"7": Hank Thompson's Role in Integrating the American League

While Larry Doby was the first black player to officially integrate the American League in 1947, it was Hank Thompson--making his major league debut 66 years ago on July 17, wearing number 7--who was the first black to be repeatedly in the starting line-up of an American League team, short-lived as that experience was.  He would later be the first black who was not an elite player to be a regular on his team--the New York Giants--for at least five years.

"7":  Hank Thompson's Role in Integrating the American League

Hank Thompson made his first big league appearance less than two weeks after Larry Doby, starting at second base and batting seventh in manager Muddy Ruel's line-up at home in St. Louis against the Philadelphia Athletics. He went hitless in four at bats and committed an error in four chances defensively, including a double play.  The Browns had purchased his contract, along with that of star outfielder Willard Brown, from the Negro League Kansas City Monarchs, whose home base was just across the Mississippi River.  Brown made his big league debut two days after Thompson (on July 19), batting fifth and playing center field; he went hitless in three at bats in a   1-0 loss against the Red Sox, grounding into two double plays.    

Doby may have been the first black to play in the American League, but Thompson had far more playing time and was a more consequential player in major league baseball's first season of integration.  Appearing in 29 games for the Indians in 1947, Doby started only once--at first base, the day after his big league debut, going 1-for-4, and was used primarily as a pinch hitter.  He appeared in only four other games in the field, logging a total of 28 innings with a glove on his left hand (no errors in 15 chances), had only 33 plate appearances, and struck out precisely a third of the time.  Thompson started 18 games at second base, played second in another after being inserted into the game as a pinch runner, and came off the bench eight times as a pinch hitter.  He batted .256 in 89 plate appearances (20 hits in 78 official at bats), with only two extra base hits (a double and a triple), and two stolen bases in three attempts. Brown, for his part, started 18 games in the outfield (all but his first game in right field) and pinch hit in three others, batting .179 with three doubles, a home run, and six RBI.

On August 23, however, the St. Louis Browns decided to terminate their part in "Baseball's Great Experiment," as the historian Jules Tygiel titled his book on Jackie Robinson. The day after Thompson had gone 1-for-3 in a home victory against the Athletics, both he and Brown (who had not started in a game since August 14) were unceremoniously released from their contracts by the Browns after only five weeks and three days in the Big Time.  When the two players were returned to the Monarchs, their manager said they had received a "fair trial" but lacked major league talent, and Browns General Manager Bill DeWitt proclaimed they "had failed to reach major league standards."  These were precisely the sentiments that most in organized (white) baseball were inclined to believe about black players and were not displeased to see seemingly validated--possibly especially since, back East, east of the East River, a black player by name of Jackie Robinson was making his mark shivering the timbers of segregation in major league baseball.  

Perhaps Thompson and Brown were not the right players to break the color barrier in the furthest south (at the time) of all major league cities, but the St. Louis Browns were the poster team for how not to integrate.   Thompson had troubles with alcohol and the law and Brown, notwithstanding his excellence as one of the Negro Leagues' greatest players in history, may not have been sufficiently motivated.  But that said, both Thompson and especially Brown were major league-quality players.  In giving them the chance to play in the big leagues, however, Browns front office execs were less motivated by the spirit of gaining a competitive advantage for a team that had been mired in last place since only the 17th game of the season (after having finished seventh the year before) than by the desire to capitalize on the novelty of integration in hopes that having black players would boost their woeful attendance.  At the time Thompson made his debut, the Browns' average home attendance was less than 5.900 per game--by far the fewest fans to watch a major league team play ball to that point in 1947.  When the Browns decided that neither player was up to major league snuff and let them go, they may also have calculated that their presence did nothing to make Browns games any more appealing for fans to attend.  The Browns finished last in the standings and ended up averaging about 4,200 fans per home game; the next-lowest average attendance was just over 11,000 in Washington, and the Browns' co-tenants at Sportsman's Park--the St. Louis Cardinals--(a bona fide good team) averaged 16,200 at their games.

Unlike the Dodgers' careful preparation of Jackie Robinson, who Branch Rickey mandated spend a year in Triple-A to learn both the rigors of major league baseball and the potential abuse he was likely to receive, the Browns immediately put Thompson and Brown onto their big league roster with no opportunity to become acclimated to the challenges of being a black trailblazer on their major league team.  The same had been the case with Doby in Cleveland, but at least team owner Bill Veeck and manager Lou Boudreau were committed to supporting him in the clubhouse.  The same was not true in St. Louis.  A big part of the problem was the front office failure to get manager Muddy Ruel's buy-in, leaving Ruel no time to prepare for the effects of integration in the Browns' clubhouse.  Whatever small credit Browns' front office execs deserve for making an effort more venal than righteous to integrate the team, it was undermined by the fact that Ruel--who was himself from St. Louis--was not supportive of the move and did little to create a clubhouse environment within which Thompson and Brown could feel like they were accepted members of the team.

Hank Thompson eventually made good as a major league player, but with a team (the New York Giants) and a manager (Leo Durocher) who gave him the opportunity to succeed.  Along with Monte Irvin, who like Willard Brown was one of the all-time greats in Negro League history, Thompson integrated the Giants in July 1949.  Durocher immediately made him the Giants' second baseman for the remainder of the season, with Thompson making his Giants' debut leading off at Ebbets Field against Jackie Robinson (batting clean-up, also at second base) and the Dodgers.  The next season, after the Giants had acquired Eddie Stanky to play second, Thompson became the Giants' third baseman.

