National Baseball Hall of Fame

better late than never?

Re: National Baseball Hall of Fame

The first member of the negro leagues inducted into the hall of fame was Satchel Paige in 1971. So if 35 years ago isn't fast enough for you, then I guess you have reason to wonder what took them so long.

As it is, evaluating players from the negro leagues presents some daunting challenges. The leagues played fewer games than did the major leagues (a typical season might last only 50 or 60 games, compared with 154 in the majors), and most of the negro league teams spent more time barnstorming (playing in exhibition games against all levels of competition, from major league to semi-pro) than they did playing in league games. Consequently, although negro league players typically played more games in a year than their major league counterparts, on average they played against a lower level of competition. Coupled with extremely spotty record keeping during the regular league season and the sometimes ad hoc nature of the leagues themselves, and it becomes nearly impossible to judge how good the players were on the basis of their numbers alone. That means that much of the evaluation is done on an anecdotal basis, which has its own set of problems.

The fact is, we probably will never be able to get a firm grip on the relative merits of negro league and major league players. Was Josh Gibson as good as Babe Ruth? Was Satchel Paige as good as Carl Hubbell? Really, it's impossible to say. The induction of these players, then, recognizes not only what these players accomplished but also what they might have accomplished.

IMHO, Martin Dihigo (indicted in 1975) is the best baseball player ever to set foot on a field.


Cristobal Torrientes was indicted this year to the US Hall of Fame.
In 1920, New York played a series of 9 games in Cuba. Babe Ruth hit 2 homers in those games. Torrientes hit 3 on a single game.
When asked what he thought about Torrientes, Ruth declared: "All I know about him is that he's a negro".

I read this anecdote in "Beisbol: Latin Americans and the Grand Old Game", by Michael and Mary Oleksak.

Well, in a seven game series in 1920, Joe Sewell of Cleveland hit .174, had no extra-base hits, didn't score a run, and drew only one walk. Ivy Olson of Brooklyn hit .320, hit one double, scored three runs, and drew three walks. On the other hand, Olson was a career .258 hitter while Sewell retired as a .312 hitter with a .391 on-base percentage and ended up in the hall of fame. Even great stars can have cold streaks, and even mediocre players can have hot streaks. In the grand scheme of things, nine games don't mean a whole lot, and nine exhibition games mean even less.

The anecdote was to show the feelings and the times of Torrientes and the Babe.
Torrientes did more. Much more.