agate type

negro league statistics: online at last

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apologies for my absence the past few weeks, but big things have been brewing.  The Baseball Gauge at Mike Lynch’s great Seamheads.com website has released my stats for the Negro leagues, 1916 to 1922, and the Cuban League, 1904/05 through 1912/13, along with the basic biographical information I’ve compiled for the players.  It’s the first attempt at an online Negro league statistical encyclopedia.

This was really Kevin (KJOK) Johnson’s idea.  He approached Scott Simkus and me at the end of July about it—and here we are, just a few weeks later, and it’s done!  The Baseball Gauge is Dan Hirsch’s brainchild, and he and Kevin have done an amazing job getting all this material organized and presented. 

So check it out.  It’s got not only complete statistics (batting, pitching, and fielding), but also advanced metrics (win shares, WAR, etc.).  One thing Dan and Kevin are working on, but haven’t quite finished, are park adjustments for the advanced stats, as well as adjustments for wildly uneven schedules and other fun characteristics of blackball circa 1920.  I suspect this will have a pretty major impact, so I’m eager to see what the results are.

Coming fairly soon will be statistics for the American Series in Cuba, the exhibition series that featured both Negro league and major league teams, from about 1904 through 1915.  We’ll also have a substantial number of additional Negro league seasons in the near future, beginning with 1908 through 1915.  The database will grow very quickly, so keep checking back.

NOTE: This post will stay at the top for a while -- check below for new posts.

1909/10 cuban league

Here are statistics for the 1909/10 Cuban League season (which was actually played from February 6 through April 3, 1910):

[NOTE: Stats for the 1909/10 Cuban League have been deleted, but will reappear in a different venue in the near future.  Stay tuned!]

These are complete, and based as always on box scores from La Lucha and Diario de la Marina.  You’ll notice a few minor differences between the box scores and the official statistics as recorded in Jorge Figueredo’s Cuban Baseball; for instance, the box scores show Julián Castillo with a batting record of 20 for 53 (.377) in 13 games , but Figueredo has him at 20 for 49 (.408) in 12.  It’s unclear exactly why this is; at first it seems that Figueredo’s statistics don’t count one game, but in fact there wasn’t a game in which Castillo went 0 for 4 (he hit in 12 of his 13 games, the one hitless game being an 0 for 2 performance).  He wins the batting title either way.

The season’s start was delayed because Almendares, which had narrowly lost the 1908/09 pennant to an Habana club featuring several African-Americans, demanded that the league ban foreign players.  Habana objected, and the start of the season was delayed indefinitely.  

John Henry Lloyd, Pete Hill, and Bruce Petway, who toiled for Habana in the American Series that fall against the Detroit Tigers and a major league all-star team, stayed in Cuba while the dispute dragged on.  Finally by early January the Americans gave up and left.  Here is some commentary from La Lucha (January 3, 1910):

(The next-to-last paragraph is rather interesting—I have no idea which Cuban player they’re talking about.)

Almendares finally lifted its demands and the league got underway in early February.  By then it was too late to recall Lloyd and company, but Habana made an effort to secure American players, getting Jesse Bragg and William Mathew Land, longtime journeymen on various East Coast black teams in the late 1900s and 1910s.  Land, as it happens, appears in the 1910 census (enumerated in April) rooming in Newark, New Jersey, with Clarence Williams, the old Cuban Giants’ catcher who had traveled to Cuba with a number of black teams in the 1900s.

Unfortunately it didn’t go well for Land and Bragg.  They first appeared in a February 21 game against Almendares.    La Lucha commented that

Havana sprung two foreign players on the public yesterday, but their work lacked much of being of that grade displayed by the much mourned Lloyd, Johnson, Hill and Petway.  In fact, there are local players who could have made so much better showing, that it is a problem now what will be the result.  The two new men had few opportunities, but their batting strength has not been displayed. (February 22, 1910)

That would be Bragg’s first and last game in the Cuban League.  Land played once more, on February 24 against Fe.  Together they went 0 for 12.  By March 1, they were bound for the U.S. again aboard the S.S. Mexico.  Almendares went on to win the truncated season with a 13-3-1 record.

1908/09 cuban league

Here are statistics for the 1908/09 Cuban League.  I was able to find box scores for 63 of 73 known games (86 percent); of the missing ten, nine were the games played in Matanzas, and one was a 2-0 Almendares victory over Habana, José Méndez tossing the shutout.

[NOTE: Stats for the 1908/09 Cuban League have been deleted, but will reappear in a different venue in the near future.  Stay tuned!]