Hank Thompson was a starting position player for the New York Giants for seven seasons.  He never made a National League All-Star team.  The contemporary player to whose his career most resembled, based on similarity scores developed by Bill James, was Chicago Cubs' third baseman Randy Jackson--(exactly, who he?).  But of the first eight black players to emerge as major league regulars for at least five years--Robinson, Doby, Campanella, Newcombe, Thompson, Irvin, Minoso, and Mays in that order--Hank Thompson alone among them was not a superb talent, too good to be denied even once the color barrier had been broken.  Hank Thompson may be mostly forgotten today, and an afterthought in the drama of major league integration, but he was one of the first trailblazers.  With all due respect and recognition of Larry Doby--who went on to have a legitimate Hall of Fame major league career--Hank Thompson ought to be remembered as the first black to be a regular in the starting line-up of an American League team, short-lived as that opportunity proved to be.

See all my earlier posts beginning with http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2013/04/reflections-on-42-leo-durocher.html

Last on The Fourth of July--The 1973 NL Champion New York Mets

Abandon hope, all ye who be Mets fans?  This Baseball Historical Insight revisits the 1973 New York Mets winning the National League pennant after being dead last in their division on July 4.   

Last on The Fourth of July--The 1973 NL Champion New York Mets 

Missy the Met Fan recently wrote, "It's really hard to stay a Mets fan these days."  That sentiment was likely shared by more than a few of the Shea Stadium faithful as our nation prepared to celebrate its 197th birthday  forty years ago.  The Mets were actually in Montreal, Canada, on Independence Day/USA in 1973, starting the day in last place, nine games under .500 at 33-42, 11-1/2 games behind the first-place Cubs in the National League's Eastern Division, and two behind the fifth-place Pirates.  The Mets had come to this date in a funk, having lost 13 of their previous 18 games, including three in a row.  They would lose on July Fourth, too, dropping them 12-1/2 off pace.  There was no reason to believe the Mets were not heading toward another dispiriting season.

The 1973 Mets were not a very good team, and really had not been since capturing the baseball world's imagination in 1969 by overcoming a large mid-season deficit to the Chicago Cubs on their way to winning the very first National League Eastern Division title, a National League pennant, and a World Series triumph over the heavily-favored and (let's be blunt) much better Baltimore Orioles--all after having finished ninth out of ten NL teams the previous year.  After winning 100 games in that magical 1969 season, the Mets won only 83 games in 1970, 83 games again in 1971, and 83 games yet again in 1972--finishing third in the NL East each time.  And in 1973, they wouldn't even win that many.  Their 82-79 record to win the division in 1973 set a new low for winning percentage by a first-place club that would stand until the suspended-by-strike 1994 season and the advent of three divisions and the wild card era.   As unimpressive as their record was, however, the Mets went on to topple the (let's be blunt again) far superior defending-NL champion Cincinnati Reds, who won 99 games, in the League Championship Series and took the World Series to seven games against the much better Oakland Athletics before, finally, losing to a superior team.

The 1973 Mets' weaknesses centered on their offense, which had been their weakness the three previous years as well.    Except for Rusty Staub in right, the Mets outfield in 1973 was underwhelming to say the least.  Left fielder Cleon Jones had missed most of the first three months of the season and did not play well.  Center field was patrolled jointly by Willie Mays--at 42, a mere shell of the superb and transcendent player he had once been--and 24-year old Don Hahn, who was never more than, at best, a marginal big league player. The Mets' infield of John Milner (1B), Felix Millan (2B), Bud Harrelson (SS), and Wayne Garrett (3B) was relatively stable, but nothing to brag about either and is an historical afterthought at best, except for Mets fans of a certain age or students of baseball history.  The 102-loss San Diego Padres were the only one of eleven other NL teams in 1973 to score fewer runs than the Mets' 608, have a lower slugging percentage than the Mets' .338, and have a lower on-base-plus-slugging average than the Mets' .653.  Over 161 games, the division-winning Mets outscored their opposition by only 20 runs.

What the Mets did have was exceptional pitching headlined by Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and Jon Matlack in the starting rotation and Tug McGraw in the bullpen, whose rallying cry of "you gotta believe" came to define the season.  Seaver, Koosman, and Matlack were all three among the ten best pitchers in the National League in 1973, as measured by wins above replacement, and Seaver with a 19-10 record and 2.08 ERA had the highest individual WAR of any player in the major leagues.  McGraw was second in the league in saves with 25 (six fewer than Montreal's Mike Marshall).

With their pitching leading the way, the Mets after July 4 had the second-best record in the National League (only the Reds were better) as they overtook all five teams ahead of them in the NL East to win the division by a game-and-a-half over the Cardinals. After losing his start on July 4, Seaver had 13 consecutive starts in which he went at least seven innings and never gave up more than 2 earned runs, winning seven and losing four as the Mets' offensive production left much to be desired; Seaver lost each of his last two starts in August by 1-0.  Seaver's ERA during this stretch was a microscopic 1.19, heading towards territory last charted by Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA in 1968.  While Koosman (14-15) and Matlack (14-16) both had losing records for the year, they were superb in the final two months of the season; Koosman went 6-4 with a 2.03 ERA in 13 starts in August and September, and Matlack was 7-2 in 12 starts with a 2.66 ERA.

The Mets were still in last place with a losing 61-71 record as late as August 30, but had narrowed their deficit to only 6-1/2 games because the NL East was proving to be a very mediocre division.  MLB schedules at that time of two-division/twelve-team leagues were set up so the final month of games was all among division rivals.  That played into the Mets' hand as they were able to systematically dismantle each of the teams ahead of them in the final month.  They started out by splitting four games with the first-place Cardinals from August 30 to September 2, which didn't enable them to gain ground on St. Louis but did reduce the Cardinals' lead to one game over the Pirates.  The Mets then took eight of eleven from the Phillies (two series) and Expos to virtually kill off Philadelphia's hopes and, more importantly, move to within 2-1/2 games of the top, although still in fourth place (one game back of Montreal), with only two weeks remaining.  After winning two of three against the Cubs--

