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negro leagues database: update

Here’s a recap of the last couple of months at the Seamheads Negro Leagues DB, in case you haven’t been keeping track.  Since November we’ve added:

1) Patrick Rock’s 1923 Negro National League, including Turkey Stearnes’s rookie year, the Monarchs’ first pennant, and 39-year-old Candy Jim Taylor’s bizarre 20-homer season.

2) The little-known Cuban Summer League from 1904 to 1908, plus the Cuban Winter League,1902/03 & 1903/04, which covers quite a bit of great hitting by Julián Castillo and great pitching by Carlos Royer.

3) 1914 & 1915 independent black clubs, which pushes our Negro league coverage back to the dawn of C. I. Taylor’s tenure with the A.B.C.s, and includes some great seasons by his brother Ben Taylor, Cristóbal Torriente, and Dizzy Dismukes.

Plus we’ve made innumerable additions and improvements to the biographical record of players and managers.  This is just me, but I’m especially happy about tracking down some obscure Indianapolis players from the 1910s, such as Jack Hannibal, Arthur Coleman, and McKinley Brewer.   We’ve also gotten significant help from Brian McKenna, who has recently done a series of biographies of early black ballplayers such as Danger Talbert, Doc Sykes, Bingo DeMoss, and Tullie McAdoo.

There hasn’t been a huge amount of commentary about the contents of the Database yet, but Alex King at the Baseball Think Factory’s Hall of Merit has used DB figures to help with his analysis of Cannonball Dick Redding’s pitching and Cyclone Joe Williams’s hitting.

Coming next to the Negro Leagues DB: 1912 & 1913 Negro leagues and 1913/14 & 1914/1915 Cuban leagues.

Also: if anybody can help us get box scores in Atlantic City, Kansas City, or Chicago, it would be greatly appreciated (email me if you’re interested).

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.

the big show

It’s official: I’m working with Scott Simkus and Sean Forman to bring Negro league and Cuban league statistics to Baseball-Reference.com.  There is a small story in today’s USA Today about it, which doesn’t seem to be online yet; but Scott has the text at his blog.  We’re aiming at an April launch, although I don’t think that’s set in stone yet. 

We won’t be presenting the entire history of the Negro leagues or Cuban baseball at one fell swoop; we’ll be doing it incrementally, the way I have over the years here.  Soon Pete Hill, Juan Padrón, Irvin Brooks, Carlos Morán, Bullet Rogan, and everyone else I've written about here in the past four years, and many more, will have their own, genuine bb-ref pages, with actual stats and the best biographical information we can come up with.

Check back here, or at Scott’s blog, or at the baseball-reference blog for updates and further information.

UPDATE 1:18 p.m. Here’s the online version of the USA Today article (which is better than the print version, actually).

the cool papa conundrum

I have been mildly critical of Joe Posnanski before, but his piece on Scott’s Negro league set for Strat-O-Matic is easily the best thing I’ve seen written about it so far (and it has gotten a lot of coverage).  I especially like this part:

I have always been drawn to stories about Cool Papa Bell. And I have always been repelled by them, too. You know the stories I'm talking about, right? Cool Papa Bell was so fast that he once hit a line drive up the middle and was hit by the ball as he slid into second base. Cool Papa Bell was so fast that he once scored from first on a bunt. Cool Papa Bell was so fast that he would steal second and third on the same pitch. Cool Papa Bell was so fast that managers would play six infielders and let Cool Papa handle the outfield. Cool Papa Bell -- here's the famous one -- was so fast that he could turn out the light and be in bed before the room got dark.

There's something charming about these lines, of course. But there's something phony about them, too. Cool Papa Bell was a real man, flesh and blood, who played in various Negro leagues from the early 1920s to the mid-1940s. He was, by surviving accounts, a breathtakingly fast player who could chase down fly balls all over the park and beat out routine ground balls to shortstop. He hit .300 just about every year, often hit .330, sometimes hit .350. But he did not hit .900, and he did not steal two bases on single pitches with regularity, and in fact most of the sketchy numbers that have been gathered show disappointingly low stolen base totals for Cool Papa throughout his career. The Shades of Glory numbers -- the data gathered by the Baseball Hall of Fame Negro Leagues study -- show Cool Papa with only 144 stolen bases in 865 recorded games.

[…]

The Cool Papa Conundrum, as I call it, is to me the toughest part about remembering and celebrating the Negro leagues. On the one hand, these myths and nicknames and stories are so wonderful and poignant and memorable. And on the other hand, they can turn these players into something more or something less than they were. And often they can turn players in something more AND something less than they were at the same time.

When people would ask Buck how fast Cool Papa Bell was, his answer was always the same. “Faster than that,” he would say. Buck spent a lifetime trying to keep alive the memories of men who were denied their chance to play baseball in the major leagues. Sometimes, at the end of his life, I sensed that he worried that people would remember the stories but they would forget the men.

