Wide-angle views of early baseball games provide an unending source of fascination and speculation: What ballpark? Which teams? What year? Can we identify any of the players? Of these, for obvious reasons, the last question is usually the most difficult one to answer.

Rarely, absent a highly credible contemporary source, is such a photo published with anything approaching definitive player IDs. When such claims are made, one wonders: How can you really know who the players are?

The wonderful photo below of the Chicago Cubs’ Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown pitching against the Brooklyn Dodgers in a 1912 game at Washington Park in Brooklyn appeared in Brooklyn Dodgers by Mark Rucker (2002).

Click on the image to read the rest of this article in its original pictorial layout:

PDF link to article: https://sabr.box.com/shared/static/z5dfmupr44638ujkih13hks78w6uam1y.pdf

MARK FIMOFF, an electronic engineer, is author of the “Mystery Photo” column in the SABR Pictorial History Committee Newsletter.

Without fail, each offseason brings with it a multitude of personnel concerns for each team. Players lost to free agency need to be replaced; those no longer effective require upgrades; and it seems that every team has the worst bullpen in the league. While the big-name, big-money acquisitions hog the headlines, the majority of transactions involve less money given to average, slightly above-average, or risky players.

These moves have come to be known as “low-risk, high-reward.” If little money is being committed, it seems to be a worthwhile investment to take a flyer on a formerly successful veteran; he may be able to regain past form. If not, the club will not suffer much because their commitment was not great in the first place. With these signings becoming more prominent each year I decided to investigate, with respect to pitchers, whether or not teams are actually rewarded highly for their low-risk signings.

DEFINING LOW RISK, HIGH REWARD

The first aspect of these signings refers to contract length. “Low risk” implies a lack of commitment to the duration of a contract. When discussing the contract duration I am going to consider the following situations to be of low risk:

• minor-league deal
• waiver claim
• 1-year deal
• 1-year deal with option

The second part of low-risk signings involves offering the pitcher a lesser contract in exchange for his getting another shot at playing in the major leagues. When we determine monetary criteria, the major factor to take into account is the differential in team payrolls. It would not be fair to set a maximum dollar value at, say, $4 million, because for different teams that would account for a different percentage of total payroll.

Four million dollars would equate to 3.96 percent of the payroll of the 2007 Chicago White Sox. It would account for as much as 10.71 percent of the payroll of the 2004 Washington Nationals. Clearly the figure was more significant to the Nationals, because it represented a higher percentage of their payroll. Then you’ve got instances of 2008 Alex Rodriguez making as much as the 2007 Florida Marlins!

And so to use percentages of team salary makes more sense than to use raw figures. In order to qualify as a low-risk, high-reward pitcher signing, one must meet the aforementioned duration criteria as well as account for no more than 5.25 percent of the team payroll. On a team of 25 players, each will average 4.0 percent; I allowed an extra 1.25 percent to give some leeway to small-market teams in rebuilding phases. For consistency’s sake, though, I evaluated all of these signings on a case-by-case basis in order to determine if any truly should not merit inclusion. For the most part the moves I logged consisted of salaries below 4.0 percent.

LOGGING TRANSACTIONS

Using the ESPN.com transaction archive, I logged all of the moves from October 2002 through August 2007 that met the contract-duration criteria. Through the USA Today Salary Database, I determined individual and team salaries. After entering all of the data, I removed any signing in excess of the 5.25 percent. This left me with 352 pitcher signings to examine.

It is interesting to see the frequency, or lack thereof, per team. For instance, the Cleveland Indians made 22 such moves in this span,whereas the San Francisco Giants made only two: Al Levine in 2005 and Russ Ortiz in 2007. I expected to have five pages consisting solely of Athletics transactions but found only eight qualifying moves. It then dawned on me that Billy Beane has an undying love of young arms, and his low-risk signings were more on the offensive front.

As for individual players, a fair number had been low-risk signings as many as three times. However, only three pitchers achieved the feat four or more times: Terry Mulholland (5), Pedro Astacio (4), and James Baldwin (4). For the record, of the thirteen total seasons between these three pitchers, only Astacio’s 2005 with the Padres and Mulholland’s 2004 with the Twins actually produced significantly positive results. Table 1 shows the number of low-risk pitcher signings per team.

DETERMINING THE AMOUNT OF REWARD

With everything logged, I decided to use Keith Woolner’s VORP (value over replacement player) statistic to gauge the actual reward levels of these signings. VORP made the most sense to me since the statistic acknowledges the contributions made by league-average players; though these players are not superstars, it would not be fair to deem them ineffectual in a zerosum game like baseball. Other statistics will use average players as the 0.0 baseline, but VORP uses a below-average player.

In its simplest definition VORP measures the amount of runs contributed above what a replacement-level player would produce in the same percentage of team plate appearances. With respect to pitchers, it refers to the amount of runs saved above what a slightly belowaverage pitcher would give up if given the same amount of opportunities.

It does not account for defense in the way that Win Shares does but, because we are measuring pitchers, the amount of runs saved vastly outweighs this. I am not sure any general manager has ever signed a pitcher primarily for his defensive ability.