--The Mets next faced off against the now-in-first-place Pirates, who they trailed by 2-1/2 games, for five critical make-or-break games--two in Pittsburgh followed immediately by three in New York.  The Pirates had won each of the three previous NL Eastern Division titles, but were now without the leadership and talent of Roberto Clemente (who had died on New Year's Eve on a relief mission to help Nicaraguan earthquake victims), and their pitching was certainly not in the Mets' class.  Alas, when Seaver lost the first game, many Mets fans probably assumed their season was all but over.  The Mets instead won their remaining four games with Pittsburgh to finally reach the .500 level at 77-77 and take over first place--for good, as it turned out.  Consecutive wins against the Cardinals pushed St. Louis three games back, and three wins in their final five games against the Expos and Cubs were all that was needed to hold off both the Cardinals and the Pirates.  In winning 20 of their final 29 games of the season--all against the NL East teams ahead of them--the Mets averaged 4.1 runs a game, compared to their season average of only 3.8.  Their 20 home runs and .260 batting average for September was the highest for the Mets in the 1973 season.  They won their season series against the second-place Cardinals, 10 games to 8, and against the third-place Pirates, 13 to 5.

Is the example of the 1973 Mets any reason for the Citi Field faithful in 2013 to not completely abandon hope for this year?  It is useful to remember that the 1973 Mets, NL Eastern Division winner though they be, had only the fourth-best record in the National League, meaning three Western Division teams won more games, and a fourth--Houston--won the same number of games.  In the very unlikely event the 2013 Mets were to make a second-half run, they almost certainly could not rely on either of the two wild card spots, not with 11 of the 15 National League teams having better records, but would have to hope all three teams in the NL East who currently are ahead of them trend towards mediocrity.  And then there is the reality that even though Matt Harvey currently has the highest pitchers' WAR in major league baseball, he has no pitching sidekicks the likes of Koosman and Matlack that Seaver had with the 1973 Mets.

Three Schools of Thought on the 1919 Black Sox

My previous post on the 1916 New York Giants concluded by noting that their loss the following year to the Chicago White Sox in the 1917 World Series set the stage for one of baseball history's most compelling dramas--the 1919 Black Sox scandal.  Much has been made of how good--or even great--that disgraced Chicago team was.  This Baseball Historical Insight addresses the question:  just how good were the White Sox-turned-Black Sox in the greater sweep of the best teams in history.

Three Schools of Thought on the 1919 Black Sox

The outlines of the Black Sox scandal are well known, so no need to replay that here.  As if the damage to the integrity of the game was not enough, requiring the establishment of an all-powerful Commissioner and--enter from stage right field--the transformational presence of the homerific Babe to repair, the cautionary tale this story tells is dramatically bolstered by the idea that the White Sox were a great team that squandered their historical legacy by the avarice of their "eight men out."  Thus the mythology that the 1919 and 1920 Chicago White Sox were one of baseball's best teams ever, done in by greed.  This assessment was based on their 1917 championship, when the White Sox won the pennant in convincing fashion with 100 wins and a nine-game margin of victory over Boston before taking out the Giants in six games in the World Series; their  cruising to the AL pennant in 1919--(after a disastrous sixth-place finish the previous year mostly because many of the team's best players were lost to war industries during World War I)--with 88 victories in an abbreviated 140-game schedule that would have translated to 97 over a full 154-game season, only to fall prey in the World Series to gamblers (and the Reds, Cincinnati fans have every right to insist); their winning 96 games in 1920, battling the Indians and Yankees in a tight race all through September until their season came undone when news of the scandal broke at the end of the month; and, finally, a player roster starring Shoeless Joe Jackson, Eddie Collins (possibly the greatest second baseman in history), Ray Schalk (a Hall of Fame catcher), Eddie Cicotte (one of the best pitchers of his era), and Red Faber (a Hall of Fame pitcher for whom 1919 was a lost season because of illness and injury).

Playing into this great team mythology, various accounts of the time from players and the press box suggest that the White Sox were only as good as they wanted to be, able to ramp up their level of effort when it counted but often merely just going through the motions to stay in a competitive holding pattern.  (The irony of this assessment, of course, is that underachievement is not typically thought to be a such good thing.)  When they had to win, they won.  In 1916, for example, they set the stage for their 1917 pennant by ending the season with 24 wins in their last 33 games to move from also-ran fourth-place status to finishing second, only two games behind the Red Sox.  The White Sox blew the 1917 pennant race open with an 18-1 surge that straddled the end of August and the first half of September.  The 1919 race was never as competitive as Chicago's final 3-1/2 game margin would suggest; the White Sox were in command after mid-July, but it was 12 wins in their first 16 games in September that secured their second American League title in three years (after which they closed the season by losing six of their last seven games--when nothing was anymore at stake).  And in 1920, the White Sox did not challenge for first place until August, getting down to business with the league's best record after trailing by five games in third place on August 7.  The 1920 White Sox went on a September surge, winning 18 of 26 games to stay in the middle of a hot three-team race before being derailed, only half-a-game out of first place at the time, by the scandalous revelations about the previous World Series.

There followed, however, the revisionist sentiment whose story line went:  while conspiring with gamblers was indisputably wrong, 'twas tightwad owner Charles Comiskey's miserliness made them do it, and Shoeless Joe was a naive pawn who got caught up in the fix, but did not personally participate in the fix.  Payroll ledgers recovered many years later by Bill Veeck when he owned the club suggested that, however tightfisted Comiskey may have been and however true it was that some of his players--most notably Jackson and Cicotte--were underpaid for their actual worth as ball players, the White Sox in general were paid fair market value for their talent and services.  And defenders of Shoeless Joe make much of how well he and fellow Black Sox third baseman Buck Weaver played in the World Series, particularly offensively; Jackson had 12 hits to tie the World Series record, batted .375, and had 6 RBI, while Weaver had 11 hits and hit .324.  Many subtle things, however, could have been done, and apparently were by both men, to affect the outcome of games--missing hit-and-run signs, for example, or overthrowing the cutoff man, or failing to take an extra base, or stupidly trying for an extra base and being thrown out--precisely the sort of things that would drive the baseball-savvy Eddie Collins to conniptions.  Such things were observed at the time, though not understood in context, by scribes in the press box and "clean" players in both dugouts.

