No More Half Measures
Today, one of our authors explains why Major League Baseball’s long-overdue acknowledgment of the Negro Leagues still has some glaring oversights.
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
. . . In late 1936, Hilton Smith signed with the Kansas City Monarchs. From 1937 until his retirement in 1948, Smith was a star pitcher on the Monarchs. He possessed an outstanding curveball, but was overshadowed by his more exuberant teammate Satchel Paige. Often Paige would pitch the first three innings of a game, leaving Smith to pitch the remaining six. Also, unlike Paige, Smith was a very good hitter. Smith reportedly had a quiet, reserved temperament, but in his later years he stood up for Negro leaguers in their struggle to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He died in 1983 in Kansas City, Missouri, and it was not until 2001 that he was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
. . . Cuban-born Crisstobal Torriente was a powerful, stocky centerfielder who possessed all of the traditional five tools: Hitting for average and power, fielding, throwing, and running. In 1920, Torriente firmly established himself as one of the legendary figures of Cuban baseball when The New York Giants, whose roster temporarily included Babe Ruth, visited Torriente’s native Cuba for a nine-game series vs. Almendares –Torriente’s team. Torriente outhit and out-homered Ruth in the series and the home team won the series by one game.
. . . Charles “Chino” Smith was one of the Negro leagues' most skillful hitters of the mid-1920s and early 1930s. Sadly, at the age of 30, Smith became ill with yellow fever while playing in Cuba and died. On what would have been his 51st birthday, Smith got the second most votes as the best right fielder in the 1952 Pittsburgh Courier player-voted poll of the Negro leagues' best players ever.
Leading Off
No More Half Measures
By Maxwell Brown
I will start off by saying that I have always been a huge fan of the Negro Leagues and what they ultimately represent. The fortitude possessed by these men to go their own way in the face of countless obstacles, at its core, is beyond a level of admiration. Being the kind of guy who owned a Hilton Smith jersey as a 12-year-old, the news that MLB was finally acknowledging these leagues as equal was incredibly exciting. As release day came, I eagerly grabbed my phone and started thumbing through Baseball-Reference. After hours of searching the new career stat leaders for some of my favorite players, I came to a realization. This move by MLB is a half measure and fails to bring awareness to many all-time greats and optically perpetuates the same ignorance that has existed since the “gentlemen’s agreement.”
Starting off, I would be remiss to not acknowledge many of the new (and deserved) names gracing baseball’s all-time stat lists. Oscar Charleston, Jud Wilson, Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Ray Brown and numerous other Hall of Famers. Which in part, is the problem. As great as it is to finally see the stats together under one umbrella, these men already existed wholly within the historical context of the game. Anyone who follows baseball should know these names and their stories. The issue with these new “fair and equal” stats is that they perpetuate the same type of ignorance these men faced in their lives and playing careers, albeit unintentionally. It’s almost as if MLB, who in an attempt to create solidarity on the topic of race, simply forgot about the men whose stories needed to be told. The statement by MLB and Baseball-Reference that these stats are a “work in progress ” to me, rings fallacy as data already exists and has existed via Seamheads for a long time.
So Who Exactly Is Missing?
Nowhere on any leaderboard resides George “Tubby” Scales whose .324 career average would slot between Yankees legend Earle Combs and some guy named DiMaggio on the all-time list. Scales .925 OPS is first and his batting average is second (behind Wade Boggs) all-time for third basemen. Both of these feats, by the way, were accomplished within the arbitrary 3000 plate appearance requirement. Scales also has the ninth highest OPS of any Negro Leaguer, behind eight Hall of Famers. Yet one of the best third basemen of all time (according to OPS and BA) is nowhere to be found.
The same can be said for early blackball star Pete Hill, who by the way has a plaque in Cooperstown. His .324 batting average (like Scales) is also nowhere to be found. But I surmise that dynamic, power-hitting centerfielders like Hill, who existed far before that became a thing, aren’t noteworthy enough to mention. Hill’s 21-year career ended in 1925, and if we know one thing for certain, it’s that the early 20th century was not a fantastic age for the accessibility of information. Those I guess, are stones to be left unturned.
The most egregious omissions belong to two of the game’s greatest players. First, John Henry “Pop” Lloyd, was the original superstar of the Negro Leagues. I’m not sure how one of the best shortstops ever, with a top-25 career batting average of .338, gets left out. Especially after reading his Cooperstown plaque.