In terms of logging statistics, only the VORP total(s) for the duration of the low-risk contract qualified. For instance, if a player signed a low-risk deal in 2003 and then went on to have productive seasons with the same team in 2004 and 2005, only the 2003 VORP was recorded. The 2004 and 2005 seasons were under different contracts unlikely to meet the 5.25 percent maximum. Additionally, due to the productivity of the initial low-risk season, the risk no longer exists; the team understands what type of production the pitcher could provide. Signing him to a deal still 5.25 percent or less of the team’s salary would not necessarily qualify as low-risk but rather as a reasonable upgrade over the low-risk contract.

ANALYZING VORP

In order to determine if these signings worked out, the question of what constitutes reward must be answered. Clearly, anything 0.0 or below would be detrimental, as 0.0 would imply no reward to the team, and a value less than that would imply that the pitcher’s effect on the team was actually negative. Additionally, players never called up to the big leagues after signing a low-risk deal provided no reward, as they were never given a shot.

While this would not necessarily be negative on the scale of Jose Lima’s 2005 season, it would still suggest that no reward was earned. The question then becomes: How do we analyze positive VORPs?

After some careful thought it was determined that, while anything above 0.0 is technically positive, there are different levels of positive rewards. A pitcher could provide low reward, medium reward, or high reward. Here is the reward criteria in terms of VORP totals:

• Negative Reward: VORP < 0.0
• No Reward: VORP = 0.0 or N/A
• Low Reward: VORP = 0.1 to 9.99
• Medium Reward: VORP = 10.0 to 19.99
• High Reward: VORP = 20.0 +

Table 1. “Low-Risk” Pitcher Signings, 2002–2007

LOW-RISK BREAKDOWN

Of the 352 low-risk pitcher signings in this five-year span:

• 16 were high-reward
• 47 were medium-reward
• 101 were low-reward
• 96 were no-reward (0.0 VORP or never called up) 92 were negative-reward

By combining the five subjects into two—medium-reward or higher-reward, and then everything else— we are left with 63 significant rewards and 289 instances of little, no, or negative rewards. Essentially, from September 2002 to August 2007, these low-risk pitcher signings have truly worked out approximately one-sixth of the time (17.8 percent).

The highest reward belonged to Chris Carpenter, who recovered from Tommy John surgery and had a then career year in 2004 with the Cardinals. Jaret Wright had the second-best reward, during his 2004 season with the Atlanta Braves. (Incidentally, Wright also had the second-worst VORP of low-risk pitcher signings, during his 2003 season with the Padres. Wright’s 2003 VORP was –15.7, a distant second-to-last from Jose Lima’s –31.6 in 2005.)

VORP TO WAR

Using the rule of thumb that 10 VORP runs equates to one win above replacement (WAR) allows us to quantify the results in a form more suitable in determining team contribution. Carpenter’s 40.5 VORP equates to

4.05 wins; his production in saving runs relative to the amount a replacement-level pitcher would surrender resulted in a contribution of about four wins. The numbers essentially stay the same as they are merely being scaled down, but converting saved runs to wins helps in determining whether or not these moves are worth the risk.

Here are the low-risk pitchers accounting for two or more wins above replacement:

WORTH THE LOW RISK?

Now that the results are there, we can use them to determine whether the low-risk signing is a sound strategy. By simply looking at the breakdown of reward types shown earlier, we can deduce that, in this span of five years, only a small percentage of low-risk pitcher signings have provided a significant reward. This does not necessarily undermine the strategy, however, as it is important to analyze the results with the mindset of a prospective general manager unable to know whether his low-risk pitcher will work out.

When we try to determine whether the strategy is worth continuing, the ideas of betting and probability come into play. The Cardinals gambled on Chris Carpenter and their strategy paid off immensely. However, the success of the strategy depends on how often it pays off overall, not on how well certain select moves pay off. If you make five low-risk pitcher signings and only one of them works out, no matter how much that pitcher produced, the strategy does not look very sound—80 percent of those signings were not worth it. The key here is to find the sum total of salaries and wins above replacement among these pitchers and then calculate how much each win costs. With this group of 352, the salaries add up to $214.2 million, and they combine for 1 0.4 WAR. This results in a salary of approximately $1.94 million per win. Generally speaking, the more reliable free agents will cost somewhere between $4 million and $7 million per win above replacement. Signing low-risk pitchers appears to be a sound strategy because a general manager is paying significantly less money per win. If the low-risk pitchers had cost somewhere near the aforementioned range or even more, then the strategy would not make sense. If you are going to end up paying a similar amount per win, then it is a much safer investment to sign a pitcher who brings with him less of a question mark.

When it comes to these signings, though, it is important to remember that for every Chris Carpenter there are four Bruce Chens. It might make sense to take a flyer on a pitcher to fill out a rotation, but to build the majority of a rotation with these pitchers would not be a good use of payroll.

TIM RAINES

With 808 career stolen bases, Tim Raines is one of the top basestealers in the history of the game. A native of Sanford, Florida, Raines spent 23 big-league seasons compiling a lifetime batting average of .294 while play- ing for the Expos, White Sox, Yankees, and three other teams.

After appearing briefly for Montreal in 1979 and 1980, the switch-hitting Raines established himself as one of baseball’s premier leadoff men by batting .304, stealing a league-leading 71 bases, and scoring  61 runs in the 88 games of the strike-shortened 1981 season, after which he was named National League Rookie of the Year.