And finally there is the revisionist history, currently in vogue and largely based on statistical analysis: that whoever played whatever part in the conspiracy, the 1917, 1919, and 1920 White Sox were a good team, but hardly a great team and certainly not one of the best teams in baseball history.  They had two of the greatest players in history still at the peak of their careers in Joe Jackson and Eddie Collins, and Eddie Cicotte--who was 28-12 in 1917, 29-7 in 1919, and 21-10 in 1920--was one of the best pitchers in the game at the time.  Center fielder Happy Felsch, third baseman Buck Weaver, and catcher Ray Schalk were three of the better players in the league, but were not the best at their positions; there were any number of better outfielders than Felsch, Larry Gardner was the league's best third baseman, and Wally Schang the best catcher.  The 1917-20 White Sox were not strong at every position.  First base (Chick Gandil), shortstop (Swede Risberg), and right field (a platoon involving the left-handed Nemo Liebold and the right-handed Shano Collins) were positions of weakness, not just on the team but relative to the league.  While pitching was a strength of the team, Lefty Williams, despite back-to-back 20-win seasons, was not one of the best at his craft in the league and was likely overrated, and Red Faber, who was 23-13 in 1920, was just coming into his own as one of the league's best pitchers.

On balance, I'm with the revisionist history school.  The 1917-20 Chicago White Sox were a very good team, but not a dominant team, and certainly not a great team.  That said, were it not for the contemptible machinations of their gang of eight, the White Sox might well have won the 1920 pennant; they were half-a-game behind and about to play the fair-to-middling St. Louis Browns for their final three games of the season when the scandal hit the news and the implicated players were banished by owner Comiskey.  And, had this team continued on with its best players and bolstered positions of weakness by integrating some of the players who joined the White Sox in the early 1920s--in particular first baseman Earl Sheely, outfielders Bibb Falk and Johnny Mostil, and third baseman Willie Kamm--they would have remained a competitive team and might have delayed the emergence of the Yankee dynasty.  That "what if" argument is made in a chapter on the 1916-20 White Sox and 1920-24 Yankees in my online manuscript, www.thebestbaseballteams.com, from which this article is adapted. The following is a link to the chapter:  http://www.thebestbaseballteams.com/pdf/al/1916-20_White_Sox_and_1920-24_Yankees.pdf

The 1916 Giants: Two Very Long Winning Streaks Not Enough to Compete

The Toronto Blue Jays have won 11 straight and 14 of their last 16, but that may not be enough to insinuate themselves into the AL East race because of their unexpectedly bad start to the 2013 season.  This Baseball Historical Insight recalls that the 1916 New York Giants set the record for the longest winning streak in major league history, also had the second-longest winning streak that season of any big league team, and still could do no better than finish fourth in the National League. 

The 1916 Giants:  Two Very Long Winning Streaks Not Enough to Compete

After winning three consecutive pennants from 1911 to 1913, and being beaten in the World Series all three times, John McGraw's New York Giants suffered the indignity of being overtaken by the "Miracle" Boston Braves, who were in last place as late as July 18 and wound up winning the 1914 pennant race by 10-1/2 games over the Giants.  After that debacle, the Giants went down like a rock, finishing dead last in 1915.  The next year the Giants recovered enough to finish fourth in 1916 (just seven out), and in 1917 all was right in McGraw's world again when his team won its fourth pennant of the decade by a very comfortable 10-game margin.

The 1917 pennant was set up by a furious finish in 1916, with McGraw managing the Giants to 30 wins in their last 38 games of the season after September 1. This included an astonishing 26 consecutive victories that began on September 7, when they had a losing record of 59-62 and were 13-1/2 games behind in fourth place, and didn't end until the second game of a double-header on September 30, when the Boston Braves scored five runs in the seventh inning to break a 2-2 tie.  Unfortunately for the Giants, their 26-game winning streak was too little, too late, coming in the final month of the season.  They were still fourth when it ended, but had narrowed the gap between them and first-place Brooklyn to five games.  Alas, there were only five games remaining on the 1916 schedule of games.  New York's 26-game winning streak included a 27th game--the nightcap of a September 18 double-header--that was tied at 1-1 when called because of darkness.  Including that twin-bill against the Pirates, the Giants played eight double-headers during their streak, winning both games in six of them before losing that second game to the Braves on September 30.

This being long before airplanes made travel between big league cities far less time-consuming, all 26 consecutive wins came at the Polo Grounds as part of a 31-game home stand over 26 days in September.  The Giants played all seven other National League teams during their streak, outscoring their opponents by 89 runs, 122 to 33.  Nine of the 26 wins were shutouts, including back-to-back shutouts on two separate occasions and three shutouts in a row against the Braves before Boston finally got on the scoreboard to end New York's winning streak.  The Braves had been held scoreless in the first 30 innings of their four-game set at the Polo Grounds before finally scoring a pair of runs in the fourth inning of the fourth game on their way to ultimately an 8-3 win.  Jeff Tesreau, the ace of McGraw's pitching staff won seven of the 26 games, raising his record from 11-13 to 18-13; he finished the season at 18-14, losing the Giants' season finale.

As astounding as 26-in-a-row was, it was the Giants' second substantial winning streak of the 1916 season.  After getting off to a terrible start, winning only two of their first 15 games and finding themselves already 8-1/2 behind (making it seem like 1915 all over again), McGraw's guys reeled off 17 straight from May 9 to 29, putting them within a game-and-a-half of Brooklyn at the top.  In counterpoise to the 26 straight they would win in September, this winning streak was all on the road during the Giants' first western swing of the season.  The Giants outscored their opponents by 79 runs, 113 to 34, and had two shutout victories.  The second of those shutouts, coming on May 29 in Boston to extend the Giants' streak to 17, was by Christy Mathewson--the last of 79 he threw in his career.  It was also the 371st win of his career.  At 35 years old, Mathewson made only two more starts and would win only one more game for the Giants (in relief) before being traded to Cincinnati in July for the opportunity to manage.  It was in a Reds uniform that Matty won one final game for his career resume.