The same can be said for Hall-of-Famer Smokey Joe Williams, a man who Ty Cobb called a sure-fire “30 game winner” in the major leagues. His 147 ERA+ should have him tied for 11th all-time. But yet again, there is no mention anywhere of a man who, in some circles, was called the greatest Negro Leaguer pitcher ever to grace the mound.
These omissions also extend to an even more forgotten segment of players, which is an embarrassment after taking into account the cultural makeup of today’s game. I’m all for the acknowledgment and appreciation of the Negro Leagues, but at the same time, you can’t forget about the dark-skinned Latinos who were banned from playing as well.
Cristobal Torriente, a Cubano, who slots just in front of Babe Ruth with a career .343 average, goes unmentioned. Jose Mendez, whose .698 winning percentage should rank 4th all-time, is also missing. In the case of Mendez, I’d like to point out that number four is currently occupied by Bullet Joe Rogan, a Negro League ace. Martin Dihigo, a national icon in Cuba and potentially the greatest player to ever step on the diamond, is missing as well. You’d think that a career .609 winning percentage on the mound (just behind Greg Maddux) and a .312 career batting average (tied with Jackie Robinson) would be worth at least a footnote, but alas Dihigo exists nowhere amongst the new career leaders. I wasn’t aware that repairing injustices only extended to those who are born within our borders.
So How Do We Go About Rectifying This?
First and foremost, the statisticians need to face reality. If some pseudo-historian such as myself can point out such glaring omissions, why now would it appear that so many players were simply skipped over? Especially when MLB-approved data already exists right in front of them. Scaling guys who in the best of circumstances, played 50 games a year, juxtaposed by Major League players who played three times the number of games, is remiss enough in itself. The 3000 PA bar alone disqualifies many of the Negro League's greatest players. Statistics, much like anything in life, always require proper contextualization. In this particular circumstance, the men in charge of portraying the legacies of baseball’s forgotten legends via statistics alone have initially failed to do so.
In my personal opinion, a lot of this could be alleviated by simply changing the requirements that are once again barring many players from equal recognition. The best way to go about this would simply be to use the single-season qualifier of 3.1 ABs per team game in relation to Negro Leaguers’ career stats. As stated earlier, I find it very interesting that an almost unattainable number was chosen as the baseline. I will also point out that even with all the equal league rhetoric, there are currently no Negro Leaguers who lead any major career categories on Baseball-Reference.
For all the pomp and circumstance this is supposed to be promoting, which in general, is great, the reality is that some of baseball’s greatest players will continue to not receive the proper recognition they deserve. With the statistics as they currently stand, Martin Dihigo cannot become the G.O.A.T. to American fans. Regardless of his hard statistical data and a War and Peace-sized book worth of eyewitness accounts, Charles “Chino” Smith might never be known as Baseball’s greatest left-handed batsman. Although, his .398/.485/.659 1.144 career slash line leads me to believe that might actually be the case. Smith would now have the highest BA and OBP in history and would be behind only Babe Ruth in career SLG and OPS. But too bad I suppose, he didn’t play enough games.
In summary, for what should have been a crowning moment in baseball history, the initial release of these statistics has unfortunately left more questions than answers. While some very blatant omissions have been made, with little to no clarification as to why, the overarching idea behind all of this is spot on. It just needs more.
My message to Major League Baseball and Baseball-Reference is simple, tell the whole story, all of it.
And no more Half Measures.
* Credit for images belongs to Seamheads.com, baseball-reference, and both the negro league museum and Cooperstown webpages.
When not keeping America’s 1% on the road, Maxwell Brown is learning about the history of baseball. His musings can be found on YouTube or Twitter @Goggled_Gagne.
Extra Innings
“He'd go out there, say ‘I guess I'll get me three hits,’ and go out there and hit that ball. I don't care who pitched, he could do everything."
- Cool Papa Bell on Charles “Chino” Smith.
“He was the best ballplayer of all time, black or white.”
- Buck Leonard on Martín Dihigo.
“Rest assured that research is still ongoing, and we'll continue to publish updates as more information becomes available. As you return to the site in the future, you should expect significant changes and improvements in our coverage of the Negro Leagues as more research is done and more statistics are compiled.”
- A portion of Baseball-Reference’s announcement “The Negro Leagues are Major Leagues” declaring the expanded coverage of Negro Leagues statistics and information on its site.