Raines then led the league for the next three years in a row in stolen bases, achieving his career high of 90 in 1983. A seven-time All-Star, he is the only player in major-league history to steal 70 or more bases in six straight seasons.

Raines’s .334 batting average in 1986 led the league. In 1990 he was traded to the White Sox, where he spent five years. He then signed with the Yankees, where he played three years and was a part of World Series championships in 1996 and 1998. Early in 1999 Raines signed as a free agent with Oakland, but halfway through the season he was diagnosed with lupus.

Raines recovered, however, and was back in the big leagues in 2001 with the Orioles, where he joined his son, Tim Raines Jr. With Tim Sr. in left field and Tim Jr. in center field, the the two of them became the second father-son combination, after the Griffeys, to play on the same team. After finishing his career with the Florida Marlins in 2002, Raines became a coach and a minor-league manager. When interviewed in 2007, he was coaching the Harrisburg Senators. He is currently manager of the Newark Bears.

I never really kept track of the number of stolen bases I had at any one time—at least not the way people today keep track. If I had, I’d have probably stolen a lot more bases—probably more than a thousand. For me, stealing bases meant helping the team win games; it wasn’t about stats.

I stole bases because that was the way our team won games. In Montreal we utilized speed, so I utilized mine. I wasn’t a home-run hitter; my game was getting on base and trying to make something happen. I don’t really remember any significant stolen bases— number 100 or number 300, for instance. The one exception is number 500, which came when I was with the Yankees and we were playing against the Expos in Montreal. Doing it where I’d spent a lot of years made it special.

In hindsight, what might have helped me steal more bases and get me into the Hall of Fame was stealing more when games were out of hand. Normally, when you’re up or down eight runs, the other team won’t hold you on base. But I didn’t run in those situations, because doing so would be seen as showing up the opponent. I was afraid the other team would retaliate by throwing at one of my teammates or me. Rickey Henderson would usually go in that situation, and so would Vince Coleman and a lot of guys, regardless of the score. They’ve since changed the rules; today, if the game is out of hand and they’re not holding you on, you can steal a base but not get credit for it. But I still wouldn’t run, even if it meant a thousand stolen bases would get me to the Hall; I didn’t play the game that way and wasn’t concerned with stats. I just played to win.

When I started in the big leagues, I used sheer speed to steal bases. Back then, the pitchers weren’t as concerned about baserunners as they are today. If you stole a base, they’d resolve to strike out the next two batters, so it didn’t really matter to them if you were on base or not: They didn’t have the slide step or quick release to the plate. Those things alone can reduce a pitcher’s time to the plate to 1.1 seconds, from 1.4 seconds or 1.5 seconds, making it a lot harder for the runner.

Nowadays, pitchers—even the power pitchers—go to instructional leagues, where they’re taught how to develop a slide step. And speed has even changed catching; today, teams hire catching instructors who go around and work with catchers on their timing. They try to get catchers to work on their throws to second—getting them to reach the bag more quickly, usually in 1.8 or 1.9 seconds. Doing that gives the team in the field more of a chance.

The changes have meant that speed isn’t so big a part of the game today. In my day, there were usually three or four guys who stole a lot of bases—myself, Rickey [Henderson], Vince [Coleman], Ozzie Smith, and Lonnie Smith. Vince, Ozzie, and Lonnie were part of those Cardinal teams; they ran all the time, and were pretty much the only team that relied, big-time, on the stolen base. Most teams had one or two guys with a chance to steal 50 or more bases a year.

At the same time, teams probably have more green-light guys today. If you demonstrate that you can steal bases, a lot of managers today will just let you run— though the minute you’re not successful, you’ll be shut down. When I got to the big leagues, Ron LeFlore had been with Montreal, so the team was certainly used to speed. Ron had the green light, and I was similar. So they took a chance with letting me run, and it worked out.

My method of stealing wasn’t to crouch low like Rickey, but to take more of a standing lead—an athletic position. It was my way, which made stealing bases more of a reaction move. I had to work on it; my thing was to maintain my flexibility and speed by running a lot and doing a lot of stretching. In the offseason I always played basketball to maintain my fitness. And I picked up knowledge about the opposing pitchers pretty fast; I learned, because I figured when I got older, I wasn’t going to have the same speed, so I could use that knowledge to my advantage. We’d go through every pitcher and his times to the plate, what kind of motion and pitches he’d tend to throw with men on base, and the catchers’ times. So when I got on base, I already knew what the pitcher was likely to do.

Take Pedro Martinez. Every time with a guy on base, he takes a big windup on the first pitch to the next batter and delivers it in 1.4 or 1.5 seconds. Then on every pitch after that, he speeds up and delivers the ball in 1.1 seconds or thereabouts. With Pedro, I knew his tendencies, so, if I got on base and he was on the mound, I knew to go on his first pitch.

When you’re taking about speed, Rickey was fast, but there were a lot of guys who were faster. What Rickey had was quickness; his first step was as quick as anyone’s. There’s a difference between reaction to what you see and how quick you react to it—and the best basestealers know that. The key is having instinct, which you can’t teach, no matter how much speed you have. Lou Brock had that instinct.

