Archive for Negro Leagues

The following article is part of a series concerning the 2025 Classic Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering long-retired players, managers, executives, and umpires whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 8. For an introduction to the ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com, Baseball Prospectus, and Futility Infielder. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

“If [John] Donaldson were a white man or if the unwritten law of baseball didn’t bar Negroes from the major leagues, I would give $50,000 for him and think I was getting a bargain.” — John McGraw, quoted in various newspapers, 1915

The career totals are staggering — 428 wins, 5,295 strikeouts, 14 no-hitters, and two perfect games over a span of 33 years — and they’ve all been documented by a network of researchers unearthing primary sources. But only a fraction of those are on Seamheads, and an even smaller fraction on Baseball Reference, covering his time in the major Negro Leagues. John Donaldson is an enigma. He may have been the greatest Black baseball pitcher of all time.

A 6-foot-1, 180-pound left-hander who had speed, a wide assortment of curveballs, and a good changeup, Donaldson spent the years from 1908–40 carving out a singular career in Black baseball. He barnstormed before the major Negro Leagues were in place, dominating the competition, spent five seasons (1920-24) with the Kansas City Monarchs (whom he’s said to have named) of the first Negro National League, primarily as an outfielder rather than a pitcher, and then spent over a decade and a half continuing his barnstorming odyssey on integrated and Black semiprofessional teams. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of a series concerning the 2025 Classic Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering long-retired players, managers, executives, and umpires whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 8. For an introduction to the ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com, Baseball Prospectus, and Futility Infielder. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Vic Harris was a feisty and feared player, a high-average, left-handed spray-hitting left fielder with only moderate power who nonetheless stood out during his playing career, mainly from 1923 to ’43, and primarily with the powerhouse Homestead Grays. He made an even bigger mark as a manager. With his max-effort style setting an example for his players, he piloted the Grays to seven pennants (some sources count an eighth) in a 12-season span (1937–48) in the second Negro National League, a mark unparalleled in the major Negro Leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

Wednesday was a big day in the world of baseball statistics, albeit a more complicated one than initially met the eye. Major League Baseball announced that the statistics from seven professional Negro Leagues that operated between 1920 and 1948 have been officially incorporated into its database, the culmination of a process that began in late 2020, when MLB first recognized those circuits as major leagues. As a result, several longstanding seasonal and career records have officially changed hands; most prominently, Josh Gibson is now the single-season and all-time leader in batting average, slugging percentage, and OPS, supplanting Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth in the career categories. The grassroots effort to gather and audit the Negro Leagues data that made this possible has been laudable, even heroic. But while we can never do enough to acknowledge the greatness of Gibson and his peers — along with the pain and injustice that they faced both within and outside baseball — MLB’s announcement and the dissemination of the news did strike a few sour notes, just as in 2020.

To be clear, this is not a quibble with the concept of compiling these statistics — the result of decades of diligent, painstaking research that has included the manual entry of thousands of box scores into spreadsheets and databases — which illustrate the extent to which legendary players such as Gibson and less renowned ones such as Charlie “Chino” Smith rightfully belong alongside the Cobbs and Ruths of baseball history. The efforts of expert researchers such as Larry Lester and the Seamheads group to set the record straight, and to validate the careers of some 2,300 Negro Leagues players as major league, are tremendously important; in listening to Lester and MLB official historian John Thorn describing this work on Wednesday’s Effectively Wild podcast, one can hear their pride and joy with regard to this occasion. Instead, this is an issue of semantics and nuance, because words and language matter. The wrong ones can obscure the important distinctions in play, particularly when it comes to MLB’s culpability in creating and reinforcing the conditions that made the Negro Leagues necessary. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re excited to announce that Negro Leagues data is now available on the FanGraphs player pages and leaderboards! In addition, Negro Leagues players now have FanGraphs player pages. All data is provided by The Seamheads Negro Leagues Database powered by Agate Type Research. Special thanks are due to Gary Ashwill and Kevin Johnson for their assistance as we incorporated the data into the site.

The seven Black baseball leagues included in our data mirror those at Baseball Reference and are consistent with the recommendations of SABR’s Negro Leagues Task Force and Major League Baseball’s announcement recognizing these leagues as being major leagues.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the wake of a bumper crop of six honorees elected by two Era Committees in December — including the first Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues Black baseball honorees since 2006 — the Hall of Fame has radically reorganized the way that it handles candidates who are outside the purview of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Last Friday, the Hall announced its latest restructuring, a return to a triennial voting system that would appear to make it more difficult for any candidate besides a modern-day manager, executive, or umpire to land on a ballot.

