the statistics that have been discovered.
I understand why the Hall of Fame doesn't just post every scrap of information on its Web site. It has done something great, and they want to present their baby to the world professionally and profitably. I can wait another few months, and so can you.
What bothers me, though, is the insularity of those few individuals who are privy to the information. They're all smart people who have forgotten more about the Negro Leagues than I'll ever know. But there's not a statistical analyst among them. Not one.
Why is this a problem?
Herbert "Rap" Dixon and Clarence "Fats" Jenkins, both on the ballot, were teammates with the Harrisburg Giants in the 1920s. Was Harrisburg's ballpark, the West End Grounds, a hitter's ballpark? Nobody seems to know. Worse, nobody seems to care.
Have you ever heard of Rap Dixon and Fats Jenkins? I've read almost everything ever written about the Negro Leagues, so I'm sure I've seen those names in print. But I have to admit, they mean absolutely nothing to me. Which quite possibly says more about my lack of knowledge than about their lack of greatness. And I can't imagine anything more thrilling than the "discovery" of an unknown player who was so great that he deserves a plaque in Cooperstown.
Let me tell you what's going to happen, though. Somebody you've never heard of -- for the sake of argument, let's say it's Fats Jenkins -- is going to be elected. Eventually, we will have access not only to Jenkins' statistics but also to all the statistics that have been found. And then somebody will figure out that Jenkins' .324 batting average really wasn't that impressive, considering that the batting average in his leagues was .290, and that he spent much of his career in hitter-friendly ballparks. And that Jenkins, in context, really wasn't any better than Don Buford or Augie Galan.
That's a hypothetical, of course. Based on what little I know, I would guess that the real Fats Jenkins was better than Don Buford and Augie Galan. But was he better than Brett Butler? Was he better than Roy White? Jimmy Sheckard? The 11 men and one woman on the voting committee know more than I do. But they do not, I submit, know as much as they should.
It's not too late, though. The voting committee doesn't meet until the end of February. The Hall of Fame isn't going to make the statistics available to all of us (which would be the best thing). But why not give them to somebody who knows what to do with them? I know a number of people who are both qualified and circumspect: Clay Davenport, Pete Palmer, Tom Tippett ... there are a dozen well-known and superbly qualified sabermetricians who could take the existing data and place everything into some sort of context.
And then, if Fats Jenkins and a dozen other unknowns do get elected to the Hall of Fame on Feb. 27, maybe nobody will have to apologize for it later.