Let's see.  That's 17 in a row, and then 26 in a row . . . and the New York Giants only finished fourth?  No other team in the National League won more than eight in a row in 1916, which was the longest streak for both first-place Brooklyn and second-place Philadelphia, and the only American League team to come close was the fifth-place St. Louis Browns, who ran off a streak of 14 straight in July and August.  The Giants' two winning streaks accounted for fully half of their 86 victories in 1916, meaning that the rest of the year they went 43-66.  That's 23 games under .500.  If it appeared the Giants were set to compete after their 17 straight wins in May, that expectation was dashed by July 4 when they found themselves in fifth place, 8-1/2 games in the hole.  It certainly did not help that the Giants were outscored in their other 109 games by 21 percent, 437 runs for their opponents to 362 for them.

Two long winning streaks did not make the Giants competitive in the 1916 pennant race, but primed them to dominate the league the next season.  Although their longest winning streak in 1917 was only six games, the Giants had a nine-game lead by the end of July and led by as many as 13 games in mid-August.  Their triumphant return to the top ended on a sour note, however.  McGraw's Giants not only failed once again to win a World Series in 1917, but played foil to the Chicago White Sox by setting the groundwork for the myth that the "say it ain't so Shoeless Joe" White Sox of that era were one of the greatest teams in history, derailed only by the greed and/or naivete of their "eight men out."  But that is another story.

Multi-Position Regulars

With Miguel Cabrera aiming towards a possible second consecutive Triple Crown season, it is worth pondering, at what position should he take up residence as one of MLB's all-time greats, his having shifted from third to first and back again in his career.  This Baseball Historical Insight makes a case for recognizing players whose best years were as "multi-position regulars."

Multi-Position Regulars

Avid baseball fans, baseball historians, and (for that matter) MLB network in some of its off-season programming are inherently inclined towards making lists of the best players through history at each position.  The comprehensiveness and integrity of major league baseball's statistical record, which has been enhanced in recent decades by advanced statistical analysis, lends itself well to precisely this pursuit.  But lists of the best players at each position are invariably limited by the nine individual positions on the field, so that a choice must be made on where to position players who were regulars at different positions, sometimes in the same season.  For the most part, these decisions are made based on career totals of what position a given player played most often.  Tony Perez, for example, even though his best years as measured by the wins above replacement (WAR) metric of player value were mostly when he played third base for the Reds, is generally listed as a first baseman on career lists because he played 70 percent of his games at that position.  I propose, therefore, that it might be useful to distinguish players who were core regulars on their teams at multiple positions from those clearly identifiable with a specific position.

"Multi-position regulars" can be grouped into two broad categories, each with its own subset.  The first category are players who started at multiple positions for most, or the totality, of the best years in their career.  In some cases, their versatility made them prime candidates to switch positions from one year to the next, or even within seasons, depending on the needs of their team.  In others, their switching positions was more a matter of offsetting defensive liabilities (which often they carried from one position to another) by their must-have-in-the-lineup batting prowess.  Two of baseball's historically greatest players were multi-position regulars during the best years of their careers--Stan Musial, who alternated between the outfield and first base his entire career (often in the same season), and Harmon Killebrew, who did the same between first and third (and even the outfield for two years).  Neither  played any four straight years as a regular exclusively at one position.  Musial's first three years were in the outfield, his next two (after spending 1945 in the military) primarily at first, then two as an outfielder, two seasons (1950 and 1951) alternating between first and the outfield, the next three in the outfield, 1955 at first, 1956 at first and in the outfield, and the next three primarily at first before his career began to wind down with Stan the Man not-quite full-time.  Killebrew's career progression as a regular began with one season at third (1959), followed by two alternating between first and third, two in the outfield, and all his remaining years at either first or third.

The subset of this first broad category are those players whose athleticism allowed them to play any number of infield positions, including up the middle.  Gil McDougald, who had a ten-year career with the Yankees from 1951 to 1960, was the quintessential multi-position regular.  McDougald gave Casey Stengel--the only major league manager he ever played for--the prized redundancy the Old Perfessor coveted for his infield.  McDougald could, and did, play anywhere in the infield except for first base, always fielding his position well and remaining a dangerous hitter all the while. After platooning at third base and also playing second in his rookie season, McDougald was the Yankees' regular third baseman in 1952 and 1953, moved over to second base the next two years when Billy Martin was in the Army, was the Yankees' primary shortstop in 1956 and 1957 after Phil Rizzuto's first two successors didn't quite work out, and was back to being the second baseman in 1958 before ending his career coming off the bench.  In the 1,221 games McDougald started for the Yankees, 516 (42 percent) were at second, 436 (35 percent) at third, and 269 (22 percent) at short.

The second category of multi-position regulars are the crossover years when a player switched from one position to another.  Robin Yount, who shifted from shortstop to center field in 1985, and Alex Rodriguez, who shifted from shortstop to third base when he came to the Yankees in 2004, are classic examples of crossover players.  Crossover years for analytical purposes, however, are limited to a maximum of six years, including no more than three years at either position, so in many (if not most) cases, the best years of a player who changed positions are likely to be at one position or the other.  Yount's best years as a player, for example, were at shortstop.  A-Rod was one of the greatest shortstops in history in the first eight years of his career, and then became one of the greatest third basemen in history over the next five years (although how much of his "greatness" was "enhanced" appears increasingly not so much an open question as a question of, by how much).  