Read the whole thing.

(On the issue of Cool Papa’s speed, see also this post.)

pittsburgh crawfords & homestead grays vs. minor leaguers

Scott Simkus has posted another great piece of research on the record of Negro league teams versus lower-lower minor league teams.  This one examines the performances of the Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords against the Middle Atlantic League and Pennsylvania State Association, both Class C, from 1927 to 1937.

I think you can’t overestimate the importance of this and earlier studies by Scott, especially this one, which shows the relative success of major league and Negro league teams against teams of various minor league levels (in addition to semipro clubs).  Such games are commonly dismissed as “meaningless” exhibitions, yet when you put together large numbers of them, unmistakable patterns begin to emerge.  This argues for the ultimate usefulness of all games in studying Negro league and semipro players and relating them to their counterparts in organized baseball.

We haven’t come close to collecting and processing the full range of available data still hidden in hundreds of pre-war newspapers.  But Scott’s work points the way and shows that the labor will definitely one day be worth it.

stay thirsty

Check this out from Lawrence Wright’s profile of the Mexican telecom billionaire  Carlos Slim Helú in The New Yorker a couple of months ago (you need to be a subscriber to read the whole article online):

Slim is a man of few pastimes, apart from baseball, which attracts him because of his passion for statistics.  His favorite team is the New York Yankees.  He can recall obscure statistics, such as Sandy Koufax’s minimum number of strikeouts per inning or the batting averages of the stars of the Negro leagues.  Occasionally, he publishes rhapsodic articles about the sport.  “The numbers speak on a limitless diamond: of memory, imagination, the making of legends,” he wrote in 1999.  “The love of the game has a new beginning; the mind is once again at play.” [emphasis mine, obviously]

He may just be…The Most Interesting Man in the World.

1923 negro national league

You asked for it, now you’ve got it.  Patrick Rock has generously supplied his statistical compilation of the 1923 Negro National League.  We’ve got batting and pitching statistics; fielding statistics should come in a week or so.

Download nnl_batting_1923.csv

Download nnl_pitching_1923.csv

Please note that this compilation is copyrighted by Patrick.  In particular, he’d like to reserve exclusivity for gaming purposes to Replay Games, which published his 1923 NNL Yearbook for use with the Replay board game.

If you have any questions, send them to me, and I’ll pass them on to Patrick.

1921 negro national league, v. 1.2 (league only)

Since I haven’t posted any new statistics lately, here is a new version of something old: the 1921 Negro National League, this time with games between NNL teams only. 

[NOTE: This outdated version of 1921 has been deleted.  The stats, corrected and expanded, will appear in a different venue in the near future.  Stay tuned!]

Games involving the Bacharachs, Hilldales, Cleveland Tate Stars, Pittsburgh Keystones, and Tesreau Bears are not included (for totals that include these games, see version 1.1).  This is by no means the final version—I have already found box scores for a number of additional games, and might still be able to find some more (mostly for games played by the ABCs against other NNL teams in smaller Indiana towns and cities).

The goal I’m working toward is a sort of baseball abstract for the first three years of the Negro National League, 1920-1922.  Aside from 1921, I’ve also published a version of 1922 (though the final manuscript will include revisions of those years, with additional games), and 1920 is nearly finished.  I’ll keep you updated on my progress in the coming months.

UPDATE 10:06 p.m., 3/7/07: Made a minor correction in the 1921 file (added range factors and fielding percentages to totals by position on the fielding tab).

ABCs vs donie bush all-stars, 1914

Here is an account by Scott Simkus of a 1914 series between the Indianapolis ABCs and a major/minor league team (with stats also compiled by Scott):

*******
In his Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues (p. 108), John Holway recounts the story of a 1915 post-season series pitting C.I. Taylor’s Indianapolis ABCs against a team of white major and minor league All-Stars managed by Detroit Tiger shortstop Donie Bush.  In fact, the Donie Bush All-Stars / ABCs series was a running attraction in Indianapolis for several years in the 1910s.  These games took place in Indianapolis after the professional seasons had ended and when most of the players had already returned home.  Bush, an Indianapolis native, rounded up the top white professionals from around Indy and battled the ABCs on consecutive Sundays in October.  These games were promoted heavily in the newspapers and attracted record-setting crowds. 

In the case of Indy, the 1915 series served as preparation for their trip to Cuba that winter.  Indeed, immediately following their last game against Bush’s Stars, they hopped aboard a train and headed south, en route to Havana.  If you’ve read the Complete Book (and if you’re reading Agate Type, I’m sure you have), you know C. I. Taylor needed to bail Bingo DeMoss and Oscar Charleston out of jail first before embarking on their trip.  The contests were hard-fought, and in the last of four games (Holway lists only three, with stats for two), a controversial call instigated a near-riot.  Donie Bush was called safe on a close play, an enraged Bingo DeMoss (the ABCs second baseman) charged the umpire, and rookie Oscar Charleston sprinted in from centerfield and slugged the umpire in the jaw.  In the four game series, Taylor’s ABCs went 1-2-1 (the first game—not listed by Holway, possibly because it was a minor leaguer on the bump—was a 12-inning, 3-3 tie, Oscar Charleston going 3 for 4 against a minor league pitcher).