Also, to be a good basestealer, you need to have the mentality that “I’m going to get a bag every time I’m on base, I don’t care who’s catching and who’s pitching.” Even when you’re thrown out stealing, you have to keep that confidence. For the most part you’re stealing off the pitcher, but you have to let the catcher know that “it’s me and you.” Even if it’s usually the pitcher you’re victimizing, keep in mind that the catcher is probably going to call for fastballs, or three or four fastballs and then a pitchout, or a fastball up and away—a good pitch for throwing to second—to do what he can to catch you out.

Stealing bases is a cat-and-mouse game. A lot of times, a baserunner at first can look in and tell if it’s going to be a pitchout. I’m trying to get the signs, especially as the game goes on. It’s all part of that other dimension, that running, like an ability to hit home runs, brings to a team. The other team always knew when Raines came to town, “We’re going to have to keep him off the bases.” And they knew if they did that, they’d have a chance to win the game. But the other team also knew that unlike a home-run hitter, they couldn’t walk me, or even groove it down the middle, because I could hit, too.

Somebody who can steal disrupts everything. The middle infielders are moving around. The catcher is fidgety. The pitcher is all screwed up. And everybody else on the other team is saying, “Well, if he goes, I got to back the play up.” Everybody is moving. And not only does the team have to worry about the guy on base, but they still need to concentrate on the guy at the plate. Meantime, the guy at bat loves it because he’s looking for something they’re bound to groove right over the plate so the catcher has a good ball to throw. So the team at bat tries putting a batter behind the guy on base, someone who can take pitches and handle the bat. With a home-run hitter, all you do is move back to the wall, or hope your pitcher strikes him out. Stolen bases change the whole game.

I developed my speed from playing football. In high school [Seminole High School in Sanford, Florida] I played four sports—football, basketball, and baseball, and ran track. In the spring I played baseball, and on days when we didn’t have a game, I did track. I never really practiced track, but just went out and did the meets—running the 100, the relays and the 330-yard intermediate hurdles, and long jumping. The first time I ran the 100, I broke the school and conference record. And though I never really practiced the long jump, I set the school record, which lasted for a good 20 years, until it was broken by a guy who became an Olympic triple jumper.

Being a running back in football helped me develop quick feet. It’s a pretty basic exercise: When guys come after you, you just run faster. So to me, a guy trying to tackle me is a lot like stealing a base— you need quickness and a good first step. Playing basketball helped me maintain my quickness as well— and so did playing sports with my family, starting with my dad, who played baseball, and my brothers, who played football, basketball, and baseball.

All my brothers were older, which meant growing up, I always had to play with older guys if I wanted to play at all. So when I was five I was playing baseball— and catching—in a league against eight-year-olds, when I should have been playing tee-ball. I remember one time when a guy ran me over at the plate, and I cried. But I loved it; I was playing with my brothers in a league where I wasn’t supposed to be playing, but they let me play. At a young age, it helped me feel the competition against bigger and supposedly better kids. I learned to rise to the talent level, so by the time I got to competing against people my own age, it was like a man playing against boys.

Once I reached the major leagues, it was a lot like being a kid again and playing against my brothers. I told myself that I shouldn’t feel like a rookie, because I’d been competing against older, bigger athletes my whole life. That helped, because you have to have that confidence going into the big leagues; otherwise, you’re not going to be around long. You have to feel like you fit in. Montreal called me up briefly in 1979, and then again in 1980, when I went 1 for 20. But I always thought that I could compete against these guys; all I needed was a chance. So in ’80, I went down to Triple A, to Denver, and told myself that, when I go back up, I’m going to be ready. I won the Minor League Player of the Year Award and a batting title and set the league record for stolen bases.1 So then I said to myself, “Okay, now that I proved to the minor leagues that I’m beyond their level . . . I’m ready for the big leagues.”

In 1981 I went up for good, and it didn’t feel like such a big deal, because I was ready for the transition. The best thing to happen early on came in my first game of my first full season: I walked my first time up,2 stole second, and scored when the ball got away. That was the biggest thing for my confidence; I was able to do something that most guys just don’t do. People said, “Wow!” And I said to myself, “Okay, I’m here.”

In my day, Rickey and I were the two guys people would talk about when it came to stolen bases. But we could run and were both good hitters. People don’t always talk about Rickey’s ability at the plate—but he had 3,055 career hits, and has more career home runs leading off a game than anyone in history [81], and had power [297 lifetime home runs]. The ability to steal bases is what kept me in the major leagues early in my career, but, as my career extended, it was my ability at the plate that distinguished me, I think. I won the batting title in 1986, hit .300 or more eight times, and could hit home runs [170 homers, lifetime]. Yet people don’t look at it that way, in part because I played in Montreal (and out of the spotlight) for so long. They never put two and two—the ability to run and hit—together. Either you were a runner, a hitter, or a power hitter; Rickey and I were all three, and even as leadoff guys, we drove in runs.

At the same time, basestealers don’t really seek one another out. We don’t have to; Rickey had his way of doing things, I had mine, and Vince Coleman had his way. The only major difference between myself and them was the way I stood up or bent down when taking a lead or my first step. But I paid attention to what Rickey and the others were doing, so, when it comes to coaching and teaching, I can draw on what they did. I tell young players the way Rickey did it, Coleman did it, and I did it; that way, we can try ’em all and see which works best.

