Negro League baseball star Josh Gibson now ranks first in career batting average at .372 — including a single-season-record .466 in 1943. The inclusion of Negro League players stats into MLB stats has been a long time coming. But . . . (and you knew that but was coming, didn’t you?) there are some problems.
Putting Josh Gibson’s single season batting average of 0.466 at the top of the single season stats is somewhat troubling, and I will tell you why.
Do you remember when Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s single season home run record there was discussion of placing an asterisk by that record? Do you remember why? It was because the Babe set his record when there were 154 games in a season and Maris broke that record when there were 162 games in a season. Maris had eight more games with opportunities to hit home runs than did Ruth. (There was never an asterisk placed next to the record, although I am in favor of annotating differences in conditions with regard to records being set.)
Now Josh Gibson was a phenomenon and I bemoan not getting to see him play in the major leagues (at least on film and in stories and stats as I was born in 1946), but his 1943 season consisted of 55 games, far fewer than the 154 games being played in MLB. And baseball is replete with story after story after story of players who did this or that “before the All-Star game” and were on pace to . . . <break some sort of record>.
In order for Josh Gibson’s 1943 batting average to take its rightful place in baseball stats it needs to be compared to the batting averages of other players, playing their first 55 games of a season.
As the saying goes, a baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint. It is long, it is grueling and playing week after week under the brutal summer sun (before clubhouses were air conditioned) sapped one’s abilities big time. They were called “the dog days of summer” by the players.
One of the joys of baseball is playing with statistics. One of my favorites was the baseball writer who tracked down the landing places of all of Babe Ruth’s fly balls for a single season and then mapped those onto the outlines of the now current baseball stadia. He then took into account the rule changes (it used to be a ball had to land in fair territory to be called a home run, so balls curling around foul poles into “foul territory” were ruled as foul balls whereas now they would be consider to have “left the field in fair territory, so . . . home run”). He counted up the number of home runs that the Babe would have been garnered had they been in the now current stadia with the now current rules, rather than in 1920 and the Babe would have racked up 119 home runs . . . in 154 games. (Some of those old stadia were immense and many very long fly balls were caught for outs.)
Uncommon Sense 
Records like that should always be annotated in a way that shows these discrepancies.
Some of the new fields are fairly deep as well. Resulting in fewer home runs. I imagine the doubles and triples go up though, but don’t have anything to back that up.
I’ve been watching a lot of baseball this year. My android box (Smartbox,) allows me to watch every game that gets played. Unless they are on at the same time. Then I can go back and forth if I want to…
I know the players get paid crazy amounts of money (most of us could comfortably retire on what they make in one year.) I know they have integrated even more ways to advertise, I know most ball players are superstitious/religious, I know there’s a lot not to like. But, damn if I don’t enjoy the game. It’s the best reality TV on TV. (Until football season starts.)
There are a few changes in the game that at first I thought I would not like, except for the first listed. Challenges and replay, getting it right, instead of always trusting the ump to get it right, makes sense. No more pitchers hitting, which used to almost always be an easy out. A pitch timer, that effectively speeds up the game. And no more 20 inning games, because after the ninth inning when it results in a tie, every inning after, each team gets an automatic man on second.
I have learned to like the changes. They result in a better, faster, and more interesting game, especially in extra innings.
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Comment by shelldigger — June 9, 2024 @ 6:58 am |
I am with you. Once a fan, always a fan? The invention of “smart glasses” makes me wonder why umpires cannot be fitted for glasses, one of the lenses showing the same view we get on TV, with the box showing the strike zone, etc. This view would be layered so that the vision in that eye was not obscured, like the “heads up” displays on fighter jets, etc. It still bothers me that strikes are called when the ball is 3-4 inches outside the box. My local broadcasters have labeled those calls “egregious” but shrug off the once that are close but not quite. Hitting is really hard and providing a level playing filed for hitters and pitchers is critical.
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Comment by Steve Ruis — June 9, 2024 @ 7:43 am |
Oh yeah, definately a fan. I grew up playing wiffle ball, kick ball, Little League baseball, I even ruined a good bat once smacking rocks with it. Never did that again…
Also, grew up a Cubs fan. Learned to like the Cardinals, and Yankees too.
Yes, some strike/ball calls are egregious. However it’s also possible that a pitch started out at what may have looked like a strike, but the ball “moves” way outside, but still caught the front corner of the plate as it did. Or, the ball moves into the strike zone, from what might have looked like an obvious ball from our camera perspective. There are some subtleties at play there. Which is why we will likeley always need an ump, no matter the tech.
I haven’t heard of the “smart glasses.” But I’m afraid I’d forget how to walk trying to use them. 😉 Plus, depth perception might be compromised, which is critical to getting those close ones, as close to the right call as possible.
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Comment by shelldigger — June 11, 2024 @ 6:34 pm |