The subset of this second broad category are players whose best years included their crossover years from one position to another.  Johnny Pesky, for his best years of 1942 to 1949 (not including three years, 1943-45, serving in World War II), is a compelling example of such a player.  After establishing himself as one of the American League's best shortstop in his first three major league seasons, with every expectation of a long  career at the position, Pesky switched to third in 1948 when the Red Sox acquired power-hitting shortstop Vern Stephens.  Babe Ruth, however, perhaps should be considered the premier player in this category during his Red Sox years of 1915 to 1919, whose transition from outstanding pitcher to outfielder to take advantage of his prodigious power began in 1918.

As outstanding as Miguel Cabrera has been for most of his career, if he continues playing at the level he is now, his best consecutive years as a player will have been 2009 through 2013.  These years include his changing positions in 2012 from first to third so the Tigers could accommodate the acquisition of Prince Fielder to play first base.  Other prominent multi-position regulars in recent years include infielder-outfielder Martin Prado, infielder Michael Young (from second to short to third), and infielder Placido Polanco (second and third).

Based on their best consecutive years as measured by the WAR metric, the five best multi-position regulars in the National League since 1901 were: 1) Stan Musial ; 2) Frankie Frisch from 1921 to 1927, playing all around the infield until finally settling full time as the second baseman for which he is remembered; 3) Roger Bresnahan, best known as an innovative catcher but who played mostly in the outfield in the first two of his best playing years from 1903 to 1908; 4) Frank Robinson from 1956 to 1960, playing primarily the outfield his first three years in Cincinnati and first base the next two before moving full-time back to the outfield; and 5) Dick, then known as "Richie," Allen alternating between third and the outfield from his rookie season of 1964 to 1969.

Ruth is arguably the American League's best-ever multi-position regular, followed by: 2)  Killebrew; 3) Paul Molitor for his best years from 1987 to 1993, during which he transitioned from third base to become a designated hitter; 4) McDougald; and 5) Pesky.

A comprehensive listing of the best multi-position regulars in each league, successively over the 100 years of the twentieth century and through the first decade of this one, who played more than one position over any given five-year period can be found in Transparency Annex B of my online manuscript, www.thebestbaseballteams.com, at the following link:  http://www.thebestbaseballteams.com/pdf/Revised_Best_Position_Methodology.pdf

The Red Sox-Yankee Rivalry, 1946-50: Explaining Why Boston Underachieved

As the Yankees and Red Sox resume their storied rivalry this weekend, this Baseball Historical Insight goes back to the years 1946 to 1950--the first time the two teams' rivalry was actually about the pennant race--to examine why the Red Sox were not as successful as they perhaps should have been.

The Red Sox-Yankee Rivalry, 1946-50:  Explaining Why Boston Underachieved

When war time exigencies caught up with major league baseball in 1943--the first year big league rosters were badly decimated by players being called to the service of their country--the Yankees and Red Sox were the two best teams in the American League, finishing first and second in both 1941 and 1942, although Boston never seriously threatened New York's stranglehold on first place.  When their star players returned from the war in 1946--most prominently, Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Joe Gordon, Tommy Henrich, and Phil Rizzuto for the Yankees and Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio, and Johnny Pesky for the Red Sox--it was Boston who dominated the American League and seemed to have the makings of baseball's next dynastic team.  With a 104-50 record, the Red Sox won the pennant by 12 games over the defending-AL champion Tigers, and the Yankees were never a factor, finishing third, 17 games out.  The two teams' fortunes were reversed in 1947, with the Yankees winning a blowout pennant by 12 games (The Tigers, again, caught in the middle) and the Red Sox coming home third, far behind at 14 games off pace.  The next three years, down to the wire, Boston and New York were fierce competitors for the pennant; Cleveland beat out both teams to win in 1948, and the Yankees won the 1949 and 1950 pennants.  The Yankees' triumph in 1949 was particularly bitter for Boston, since the Red Sox went into Yankee Stadium for the final two games of the season with a one-game lead needing only one victory to go to the World Series.  They lost both games, and thus did the Yankees win the first of an unprecedented five straight pennants and World Series.

How closely competitive were these two teams?  From 1946 to 1950, the Yankees and Red Sox won exactly the same number of games--473; that Boston lost one more than New York (298 to 297) is only because they were forced to play a one-game playoff for the pennant with Cleveland in 1948 after finishing the scheduled season tied for first, which the Red Sox lost.  Not only that, but Boston and New York each won 55 games against each other in that time, with the Red Sox winning two of their season series by identical 14-8 records in 1946 and 1948, and the Yankees winning the other three by identical 13-9 records in 1947, 1949, and 1950.  Had a trifling few of those losses turned to wins, it could have easily been the Red Sox with three pennants (their 1946 blowout, 1948, and 1949), and the Yankees with no more than two (their 1947 blowout and 1950).  And even 1950 might have gone Boston's way had the Red Sox gotten off to a better start, since from August 1 to the end of the season, the Red Sox had the best record in the American League--three games better than the Yankees.

They could have been a dominant team, perhaps should have been a dominant team--particularly after adding power-hitting shortstop Vern Stephens in a trade from the Browns in 1948 (Pesky moving from short to third) and with southpaw Mel Parnell and righty Ellis Kinder emerging that year as two of the best pitchers in the league--but the Boston Red Sox from 1946 to 1950 won just the one pennant.  The New York Yankees, who had looked to be getting old kind of fast in 1946, wound up winning three pennants during that span after refashioning their team, particularly the pitching staff, following their disappointing performance in 1946.  Yet the Red Sox may have actually had the better team, including from 1948 to 1950, when you consider they had more outstanding core regulars (Williams, Doerr, Stephens, Pesky, their DiMaggio) during those years than the Yankees (the DiMaggio, Rizzuto, and possibly Yogi Berra, who did not hit his stride as a great player until 1950).

What margins of difference separated the two teams as their competitive rivalry first took shape?