Though I played a lot of years in Montreal, what helped me get some exposure was playing in the All-Star Game (seven in all). My first couple of years, we had a bunch of guys make the All-Star team: Andre Dawson, Gary Carter, Steve Rogers, and myself, so people knew about us. In 1981 we won the NL East and lost to the Dodgers in the championship series, but I swear we had a better team than they did. We had some good teams and had a great minor-league system, but didn’t have those one or two players who could have put us over the hump. The Expos didn’t have the money, and a lot of people didn’t want to play in Montreal.

In rating ballplayers today, speed is part of the overall package, but reaction time is still more important, to my mind. You can have the fastest guy in the world, but if he doesn’t know how to read the pitcher, or if his reaction time is a step slow, he doesn’t do a team much good. When I was 30 I wasn’t as fast as I was at 22, but I had learned how to pick and choose my attempts. If there was a breaking-ball pitcher, even though he was a slide stepper, I’d pick a certain count and go. For pitchers I knew well, I’d try to anticipate when he might throw over. Having speed changes the dynamic of the game; with speed on the bases, you can expect catchers to call a lot of fastballs; they like throwing guys out and don’t want to be the guys who give up the stolen bases. And pitchers don’t want to get guys into scoring position.

On this team [the Harrisburg Senators], we have one green-light guy, and even he’s shut down by the manager occasionally. We also don’t know the pitchers in the minor leagues; sometimes, all we know about the opposing pitcher is that he’s a left-hander or a right-hander. We take it game by game; we time the opposing pitchers and work on timing. The difference in the big leagues is that they have stats on everything. Steve Boros, my first-base coach in Montreal, was the first guy who got me into stats. He’d give me and all the guys our times to first base and tell us the pitcher’s times to the plate. I learned that any pitcher who would deliver the ball at 1.3 seconds and above, I figured I had a chance. But most pitchers didn’t have the slide step back then, so I figured I had a chance to steal on pretty much anyone.

When I played, most of the power pitchers had big kicks, and they weren’t that concerned with trying to speed up their deliveries. They figured that by changing their mechanics, they would add several miles per hour on their fastballs. It’s not that they weren’t concerned; they’d throw over and try to pick you off, and you had catchers who called more fastballs in case you ran.

Today, you still have guys who go through the wind-up, but they take a peek at the runner at first; back then they weren’t really concerned. And for the team at bat, they seldom want to take a chance at a stolen base in front of their three, four, or five hitters. They want to give those guys a chance to drive runners home. Look at Boston, who haven’t had much speed since Johnny Damon went to the Yankees. They have Coco Crisp,3 who can run but is not a blazer, and is often shut down. That team is built on power. 

Notes

1. Raines stole 71 bases in 1981 and reached a career high of 90 in His record was broken in 1984 by Vince Coleman, who stole 101 bases that year with Louisville in the American Association.
2. Several at-bats are combined in Raines’s memory of this game. In his first regular-season appearance at the plate, on April 9, 1982, he flew out to left. He walked on his fourth plate appearance.
3. Crisp played for the Boston Red Sox through In November 2008 he was traded to the Kansas City Royals.

TOMMY JOHN

Tommy John is noted for his big-game mastery in 26 big-league seasons—and for undergoing the pioneering ligament-repair operation that would eventually become known as Tommy John surgery—an operation most thought would end his major-league career.

John, a left-hander, made his big-league debut in 1963 with the Cleveland Indians and earned a reputation as one of the American League’s premier control pitchers. Traded to Los Angeles in the winter of 1971, John in 1974 permanently damaged the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching arm, prompting a revolutionary surgical operation. The surgery, performed by Dr. Frank Jobe in 1974, involved replacement of the ligament in the elbow of John’s pitching arm with a tendon from his right forearm. After a year’s recovery, John was back in the Dodgers’ rotation in 1976.

John went on to pitch until 1989 and earned 164 of his 288 victories after his surgery. In 1976, John received the Hutch Award for displaying honor, courage, and dedication to baseball both on and off the field. Following the 1981 season, he was named winner of the Lou Gehrig Memorial Award, which is given to the player who best exemplifies the character of Lou Gehrig. John had three seasons of 20 or more wins, he was selected to four All-Star Games, and he played in four World Series.

Tommy John had difficulty holding runners on base when he joined the National League in 1972, but Maury Wills coached him to speed up his motion, and he learned from watching tape of Jim Kaat’s quick release.  Today, John serves as manager of the independent Bridgeport Bluefish. The once revolutionary and experimental operation that bears his name has now become standard, and many well-known pitchers, including Kerry Wood and John Smoltz, have benefited from Tommy John surgery.

The best basestealers? When I started out, one was Luis Aparicio. He was tough. If he played in this era, he may have 100 stolen bases. Back then, you would steal a base only when it was appropriate. Today, play- ers just steal at any time.

The first time I ever saw Luis was in 1959 when he was with the “Go-Go” White Sox. He was like a rocket. But for the most part, American League players just didn’t steal a lot of bases back then, nor did they into the late ’60s. After Luis, the White Sox didn’t have any basestealers, and neither did the Tigers or the Red Sox. Why? It was the way the game was played and the mentality back then. American League players would sit back and hit the long ball.

