Revisiting Major League Integration: Meaningful Numbers

The relatively small number of black players who were regulars on major league teams even as late as 1960--fourteen years into the integration era and four years after Jackie Robinson hung up his spikes--and the high percentage of elite players among black regulars during those years illuminates the reality that major league baseball was slow to integrate even though the exceptional performances of the first black trailblazers proved proved black players could compete at the major league level and there was no going back to segregated baseball.  

Revisiting Major League Integration:  Meaningful Numbers

I mentioned in a footnote to my last post that I gave a presentation at the annual conference of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), in Philadelphia from 1-4 August, entitled, "Consolidating Major League Integration: A Different Perspective."  The presentation was derived from my earlier series of posts riffing off the movie 42.  This post summarizes four principal points and includes tables with substantiating data.

First:  The historical narrative that rightfully celebrates Jackie Robinson and the great black players who followed in his immediate footsteps does not change with this analysis.  For blacks of more ordinary major league ability to get the opportunity to compete for big league starting jobs, it was absolutely necessary for the first generation of blacks in the major leagues, beginning with Robinson, to be exceptional players; the best of the black players had to prove they could play with the best of the established white stars to pave the way for broader acceptance of integration in major league baseball.  Not surprisingly, therefore, of the first eight black players to emerge as regulars in starting line-ups for at least five seasons--in order of appearance as starting players they were Robinson (Dodgers) in 1947, Larry Doby (Indians) and Roy Campanella (Dodgers) in 1948, Don Newcombe (Dodgers) and Hank Thompson (Giants) in 1949, Monty Irvin (Giants) in 1950, and Minnie Minoso (White Sox) and Willie Mays (Giants) in 1951--Thompson alone was not an elite player. Two others who made their big league debut within the first five years of integration were regulars for three years--Sam Jethroe of the Braves and Luke Easter of the Indians, both from 1950 to 1952--but neither was given much opportunity to have a long career because they were in their thirties when they got their big league shot, and each suffered ailments or injuries that caused their teams to give up on them relatively quickly.  And then there was Satchel Paige, one of the greatest pitchers of all time, who did not get his major league chance until he was at least 42 years old in 1948 and pitched a total of only five big league seasons, mostly in relief for the Indians (1948-49) and Browns (1951-53).  (This, of course, does not include Satchel's three innings in 1965 in a Charlie Finley publicity stunt.)

Second:  Notwithstanding the success of integration's trailblazers, in 1952--six long years into the Jackie Robinson era ("long," because big league careers are typically short)--only 11 blacks were among the 175 players who were regulars on the sixteen major league clubs based on 100 games in the starting line-up as a position player or pitchers qualifying for the ERA title with 154 innings pitched or otherwise appearing in 40 games.  (This included Paige and the Dodgers' Joe Black as ace relievers for their teams).  Of course, it would have been 13 were it not for Newcombe and Mays being missing from action in 1952 as draft picks for the US Army during the Korean War.  Four years later, when Jackie Robinson played in his tenth and final season in the big leagues in 1956, the number of black players had increased to only 21 of 183 major league regulars based on those criteria.  And as late as 1960, fourteen years into the integration era and four years after Jackie had played in his last game, only 27 of 180 major league regulars were black players, accounting for only 15 percent of the total, barely an improvement over 11 percent of total big league regulars four years earlier.  And nine of those 27--one-third--played on just two teams; Jim Gilliam, Charlie Neal, John Roseboro, Maury Wills, and Tommy Davis with the Dodgers, and Mays, Toothpick Sam Jones, Orlando Cepeda, and Willie Kirkland with the Giants.

Blacks as Regulars on Major League Teams, 1952-1960

	1952	1956	1960	1964
Position Players (100 games started)	96 9 blacks	98 17 blacks	90 25 blacks	126 47 blacks
Pitchers (ERA qualifiers)	62 0 blacks	58 4 blacks	61 2 blacks	72 11 blacks
Pitchers non-ERA qualify (40 games)	17 2 blacks	27 0 blacks	31 0 blacks	49 2 blacks
Total Number of Major League Regulars	175 11 blacks	183 21 blacks	180 27 blacks	247 60 blacks
Black % of Regulars	6 %	11 %	15 %	24 %

Third:  By 1960, of 125 position players who had been in major league starting line-ups for at least five years since Jackie Robinson's 1947 debut, only 16 (a mere 13 %) were blacks. But the more significant number is that 10 of those 16 were "elite" players whose cumulative wins above replacement (WAR) for their five best years put them among the 10 best position players in their league between 1947 and 1960 or whose career arc wound them up in the Hall of Fame.  See the following earlier post: http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2013/04/continuing-reflections-on-42-great.html.  That means nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of black position players who were regulars for at least five years were elite players, compared to 18 percent of white position players.  Robinson, Doby, Campanella, Irvin, Minoso, Mays, Aaron, Banks, Clemente, and Frank Robinson were all exceptional players proving they could indeed play with the best players in major league baseball, but integration could not be considered consolidated until black players of more modest abilities were given the opportunity to realistically compete for starting big league jobs.

Finally, by 1964, as shown in the table above, blacks accounted for nearly a quarter of the 247 players who were regulars on (now) 20 major league teams by the criteria mentioned earlier.  Indicative of there no longer being any doubt about blacks in major league baseball, nearly 35 percent of the total number of position players who were regulars in starting line-ups for at least five years between 1961 and 1970 were African American or black Latinos.  However, while only 13 percent of the white position players were elite players as defined above, more than one-third (35 percent) of the black players were elite in that context.  And that does not even include the likes of Reggie Jackson and Rod Carew, whose careers started in the late 1960s but did not reach the five-years-as-a-regular threshold until the early 1970s. While it was now a certainty that black players with superior ability would find a place in major league starting line-ups, it appears that even in the 1960s when it came to players of more average major league ability competing for big league jobs, which is the majority of players, the odds still favored the white player.

Starting Position Players, Comparative Summary

1947-1960 STARTING POSITION PLAYERS (5 years)
	White Players			Black Players
	Regulars	Elite	% Elite	Regulars	Elite	% Elite
NL	53	9	17 %	11	8	73 %
AL	56	11	20 %	5	2	40 %
MLB	109	20	18 %	16	10	63 %
1961-1970 STARTING POSITION PLAYERS (5 years)
	White Players			Black Players
	Regulars	Elite	% Elite	Regulars	Elite	% Elite
NL	40	4	10 %	32	14	44 %
AL	53	8	15 %	17	3	18 %
MLB	93	12	13 %	49	17	35 %