The new system won’t please everybody, particularly in spots where it appears to counteract the recent flow of honorees. Fourteen candidates have been elected in the past six elections, including seven living ex-players, the first of their kind since the much-criticized 2001 election of Bill Mazeroski. By comparison, 16 candidates were elected via this route from 2003–16, including just three ex-players, all deceased. While critics can argue — and I have – that some of those recent honorees are below Hall standards, others such as Minnie Miñoso, Ted Simmons, and Alan Trammell were ripe for reevaluation via the additional research and advanced statistics that have come forth since their time on the BBWAA ballots. Those following in their wake may have a harder time getting a similar reappraisal. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of a series concerning the 2022 Early Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 5. For an introduction to the ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

John Donaldson

“If [John] Donaldson were a white man or if the unwritten law of baseball didn’t bar Negroes from the major leagues, I would give $50,000 for him and think I was getting a bargain.” — John McGraw, quoted in various newspapers, 1915

The career totals are staggering — 413 wins, 5,091 strikeouts, 14 no-hitters, and two perfect games over a span of 33 years — and they’ve all been documented. But only a fraction of those are on Seamheads, and an even smaller fraction on Baseball Reference, covering his time in the major Negro Leagues. John Donaldson is an enigma. He may have been the greatest Black baseball pitcher of all time.

A 6-foot-1, 180-pound left-hander who had speed, a wide assortment of curveballs, and a good changeup, Donaldson spent the years from 1908-40 carving out a singular career in Black baseball. He barnstormed before the major Negro Leagues were in place, dominating the competition, spent five seasons (1920-24) with the Kansas City Monarchs (whom he’s said to have named) of the first Negro National League, primarily as an outfielder rather than a pitcher, and then spent over a decade and a half continuing his barnstorming odyssey on integrated and Black semiprofessional teams. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of a series concerning the 2022 Early Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 5. For Jay Jaffe’s introduction to the ballot, see here.

Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of a series concerning the 2022 Early Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 5. For an introduction to the ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Vic Harris

Vic Harris was a feisty and feared player, a high-average, left-handed spray-hitting left fielder with only moderate power who nonetheless stood out during his playing career, mainly from 1923 to ’43, and primarily with the powerhouse Homestead Grays. He made an even bigger mark as a manager. With his max-effort style setting an example for his players, he piloted the Grays to seven pennants (some sources count an eighth) in a 12-season span (1937-48) in the second Negro National League, a mark unparalleled in the major Negro Leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of a series concerning the 2022 Early Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 5. For Jay Jaffe’s introduction to the ballot, see here.

Buck O’Neil

“Among the luminaries on the KayCees team is John O’Neil, who has been acclaimed as the finest fielding and hitting first baseman in Negro baseball.” – The Evening News, Harrisburg Pennsylvania, July 1941

In February of 2006, the Special Committee on the Negro Leagues convened to consider 39 candidates from the Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues Black baseball for induction into the Hall of Fame, a final ballot selected from an initial group of 94; Buck O’Neil was among those finalists. But when the Committee announced the results of their work, O’Neil wasn’t one of the 17 players and executives elected. O’Neil never got to experience a Major League debut, as his Negro Leagues playing career was ending just as Major League Baseball was integrating. After serving as both a first baseman and manager with the Kansas City Monarchs, he worked as a scout and became the first African-American coach in MLB. In later years, he gained admiration as one of the game’s greatest ambassadors and storytellers.

“God’s been good to me. They didn’t think Buck was good enough to be in the Hall of Fame. That’s the way they thought about it and that’s the way it is, so we’re going to live with that. Just keep loving old Buck. Don’t weep for Buck. No, man, be happy, be thankful,” he told The Kansas City Star in 1995. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of a series concerning the 2022 Early Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 5. For an introduction to the ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Dick “Cannonball” Redding

“From 1911 when he broke into fast company, until a few years ago he used nothing but his smoke ball. And it was impossible to hit it. I know, because I have tried,” Ben Taylor, Hall of Fame first baseman, 1925

“Redding would show the batter his back for perhaps two seconds while balancing on his right foot before letting go with his fastball. The fans loved this bit of showmanship and batters found that it did not detract from the speed of the pitch.” — Robert Peterson, Only the Ball Was White, 1970

Dick Redding was one of the best pitchers in the decade before the Negro Leagues formed, an imposing, overpowering righty who earned the nickname “Cannonball” thanks to his smoking fastball. Standing 6-foot-4 (though some sources only report 6-foot-1) and weighing 210 to 245 pounds, he had huge hands that could hide a baseball, and dealt in deception and disruption, working with a no-windup delivery with his back to the hitter and later adding a hesitation pitch that predated that of Satchel Paige. He threw only fastballs early in his career, albeit with pinpoint control (“three pitches — fastball on the outer half, fastball down the middle and fastball inside,” as David Barr wrote) and the threat of a brushback; later, he added a curveball and a fadeaway (screwball). He had exceptional stamina, generally finishing what he started and sometimes pitching two or three days worth of doubleheaders in a row. Read the rest of this entry »