There were some exceptions. Rod Carew of the Twins was a great basestealer, and in 1969, he stole home seven times. He tried it on me once with Bob Allison at the plate, but I saw him start to break out of the corner of my eye, and just threw home in a quick motion. I got him, and the Twins claimed I had balked. But the umpire’s decision stood. I got him.

But when I went to the National League in 1972 with the Dodgers, the mentality about stolen bases was different. In the NL, the idea was to create runs. When I got there, Lou Brock and Joe Morgan were the premier basestealers. In my first year with the Dodgers, I played with Maury Wills, one of the best. Then the Dodgers brought up Davey Lopes from the minors, and he became one of the very best as well.

Joining the National League, I had the hardest time in holding runners on base. I had pitching coaches work with me, but they couldn’t get through to me, and my problem continued. But then at spring training at Vero Beach with the Dodgers a year or so later, Maury, who was coaching, took me out to one of the half-fields and we had a session. I went to the mound, and every time I’d go home, he would take off from first; I couldn’t go to first. I asked, Could he tell when I committed to the plate? Maury was “reading” me— picking up my gestures. He told me that he could steal off me any time he chose—and that the only way I could ever get anyone to hold at first was if I sped up my motion and went to home more quickly.

At the time, Jim Kaat was a member of the White Sox, and had developed a quick release with runners on base. So when the Dodgers were in Chicago to play the Cubs, I called the White Sox and asked them to set up a tape of Kaat pitching. They agreed, and when we were playing at Wrigley Field, the Dodgers gave me permission to go to Comiskey Park, where I watched a 30-minute tape of Kaat pitching. Based on what I saw, I started working on a motion like Kaat’s. It was quicker—and all of a sudden, I was getting to the plate fast enough so runners on base couldn’t steal off me. I got to the point where I was getting the ball to home in 1.1 seconds, which is phenomenally fast.

Most big-league catchers can get the ball to second base in about 1.9 seconds. So between my pitching and their throwing to second, it would take only three seconds. That was fast—and fast enough to catch runners. They couldn’t steal. My new motion got guys to stop stealing off me.

From that point, only certain guys were going to run on me. Contrary to the book Moneyball and the thinking of Billy Beane, stolen bases may not mean a lot over the long haul, but baserunners can use them to create havoc in a game. Baserunners make a team in the field do things they don’t want to do, all to keep them from running—starting with pitchers making a bad pitch home. If you’re a pitcher, you can’t put the focus on home and on a runner at first base. It has to be one or the other.

A good baserunner gets into a pitcher’s mind. If a pitcher gives 50–50—that is, he focuses on both home and on the runner in an equal amount—then he can’t make a quality pitch. Pitchers have to pay more attention to the batter than they do a runner. It’s got to be that way.

In my case, though, I’d had enough experience when I got to the National League that I “quick” pitched and didn’t worry about the baserunner. I would just come set and throw home—and even if a runner had a walking lead, he still couldn’t steal off me. I could get the ball to the plate faster than he could steal.

When I came up, prospects weren’t evaluated much on their speed. But today, you hear a lot about “five- tool players”—those who excel at hitting for average, hitting for power, baserunning and speed, throwing ability, and fielding abilities. Those tools are teachable, all but speed, which is an exception. Speed and a 95- mile-an-hour fastball are things you’re born with; you either have it or you don’t.

You can, however, teach good baserunning. Bernie Williams was fast, but not a good basestealer. He could go from second to home or first to third well, but he never developed any skill in stealing bases. On the other hand, Maury Wills wasn’t especially fast, but he was quick, and became the premier basestealer of his day. Later in my career, Don Baylor and Jose Canseco were both good basestealers—not people you thought of as exceptionally fast, but able to run the bases well and able to take advantage of a situation.

Good basestealers need to read the pitchers. They need to anticipate situations in which to run and know when to run. And they have to be able to do what Maury could do, which is to reach top speed after their first step. There were a bunch of guys who could probably beat Maury going first to third base, but in his prime, no one was better than Maury in getting from first to second.

Maury told me once that, contrary to the common thought, it was easier for him to steal on a left-handed pitcher than a right-hander. Left-handers face first base but give it away easier, he said. Maury could take a good lead and draw a throw two and three times in a row, and be able to read that pitcher and know exactly what he could do. Maury was a very savvy ballplayer.

If the count is 0–1, it’s generally a good time to run, because the pitcher is liable to follow with a breaking ball. If it’s a 1–0 or a 1–1 count, it probably isn’t a good time to run, because the opposing manager may think he can afford a pitchout. But if you’re going to steal with a hitter’s count of 2–0, 2–1, or 3–1, you’re taking a risk and kind of taking the bat out of the batter’s hands. In most situations, if the batter sees you running, he’s going to take the pitch. If you’re running later in the count, you had better make it.

Good baserunners can also steal signs by taking a good lead and peeking in at the catcher’s signs. Rickey Henderson could do that. On the other hand, Rickey couldn’t steal off Bob Boone if his life depended on it. The reason was that Boone had a particular thumb signal for the pitcher to “throw over” to first base. Boone would open his legs just a little as he was giving the sign and let Rickey see that he was telling the pitcher to throw over. But in reality, the sign was for the pitcher to throw a fastball, which he’d then do with Rickey crossed up and staying at first base.