• The Red Sox' roster may have been graced with more of the game's best players, but the Yankees had far superior depth.  After former great Yankee manager Joe McCarthy took over the Red Sox in 1948, he started his core regulars game after game and kept them in the whole game, not giving them a break.  Boston position players were in at the end of 97 percent of the games they started from 1948 to 1950.  Beginning with Bucky Harris, when he managed the Yankees in 1948, and certainly after Casey Stengel assumed the reins, the Yankees not only platooned at various positions, but substituted for position players far more often than most other teams.  From 1948 to 1950, the Yankees' starting position players played the complete game only 87 percent of the time. 
• Boston's more potent offense, leading the league in scoring four times those five years, was more than mitigated by New York's advantage in pitching and defense.  The Red Sox scored 6 percent more runs between 1946 and 1950 than the Yankees, but also gave up 14 percent more runs than their rivals in the Northeast Corridor.  Looked at another way, the Yankees scored 33 percent more runs than their game opponents--outscoring them by an average of 200 runs per year--while the Red Sox outscored theirs by a significantly smaller margin of 167 runs per year, 23 percent more than their opponents.
• Boston's two best pitchers when they won the 1946 pennant, Tex Hughson and Boo Ferris, never again approached their success of that year because of injuries. While it is true the Red Sox from 1948 to 1950 had two of the game's best pitchers in Parnell and Kinder, the remainder of their staff was suspect.  Defensively, the Red Sox were certainly competent--usually among the teams with the fewest errors--but their defensive efficiency ratio of making outs on balls put into play was mostly middle-of-the-pack, and three times below the league average.  This is certainly consistent with their historical reputation of not being especially good in the field.  The Yankees, with Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi, and Eddie Lopat (who arrived by trade in 1948), had the best starting corps in the league from 1947 to 1950, and were first or second in defensive efficiency ratio all five years.
• Boston's most fundamental problem, however, was being behind the curve at a time when having a capable bullpen with a dedicated relief ace was coming into vogue.  The Yankees had Joe Page, who was instrumental in their winning the 1947 and 1949 pennants.  By virtue of finishing fourth in MVP voting in 1947, Page would likely have won the Cy Young Award that year, had the award existed back then.  The Red Sox lack of an ace reliever likely cost them the pennant in both 1948 and 1949.  That the Red Sox' bullpen was so inadequate seems somewhat surprising since McCarthy not only benefited from a strong relief corps when he managed the Yankee dynasty in the 1930s and early 1940s, but specifically cultivated Johnny Murphy to be his fireman in the bullpen (see earlier post http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2013_03_01_archive.html).  It was not until after McCarthy resigned as manager early in the 1950 season that Ellis Kinder was specifically designated to be Boston's relief ace, a role at which he excelled into the mid-1950s.

It is hard to argue that  Boston did not have the superior team when considering its core players, but as to the competitive bottom line:  three pennants and three World Series championships for the Yankees between 1946 and 1950 are ... well, two pennants and three World Series championships more than the Red Sox won.  It is very hard to go against that.  After 1950, the Yankees kept winning, but the Red Sox had lost their edge and were on their way to spending the rest of that decade as, at best, a marginally-competitive team.

For a more comprehensive analysis, see my chapter on these two teams in my online manuscript: http://www.thebestbaseballteams.com/pdf/al/1946-50_RedSox_and_Yankees.pdf

The Greg Maddux Anomaly, Part II: Maddux at His Best--NL's Best Pitcher in the 20th Century

Notwithstanding his recognized place as one of the greatest pitchers in history, Greg Maddux is not a name one normally associates with being one of the most dominant pitchers in history.  This Baseball Historical Insight makes a case, however, (which I acknowledge is likely a minority viewpoint) for Maddux when he was at his best from 1992 to 1998, without being a dominating power pitcher, being arguably more dominant than any other pitcher in the National League over a minimum of five consecutive years in the 20th century. 

The Greg Maddux Anomaly, Part II:  Maddux at His Best--NL's Best Pitcher in the 20th Century

When talking about the best players in major league history we tend to think in terms of the totality of their careers.  Inherent in those evaluations is what each individual player accomplished when they were in their prime, during their best years, but ultimately the discussion usually comes down to bottom line career numbers--like 3,000 hits or 300 wins. With a lifetime record of 355-227 and the fifth-most victories of any major league pitcher since the beginning of the 20th century, Greg Maddux is a lock to be elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility next year.  His excellence duly recognized, Maddux, I believe, is nonetheless under-appreciated for the dominating pitcher he was.  My previous post focused on Maddux being unique among the most dominant pitchers in that he alone among them was not dominating in the classical sense of being a power pitcher, or a big strikeout pitcher in the context of his times.  The mild-mannered appearance of Maddux on the mound belied his Mad Dog competitiveness, as though Clark Kent did his super deeds without bothering to change into his Superman tights and cape.

Looking at a pitcher's minimum of five consecutive years when he was at his best using the wins above the average pitcher and wins above replacement metrics and taking account of "adjusted ERA" (also referred to as "ERA+")--which normalizes a pitcher's earned run average for both the context of the time and his team's home park--can be revealing as to which pitchers were the best when they were at their best.  Based on their best years, the pitchers being considered in this analysis are, in order of appearance with their best years in parenthesis:  Walter Johnson (1910-16); Pete Alexander (1911-17); Lefty Grove (1928-33); Bob Feller (1939-47, not including 1942-45 when he was serving in World War II); Sandy Koufax (1961-66); Roger Clemens (1986-92); Maddux (1992-98); Randy Johnson (1997-2004); and Pedro Martinez (1997-2003).  The fact that some of the indisputably greatest pitchers in history (Christy Mathewson, Warren Spahn, Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, and Nolan Ryan, for example) are not considered in this analysis is only because their margins of superiority over the league average pitcher was not as great in some of their best years.  Their absence from this analysis is not in any way to suggest they were not dominant pitchers, perhaps even better for the course of their careers than those being considered here, including Maddux.

