negro national league standings, 1920-24

Here are the standings, as I’ve been able to reconstruct them, for the Negro National League from 1920 through 1924.

Download nel_standings_1920_1924.xls

The first column of wins, losses, and runs scored for and against is from my research for 1920-22 and 1924, and from Patrick Rock’s 1923 Negro National League Yearbook.  These count all games between league members in a given season.  The second win/loss record for each season is from Dick Clark and Larry Lester’s Negro Leagues Book, which is to date the most authoritative listing of Negro League standings.  And for 1923 only I also give Patrick Rock’s standings for league championship games that season.   

As you’ll see, there are many discrepancies between what I’ve found and the record in The Negro Leagues Book.  There are several reasons for this:

1) I’ve counted all games between league teams, but a number of these games were considered exhibition games at the time, particularly games in excess of 15 between any two opponents and some games at neutral sites.  One salient fact about these “exhibitions”: in most cases, you cannot find in box scores and game accounts any indication that these games were taken less seriously than “regular” league games.  In fact, it was rarely mentioned in the press that these games didn’t count in the standings, and it’s almost never absolutely clear that a given game was an exhibition rather than a bona fide championship contest.

2) The wins and losses in the Clark/Lester standings don’t balance in any of the years covered.  This indicates either that there are many clerical errors (some rather large) in The Negro Leagues Book or else that games with non-league teams were counted.

3) For 1920 and 1924, I have only compiled scores found in the major African-American newspapers with a national circulation, most importantly the Chicago Defender, which generally tried to cover the whole national black baseball scene. (For 1920, I also have complete coverage of the Kansas City Monarchs’ home games.)  There are certainly a good number of scores that didn’t make it into the Defender; in 1920, for example, it appears that my count misses quite a few games played in St. Louis.

For 1923, Patrick Rock has I believe found virtually every score.  For 1921 and 1922, I have done extensive research, probably only a little less comprehensive than Patrick on 1923.  I am therefore 99 percent sure that the St. Louis Stars’ 1922 record in The Negro Leagues Book—given there as 35-26—is badly mistaken.  I have them at 22-34.  We report similar total games—61 for Clark/Lester, 56 for my research—but the won/loss records are almost mirror images. When you add the fact that Clark/Lester totals add up to 30 more wins than losses for NNL teams that year, it’s pretty clear that something is messed up there.

By the way, I put this spreadsheet together as part of a small project on Negro League park effects, which I should have done in a few days.

EDIT: I forgot to mention how in 1922 the Kansas City Monarchs had a significantly better overall record than the champion Chicago American Giants (so did the Indianapolis ABCs, for that matter).  I’ll try to break the season down in a future post to figure out how the American Giants were able to sneak off with the pennant.

EDIT 2: I should also say that it’s not entirely clear where the standings in The Negro Leagues Book come from.  I don’t think they are necessarily the results of original research--in many cases, they are probably taken from standings published in the newspapers or in other contemporary sources.

UPDATE: I just added the 1924 Eastern Colored League, which I had forgotten I’d done.  Be sure you have downloaded the latest file.  The Negro Leagues Book standings actually balance in this case; it’s also clear that there remain a good number of games for me to find.  Also: for the 1924 NNL, Clark/Lester don’t include the Indianapolis ABCs, but they were in fact a league team, though they were kicked out early in the season and replaced by the Memphis Red Sox.

Comments

[Gary Ashwill]

I totally agree. Interestingly, the first publication of NeL stats by SABR's Negro League Committee, in the Baseball Research Journal in the 1980s, adopted an approach like this, with one column for league games, another for all games (against top black competition). I've never seen systematic compilations of games against white semipro teams. Ultimately all the games should be counted in some form.

[Scott Simkus]

One suggestion I have, which might satisfy both the sabermetric types (who wish to have the means by which to evaluate players, teams and entire leagues), as well the "old schoolers" who like big, raw baseball numbers, is to create a different model for the way in which we view the Negro Leagues. In my humble opinion, we make a mistake when we insist on trying to sandwich these leagues into the "MLB box." It's almost as if the first generation researchers have been apologetic that these teams didn't play 154 official league games (witness the ridiculous "hr/550" ab stat). Fact is, the NeLs were an entirely different animal than the MLB; more closely resembling today's NCAA athletics than anything else. Like a Division 1 Duke basketball team, for instance, they played a schedule of league games against league opponents of comparable ability, plus an entire schedule of contests against non-league opponents of varying talent (Duke versus non-league Division 1, 2 & 3 opponents; Duke versus the Czech National Team, for that matter). As Buck O'Neil has been famously quoted, "Don't take those games away from us." Perhaps the third generation of researchers will gather ALL games, then list the standings in side-by-side columns: a team's league record and next to it, their overall record against all competition, with corresponding statistics for league games as well as overall schedule. Could this possibly solve the dilemma of what to do with the multitude of box scores from exhibition games? While on the subject, and taking the NCAA model a step further, there's the idea of separating the high level independent teams (the Homestead Grays for many years, which operated along the lines of Notre Dame football- outside the constraints of a formal league, but playing at a high level against all levels of competition). Getting tired, maybe thinking too hard here.