For pitchouts, Boone had another sign—a series of signs, actually—in which he would pump his fingers four consecutive times. In Rickey’s case, it worked again—and kept him close to the bag.

A good baserunner adds a dimension to your offense. They get in the head of the pitcher. And they make the infielders play up and stay closer to the bag. Baserunners get the second basemen, for instance, to “cheat in,” as we call it, by keeping a step closer to the plate in case of a bunt. That means you can’t cover as much of an area if the hitter sends the ball by you. There’s a lot that goes into basestealing and baserunning. As a manager, I don’t think enough thought goes into it.

In the majors, players get to know the pitchers. But in the minor leagues, we don’t know many of the opposing pitchers—and so we give our players the green light. If they get a good jump, they can run. If they feel they can steal a base, they can run. That goes for about five of our players, who have the green light. In this league, we have a watch on the opposing pitchers. If they deliver to the plate in 1.4 or 1.5 seconds, which isn’t fast, we usually tell our baserunners that they can go. We don’t look for speed necessarily, but if they have it, well, that’s gravy.

To my mind, basestealing has very little to do with the ballgame, except in the last three innings. You can steal four, five, or six bases early in the game, and a home run gets you right back in the game. But if you’re down a run in the late innings and it’s a close game, stolen bases can mean a lot. You can steal second and get to third on a bunt, you can score on a sacrifice fly—and it’s a new game.

Today’s premier basestealer? Probably José Reyes of the Mets. There are some good baserunners out there, but basestealing has gotten more challenging with the smaller ballparks. When they get smaller, it’s not necessary to steal bases to score runs. You can wait for the fat pitch and it’s gone. 

BUTCH WYNEGAR

Described on a Minnesota Twins blogsite as “Joe Mauer before there was a Joe Mauer,” Butch Wynegar was a switch-hitting highschool catcher from York, Pennsylvania, when he was selected by the Twins in the second round of the 1974 draft. After winning the Appalachian League batting title (.346) in his first pro season, Wynegar reached the major leagues in 1976 at the age of 20, and that season he became the youngest position player to play in the All-Star Game.

An outstanding defensive catcher, Wynegar was named The Sporting News’s American League Rookie of the Year that season, after hitting .260 with 10 home runs and 69 RBIs. He would be an All-Star again in 1977 and would play 13 big-league seasons, mostly with the Twins, and later with the Yankees and Angels. In his best season, with the 1983 Yankees, Wynegar hit .296 and caught Dave Righetti’s no-hitter.

After his playing career ended, Wynegar was a minor-league manager and coach in the Baltimore Orioles’ and Texas Rangers’ farm systems before he joined the Milwaukee Brewers as batting coach in 2003. He now coaches the Scranton–Wilkes-Barre Yankees.

In my day, there were a bunch of guys who could steal bases. Mickey Rivers of the Yankees was one. And the Oakland A’s had a number of basestealers, guys like Rickey Henderson; Herb Washington, the designated runner; Billy North; and Miguel Diloné, who could fly. Kansas City had a bunch of great runners as well, like Willie Wilson, Frank White, and Amos Otis.

I’d say that 90 percent of stolen bases are swiped off the pitcher. Today, there are statistics—basically [there’s] a stat on the Internet for anything you want to find—for the combined time a pitcher throws to plate (1.3 seconds is typical) and a catcher then throws to second base (in, say, 2.0 seconds). That’s a total of 3.3 seconds from the time a pitcher releases the ball to the time a catcher gets it to second—which is too slow for a fast runner, who can usually get from first to second in about 3.1 seconds. Today you can keep track of all these things.

It’s almost funny to compare all these statistics to the lack of stats when I got to the big leagues in 1976. I had just turned 20, and though I knew how to catch, I still had a lot to learn, namely about basestealers. I remember being so wrapped up during my first season about when a guy was going to run that I had about 18 passed balls. Sure, we practiced our throws to second and to third, but I never knew what my times were until later in my career. I didn’t think about it; I just tried to be as quick and accurate as I could in my throws.

A team’s tendency to run is really up to the manager. Billy Martin was very aggressive, and he would run in any situation with anyone and at any time. When he was managing Oakland, Billy used an old play on me, shortly after I’d come up: With runners at first and third base and two strikes on the batter, the guy at first would take a secondary lead and trip and fall. So of course, I’d get the ball, cock my arm, and throw to first—with the guy at third coming to the plate the second I commit to first. He scores, and we retire the guy at first in a rundown. It was a preset play that required the runners to leave their bases at the right time and some pretty good acting on the part of the first-base runner, who had to fall down. If only I’d cocked my arm and stopped and looked at third, we’d have had the guy coming from third. But being a young catcher, I fell for it.

Gene Mauch was my first big-league manager, as well as my mentor and father figure when I was away from home. He was the one who taught me pretty much everything about the game—helping me refine what I learned as a kid from my dad. I remember Gene taking all the pitchers aside at spring training and telling them they simply had to cut down the time delivering the ball to the plate—from 1.5 or 1.6 seconds down to 1.2 or 1.3—all to give the catcher a chance to catch basestealers.