This was the second straight year in which the league experimented with a fourth club from Matanzas.  Rafael Conte, the Matanzas manager, tried to compete by importing several Negro Leaguers and, for the first time in Cuban League history, major league players: the Phillies’ George McQuillan (who had pitched for Habana in 1906/07, before he debuted in the majors), the Athletics’ Biff Schlitzer, and the Cardinals’ infielder Chappy Charles.  Schlitzer had introduced the spitball to Cuba on a previous visit with the “All-Leaguers,” a mixed team of major and minor leaguers, in the fall of 1907; his nickname in Cuba was “El Salivito.”  Matanzas also added first baseman Mert Whitney of the International League’s Toronto Maple Leafs, and a couple of white minor leaguers, “W. Chech” (or Schick) and “A. Cuthbert,” whom I haven’t been able to identify. 

As described here, the Matanzas experiment did not work out; McQuillan and Schlitzer clashed with Conte over pay and workload issues, and left the island in a huff.  “Los melancólicos,” as La Lucha called the Matanzas club (January 11, 1909), withdrew from the league soon after.  The Cuban League would remain a three-club, Havana-only circuit until the 1922/23 season.

The season ended in a dispute over the championship, though in truth there was not actually much of a controversy.  Here’s what the English page of La Lucha had to say (April 20, 1909):

The tie game between Habana and Almendares (4 to 4) was played way back on December 28.  The final standings as I have them are:

Habana 28-13-1
Almendares 28-14-1
Fe 12-30-0
Matanzas 4-15-0

Which matches what La Lucha says; a victory in a replay for Almendares would make them 29-14, leaving Habana at 28-14. 

Jorge Figueredo, by the way, has slightly different final standings, which appear to include an extra victory for Habana over Fe:

Habana 29-13
Almendares 28-14
Fe 12-31
Matanzas 4-15

I scoured the newspapers and could not find this extra game.  However, these standings don’t match the description of the state of affairs given above by La Lucha, that another win by Almendares over Habana would hand them the pennant, as that eventuality would leave the two teams tied at 29-14.  So at this point the standings I constructed seem to fit the evidence a little better.

UPDATE 8:45 p.m.  No big deal, but I just realized that there are a few small issues with the stats file: I forgot to include a listing of positions played on the batting tab, and mistakenly left pinch-hitting appearances in the fielding tab (the position “0” denotes pinch-hitter).  A new file will be up sometime this weekend.

UPDATE 11/3/2007 OK, I put up a new file, with cosmetic issues fixed (fielding games on batting tab, pinch-hitting removed from fielding tab).  I also realized that I had Esteban Santa Cruz of Matanzas listed twice; now his stats are combined.  Slightly more importantly, I’ve decided that the “Buckner” who caught for Habana on March 8 was more probably James “Pete” Booker (who appears in one other box score and also on a passenger manifest leaving Cuba in early Cuba along with other Negro Leaguers) than the Harry Buckner who pitched for Fe.

UPDATE 11/4/2007 The file is updated one last time, with “Buckner” and “Booker” combined in Habana catching stats, and a note about batters’ strikeouts (incomplete for individuals).

1908 cuban summer league

Here are statistics for the 1908 Premio de Verano, which was played along similar lines to the summer championships of 1904, 1905, and 1906: three teams, each representing one of the three winter league clubs (Azul = Almendares, Carmelita = Fe, Rojo = Habana), each playing a few regulars mixed in with marginal players and rookies.  Several promising young players made their first professional appearances here: Pastor Pareda, Pelayo Chacón, Eusebio González, and Octavio González.

Download 1908_cuban_summer_league_1.0.xls

I’ve found box scores for 14 of 16 known games; again, since no standings were published, it’s hard to know for sure whether I have all the games.  Azul had the best record in known games (6-3-1), just edging Carmelita (7-4-0).

Interest was definitely waning in the summer league by this time, largely because most of the best Cuban players were now spending their summers in the United States.  The previous year, 1907, was an exception to this trend, as no All-Cubans team toured the U.S.*, resulting in summer competitions that approached the winter league in quality.  But 1908 was nothing like that.  And the 1909 summer league would become an amateur circuit, with only a few young prospects mixed in.

UPDATE 10/20/2007 *-Not true: there was a Cuban team touring the U.S. in 1907, though the team, or at least a number of its players—Rafael Almeida, Luis González, Francisco Morán, and Inocencio Pérez —returned in time to participate extensively in the summer series, which were mostly held from mid-August to early October.  Plus Luis Padrón returned from Jacksonville in mid-September, in time to play in two of the series; and a larger number of the good players than usual never left.

1907 cuban summer league

Here are statistics for the 1907 Premio de Verano (Cuban Summer League), played from July through early October. 

