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.
reading Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty.
The book mentions the Tigers in Pittsburgh to play an exhibition game against "an 'outlaw' team from Homestead, Pennsylvania." This would have been on or around Sept 24, 1905, near the end of Cobb's rookie season.
Way before Gus Greenlee or Cum Posey were owners (11 and 15 years old, respectively) but I've read the Grays were around back then... wondering if there's any record or account of the game. Who might have been on the Grays that year?
Posted by: Bob Poet | February 25, 2019 at 06:28 PM