Unlike the other pitchers in this analysis, each of who led the league in strikeouts at least twice during their best years and had strikeouts-to-innings pitched ratios much better than the league average, Maddux's K-ratio was typically only marginally better than the league average.  K-Man, Maddux surely was not, but his basic numbers for his best years of 1992 to 1998 are impressive:  127 wins against only 53 losses for a .706 winning percentage, an ERA of 2.15, a walks/hits-per inning pitched (WHIP) ratio under 1.00 at 0.97, and control so good that he allowed only 1.4 walks per nine innings.  And 40 of his 269 walks in 1,675.1 innings during those seven years were intentional, accounting for 15 percent of the total bases on balls he surrendered.  After going 20-11 for the 1992 Cubs, who finished the season with a record six games below .500, and signing with the Braves as a free agent, Maddux won 107 and lost only 42 for a .718 winning percentage and had a 2.15 ERA in his first six years with Atlanta from 1993 to 1998.

In 1994, Maddux became the sixth pitcher to win three Cy Young Awards (after Koufax, Seaver, Jim Palmer, Steve Carlton, and Clemens, who would end up with seven for his career) and the first to win the award three straight times.  (Koufax, Denny McLain, Palmer, and Clemens had won back-to-back Cy Youngs before Maddux.)  The next year, Maddux won his fourth straight Cy Young Award, becoming at the same time the first pitcher ever to win the award that often.  (Randy Johnson matched him with four straight when he was pitching for Arizona between 1999 and 2002, which gave The Big Unit five for his career.)  The last two of his Cy Young Awards, Maddux was the unanimous winner.

After winning 20 games back-to-back in 1992 and 1993, Maddux most likely would have had four straight 20-win seasons were it not for the players' strike/owners' lockout that shortchanged the 1994 and 1995 seasons.  He was 16-6, leading the league in both wins and a 1.56 ERA, when the 1994 season was terminated on August 12, only 114 games into the schedule; Maddux would have had at least nine, and possibly ten, more starts had the season been played to completion.  And in 1995, Maddux finished the shortened-to-154-game season with a 19-2 record and a league-leading 1.63 ERA, having missed two starts while the owners and the players union deliberated on ending their standoff.  (Oakland's Dave Stewart was the last major league pitcher to win 20 games four years in a row, from 1987 to 1990, with not nearly the relative dominance of Mad Dog Maddux.)

Aside from the basic numbers, the case for Maddux as arguably the most dominant National League pitcher in the 20th century includes the fact that his adjusted ERA was more than 150 percent better than the average National League pitcher in 1994 and 1995 and close to twice as good two other years.  Maddux had the league's best adjusted ERA every year from 1992 to 1995 and again in 1998.  Among the NL pitchers being considered in this analysis, Pete Alexander had an adjusted ERA more than 50 percent better than the league average only three times--in each of his 30-win seasons from 1915 to 1917--and Koufax's adjusted ERA was more than 50 percent better than the league average only in his last four years before crippling pain in his arthritic left elbow forced his retirement.  Both had the league's best adjusted ERA only twice during their best years.  Randy Johnson alone is in the argument about whether he or Maddux was the most dominant pitcher in NL history since 1901 based on their "best years," but his best years in the National League straddled the 20th and this century, and while his adjusted ERA was the best in the league every year between 1999 and 2004, except for when injury limited him to only 18 starts and 114 innings in 2003, he never doubled the league average.

Among the American League pitchers being considered in this analysis, Lefty Grove--who had the AL's best adjusted ERA four years running at 50 percent better than the league average from 1929 to 1932--and Roger Clemens, who led the league three times between 1986 and 1992, both had only one year in which their adjusted ERA was more than double the league average.  Bob Feller in his best years never led the league in adjusted ERA, probably done in by his wildness.  Walter Johnson's seven best years from 1910 to 1916 were probably the best of any major league pitcher in the 20th century; his adjusted ERAs relative to the league average over his best years were marginally superior to Maddux's, and his basic numbers much better.  Johnson, however, pitched in the very different  dead ball era, whereas Maddux's best years encompassed the first half of the so-called "steroids" era when, as he and Atlanta pitching sidekick Tom Glavine commiserated in a commercial at the time, "chicks dig the long ball."

Pedro Martinez has the strongest case for best years that were the most dominant in baseball history, for his between 1997 (his last year with Montreal before traded on the cusp of his free agency to Boston) and 2003.  In five separate seasons, Martinez's adjusted ERA was more than double the league average--and in 2000, nearly triple.  Martinez, however, did not have the durability of Greg Maddux who, rarely missing a start, led the league in innings pitched four straight years from 1992 to 1995 and was in the top three two other times.  Excluding the two strike-shortened seasons, Maddux always started at least 33 games, and he averaged 7.4 innings per start.  Martinez made as many as 33 starts only once in his best years (in 1998) and averaged fewer than seven innings per start in the last three of his best years, the first of which he made only 18 starts because of rotator cuff problems.

A final word on Greg Maddux.  In 1993, his first season in Atlanta (still in the NL's Western Division), the Braves won 41 of their last 56 games to dramatically overcome the 7-1/2 game lead the Giants enjoyed at the end of July to beat out San Francisco for the division title with 104 wins by only one game in the last true pennant race before the wild card format would have put both teams in the post-season.  Maddux, who went into the month of August with a 12-8 record and a 2.83 ERA, was brilliant down the stretch: 8-2 in 12 starts with an ERA of 1.46 in 92.1 innings.  And in 1994, when the Braves (now in the NL East) were only 20-18 from July 1 till the season was suspended (and ultimately ended) on August 12, slipping to six games behind the Expos, Maddux in eight starts during that dismal Atlanta stretch won six, lost two, and had a sub-one ERA at 0.93.  





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