Download 1907_cuban_summer_league.xls

This version of the summer competition featured more stars than usual, including some of the top pitchers (notably Luis González and Andrés Ortega, both regulars during the previous winter season, plus Carlos Royer).  It was, however, not as tightly organized as usual, consisting of three separate competitions.  First, a three-team league featuring “Almendarista,” “Habanista,” and Columbia (a new team organized by Alberto Azoy) ended prematurely when Columbia fell apart.  Habanista ended with the best record (3-1). 

Azoy then reorganized the old San Francisco club and played a twelve-game series with Almendarista, the two teams splitting 6 to 6.  This was followed by an Azul/Rojo series, Azul winning five games to two, with one tie.

The three series totaled 25 games; I have been able to find box scores for 24 (the exception being an 11-8 win by Rojo over Azul on October 4).  After the standings tab, the next three tabs give batting, fielding, and pitching totals for each individual player (their totals for all three series); then three more tabs divide up the stats by series and team, if you want that kind of detail.

If you haven’t seen them, I’ve also compiled statistics for the 1904, 1905, and 1906 Cuban summer championships.

UPDATE 11:20 p.m.  One small correction: Simón Valdés played 20 games at second base and none at third base.

1908 cuban league, v. 1.0

Here are statistics for the 1908 Cuban League (La Liga General de Base Ball de la República de Cuba), which held its championship from January 1 to April 13, 1908.

[NOTE: Stats for the 1907/08 Cuban League have been deleted, but will reappear in a different venue in the near future.  Stay tuned!]

This season saw the debut of José Méndez, as well as the lesser-known great Eustaquio “Bombín” Pedroso.  It was the second season in which black North American players participated, this time mostly for Habana—a club that, like Fe the year before, just lost the pennant to the all-Cuban Almendares.  And, after five consecutive years of a three-team league located in Havana, the league expanded, adding a club in the nearby city of Matanzas.

It’s for this reason that the 1908 and 1908/09 seasons are the only years between 1902 and 1922 for which I lack a significant number of box scores.  The Havana newspapers (at least the ones I have access to) simply did not run box scores for games played outside Havana during these years.  Looking at the standings in Figueredo’s Cuban Baseball, it would appear that the league played 89 games (the wins he lists plus a single tie game I know of).  I’ve found scores for 83 (one Almendares win over Matanzas was reported without a score), and box scores for 58 (70 percent) of those.  All but a handful of the games without box scores were played in Matanzas.

The impact this had on player statistics can be readily appreciated by comparing Figueredo’s numbers to mine.  A few examples:

Luis Padrón hit .195 in 123 at bats in the games I found; Figueredo has him at .279 in 159 at bats.

I have Bill Monroe at .239 in 46 at bats; Figueredo gives him a .319 in 72 at bats.

I’ve found Juan Failde with a 1-5 won-loss record; Figueredo has him at 4-10.

On the other hand, I seem to have located all but one of José Méndez’s decisions, and all of Luis Padrón’s; and most of the regulars’ batting averages in the games I’ve found are actually fairly close to the final figures.  Of course, the stats presented here are also as complete as possible (with batters’ walks, stolen bases, and hit by pitch; pitching statistics beyond won/loss records, and full fielding statistics), so they partly make up in depth what they lack in breadth.

Lastly, a note on player identification: Figueredo has Julián (Fallanca) Pérez as the only Pérez pitching for Habana in 1908, while I’ve found that both Julián (a rookie) and the veteran Inocencio Pérez played for the team.

Inocencio Pérez is clearly identified as the Pérez pitching for Habana against the Philadelphia Giants in two games (October 17 and October 27) the previous fall.  “I. Pérez” appears for Habana in both La Lucha and Diario de la Marina box scores for a league game on January 2.  Another appearance by “Pérez” on January 7 is not given an initial in either paper.

On January 9, Julián Pérez made his debut for Habana, both newspapers commenting on it and clearly identifying him.  “I. Pérez” made two more appearances on the mound for Habana, on January 13 and January 27; then disappears from the box scores.  From then on, beginning with a February 8 game, it’s “J. Pérez” or just “Pérez” for Habana.  So I credited the appearances on January 2 and January 7 to Inocencio, the already-established Habana pitcher; January 9 to Julián; January 13 and 27 to Inocencio; and everything after to Julián.

Interestingly, “Pérez” first appeared as an umpire on February 2, and worked 38 of the remaining 46 games played in Havana.  At this point I can’t say whether or not that’s Inocencio, but it wouldn’t be surprising.