Holway, however, doesn’t mention the Bush All-Stars / ABCs series played in other years, such as the four-game series played in October of 1914.  Although Charleston had not yet arrived on the scene, a number of very interesting players participated.  The ABC’s went 2-2 in the four games.  A quick recap:

Game One, Oct 11, 1914: Detroit Tiger George “Hooks” Dauss (18-15, 2.86) went head-to-head with Stringbean Williams (10-9 according to Holway).  ABCs scored first and had a 3-2 lead going into the fifth inning.  The game was tied in the sixth, when Dauss hit a long homer to take the lead in his own ballgame.  They never looked back and cruised to a 6-3 victory.

Game Two, Oct. 18, 1914: Taylor beefs up his squad by adding Chicago American Giants superstars John Henry Lloyd, Bruce Petway, Jess Barbour and Frank Wickware (who did the pitching, striking out 9 in 8 innings of work).  Dauss once again hurled for the All-Stars and beared down, shutting out the beefed up ABC squad, 3-0.  Wickware was exceptional, allowing only 7 hits and 1 walk during his stint.  Lloyd went 2 for 4 against Dauss, with a double.  (I’ve never seen this game listed in his personal contests against major league pitchers.)  Barbour was also 2 for 4.  Petway didn’t fare so well, going 0 for 3 and allowing 5 stolen bases.  In what was to become a critical play in the game, Bush stole second, then on the very next pitch, headed for third.  A frustrated Petway gunned the ball over Barbour’s head and Bush trotted in to score.

Game Three,  Oct. 25, 1914:  Dauss had to leave town, the American Giants players returned home, and a minor league pitcher got the start for the Bush men.  Benny Kauff, the batting champion of the Federal League, started in center field for the All-Stars.  Dicta Johnson (7-10 per Holway) started for the ABCs and was brilliant, shutting out the All-Stars with his spitball, allowing only 4 hits as the ABCs won 8-0. Kauff went 1 for 4 and was roughed up during his one inning of relief pitching in a mop-up role.  The Indianapolis Star was unmerciful: “As a pitcher, Bennie Kauff is the king of base stealers in the Federal League… The ABCs rode the Hoofed star all over the lot and some of the balls he floated up to them were lost in the reservoir located just outside of the left-field barrier.”

Game Four, Nov. 1, 1914:  Dicta Johnson started again and was nearly un-hittable.  He struck out 15 batters (Kauff was 0 for 3) and the ABCs cruised to a 6-3 victory to even the series.  Ben Taylor went 3 for 4 against major leaguer Lefty Whitehouse (2-0, 4.85 with the Indianapolis Hoosiers).

Here are stats for the four games:

Download 1914_bushs_all_stars.doc

1924 eastern colored league, park factors

Here are some park data for the Eastern Colored League, 1924.  It’s only one season, so isn’t close to the final word about these parks, but every little bit helps.  The numbers are: park factor for runs (or simple home/road ratio; that is, runs scored in home games divided by runs scored in road games, multiplied by 100), adjusted park factor (same thing, adjusted for proportion of home to road games); then in parentheses the number of home and road games.  Harrisburg and Atlantic City have not been completely researched yet (games come from the Pittsburgh Courier).

Bacharach Giants, Bacharach Park (a.k.a. Inlet Park, Atlantic City): 107, 104 (26, 20)

Baltimore Black Sox, Maryland Park: 81, 87 (37, 18)

Brooklyn Royal Giants, Dexter Park: 136, 102 (2, 32)

Harrisburg Giants, Island Park: 92, 97 (15, 22)

Hilldale Club, Hilldale Park (Darby PA): 82, 88 (40, 19)

Lincoln Giants, Catholic Protectory Oval (Bronx): 129, 121 (41, 16)

Washington/Wilmington Potomacs: 113, 106 (26, 27)—OVERALL
        Griffith Stadium (Washington DC):  128 (14 games)
        Wilmington DE: 95 (12 games)

Other than the Lincolns’ Catholic Protectory Oval, which was a very good hitters’ park, possibly on the level of Stars’ Park in St. Louis, I don’t have a very strong sense of the ECL parks yet.  The Royal Giants’ Dexter Park is just here to complete the list, as I’ve so far found only two games played there (it can hardly be said to have been their home park).  The Cuban Stars were evidently a traveling team this season.  I don’t offhand remember the name of the Wilmington park, though I should know it.

UPDATE 4/19/07  I should have pointed out that I also have park factors for the Negro National League, 1920-24, posted here.  They will be updated with fresher research soon.