UPDATE 7/20/07 If you’ve looked over the stats, you will have noticed the extreme imbalance of the Cuban League in 1908.  In part, this is because of the addition of the Matanzas club, which consisted mostly of marginal players who had never played in the Cuban League (and never would again).  Only Gonzalo Sánchez, Juan Violá, and Pedro Olave could be considered anything like established players at this point.  But one of the old clubs, Fe, was not much better, having lost all its black North Americans (Foster, Hill, Johnson) to Habana, plus another of its best players from 1907, Carlos Morán, to injury or some other problem that kept him off the field.  The club, in desperation, shuffled a motley aggregation of veterans and youngsters in and out of the lineup with seemingly no governing logic, apparently hoping that someway, somehow they would hit on a winning combination.  This resulted in some suprising feats of versatility.  Ramón Govantes appeared at eight positions in just 29 games; Agustín Parpetti appeared at seven positions.  Fe did come up with at least one gem, their most effective pitcher, Eustaquio Pedroso—though his true quality would not become apparent for another season or two.

1905 cuban league

Here are statistics for the 1905 Cuban League, known officially as La Liga Habanera de Base-Ball (or Havana Baseball League), which played from January 29 through May 14, 1905. 

[NOTE: Stats for the 1904/05 Cuban League have been deleted, but will reappear in a different venue in the near future.  Stay tuned!]

This is, I believe, complete (Almendares also lost a game by forfeit to Habana); there are some interesting discrepancies between these statistics and those published in Figueredo’s Cuban Baseball.  Most notably, perhaps, the box scores show Julián Castillo with the highest batting average, at .308, beating out Regino García (.281), which would interrupt García’s string of four straight batting titles.

1906 cuban league

Here are statistics for the 1906 Cuban League season, officially called La Liga General de Base-Ball de la República de Cuba, played from January 1 to April 29, 1906. 

[NOTE: Stats for the 1905/06 Cuban League have been deleted, but will reappear in a different venue in the near future.  Stay tuned!]

I’ve had this done for some time, but have held back from posting it because one game is missing.  The reporter who served as official scorer and who supplied box scores to both La Lucha and Diario de la Marina, Ramón Mendoza, was absent from the game.  I’m hoping that eventually I’ll find a box printed in another of the several Havana newspapers.  In the meantime, if anyone has access to other Cuban newspapers from this period, the game was played on April 15, Fe defeating Habana 7 to 3.  By comparing the stats I’ve compiled with those in Figueredo’s Cuban Baseball, it would appear that Luis González defeated Pedro Medina.

1906 cuban summer league

Here are statistics for the 1906 Premio de Verano, or Cuban Summer League:

Download 1906_cuban_summer_league.xls

Also see the league rosters posted earlier.  It’s the same three-team setup we saw in 1904 and 1905.  This time the league got off to a late start, commencing play in early August, only to see political unrest cut the season short.  The last game of the short season was played on September 9 as a rebellion neared the capital.  Shortly thereafter U.S. troops occupied the island per the Platt Amendment, American federal legislation that reserved to the U.S. the right to intervene militarily in Cuban affairs (and also allowed for the acquisition of Guantánamo Bay).

Again, the lack of published schedules or standings makes it uncertain whether I’ve got all the games.

1904 cuban summer league

Here are statistics for the 1904 Premio de Verano, or Cuban Summer League, which was similar to the 1905 Cuban Summer League: a mix of Cuban League regulars (including several stars) and fringe players, with none of the regular league pitchers.  The three teams were run by the three regular Cuban League teams: Azul (Almendares), Carmelita (Fe), and Punzó (Habana; “punzó” is a shade of dark red).  The league is clearly inferior to the winter league, but still gives us useful data on the stars who did play, such as Regino García, Julián Castillo, and Carlos Morán.

Download 1904_cuban_summer_league.xls

The final standings show a slightly unbalanced schedule:

Azul 13-6
Punzó 12-7
Carmelita 3-15

The season, which lasted from July 10 until October 12, was divided into two parts, with Punzó winning the first, and apparently Azul the second.  Unfortunately, no standings or schedules were published in either La Lucha or Diario de la Marina, so I can’t be altogether certain I’ve got every game, nor is it clear when the first series ended and the second began.

The summer championship ended in controversy.  Punzó protested the next-to-last game of the season, an 11-to-8 loss to Azul, due to some improper action taken by one of the umpires.  The protest was upheld by the league and the game thrown out, along with the individual statistics.  Unfortunately, Punzó’s Julián Castillo had gone 3 for 5 (with 3 doubles) in that game.  When it was disallowed, his batting average dipped below that of Carmelita catcher Regino García, who was duly acclaimed the batting champion.

In these stats, I’ve included the disputed game.  If you subtract the 3-for-5 from Castillo’s stats, he does end up at .356, just below García’s .359.