Gene recognized when a pitcher was slow and tried to deal with it. As a catcher, I got sick and tired, early in my career, with pitchers taking their time delivering the ball to the plate, and then having to make up for it. I began hurrying my throws and bouncing them in the dirt, or throwing the ball into center field because my footwork got out of whack. We were playing the A’s one day when Rickey Henderson stole second, and I looked at the scoreboard and saw “E-2,” and I said to myself: “F— this! Give me a chance to catch Rickey Henderson. All I want is a chance to throw in 1.9 seconds down to second and make an accurate throw.” That was the turning point in my career behind the plate; I vowed to myself to set myself and make a good throw, regardless of a runner’s jump. Because of that mentality, I became a better thrower, and the monkey was off my back.

Being 20 at the time and catching experienced and successful pitchers like Bert Blyleven and Davey Goltz, who were both about ten years old than me, I couldn’t very well go out to the mound and say, “Give me a pitch I can throw on, will you?” So I vowed to myself to make more accurate throws, and knew that Gene would deal with getting the pitchers to deliver the ball more quickly. I had to take care of myself and do my job as best I could.

As a catcher, dealing with baserunners was still a matter of not trying to be so quick. I tell our catchers here all the time that if you can throw to second in 1.9 seconds, stick with that speed and you’ll be okay. Don’t come out and try to be Ivan Rodriguez and throw the ball to second in 1.7 seconds. You’ll get air- balls if you try to throw too fast.

Gene taught me something else about how to be a better catcher: He told me to get to know the pitching staff. “Every one of them has a different personality,” Gene said. “I want you to know your staff inside and out—what they throw, when they want to throw it, what they eat for lunch, and what they eat for breakfast.” He wanted me to really know my pitchers, know their strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies, and how to talk to them. If nothing else, I had to become a psychologist; if I knew Jimmy Hughes had a big leg-kick, which made him slow to the plate, I had to find some way to get him to deliver the ball a little faster, so I’d have a chance to catch a baserunner. No wonder so many catchers become managers and coaches; we’re experts at dealing with so many different personalities. We’re dealing with the manager and in scouting meetings. Yup, we’re the psychologists of baseball.

Even when you get a good runner at first and he doesn’t want to go, the catcher doesn’t know that. That was my problem catching during my first couple of years in the big leagues: I always had one eye on the pitcher and my other eye down at first, if a good runner was on base. The pitcher gets concerned, too, and throws over to first a bunch of times. His rhythm is disrupted. The whole game changes.

There was a time when catchers didn’t have to hit, when the three basics were receiving, throwing, and blocking. If you could do those things at a high standard, then you had a good chance to make the big leagues. But today’s game has become so oriented to offense that catchers have to hit. The same thing goes for shortstops: In contrast to the old days, when a lot of them were Punch-and-Judy hitters who could field and had rocket arms, today’s shortstops are guys like Derek Jeter and Miguel Tejada, who can hit the ball out of the ballpark.

The focus on offense has made the stolen base a lot less prevalent than in my day. Those old Oakland and Kansas City teams oriented their whole teams around speed. The Royals had [Willie] Wilson, [Frank] White, [Amos] Otis, Al Cowens, and George Brett. Their whole lineup could run, and playing them was like a track meet. Oakland could [do that] too, and there were days when they just ran rampant and I was helpless, I had no chance in throwing their guys out.

Brett was a good example of a guy who wasn’t a speed demon, but knew how to run and steal bases. He was smart on the base paths, a guy who knew he couldn’t outrun the ball, so he had to be heads-up when running. You seldom see a basestealer get on first and then just run. The good ones are looking for a good count to run on, a breaking ball or a changeup. When we played the Red Sox at Fenway Park, my arm got out of shape, because they ran so often that it was almost not worth even trying to throw people out. It was just rat-a-tat, all the time. Between the designated hitter and the small ballpark, their attitude was just to bombard your opponent. Though I never played in the National League, I spent four years there as a coach in Milwaukee, and I’ve got to admit I like the NL style of play: There’s more running—though it doesn’t take much to outrun the American League— and there’s no DH. That means there’s more strategy, too: Do we pinch-hit for the pitcher? Do we bunt the runner over? Do we run in this pitch? There’s a lot of thinking going on.

The orientation on offense today isn’t because players are quicker. I’ll admit that they’re bigger and stronger. But from a catcher’s standpoint, the first thing scouts will tell you is they can’t find catchers these days. It was at the suggestion of a White Sox

scout that I became a catcher in my junior year of high school; he came up to me after a game and said, “Butch, have you ever thought about catching?” I was a third baseman and pitched a little at the time, but I had good hands, a good arm and switch-hit—though I lacked range at third. The scout’s thought was [that] a switch-hitting catcher with a good arm could reach the big leagues pretty quickly. Fortunately, I had a highschool coach who agreed, and so I became a catcher, which I’d played some in Little League. By the time I reached the big leagues, I had three years of catching under my belt.

Here at the Triple-A level, where we don’t always know much about the opposing pitcher, we’ll give a watch to the first-base coach who will time the pitcher’s delivery, and then talk about it with the runners. If the pitcher takes 1.5 seconds to the plate, our runners are usually free to go. Do it right, and someone who isn’t speedy can learn his way around the bases. John Wathan, who set the catcher’s record for most stolen bases in a season (36 for the 1982 Royals), was a good example; he had a knack for taking a good walking lead and being able to steal a base. Carlos Lee, who I coached in Milwaukee, is another; he’s a big guy and not a burner, but he can run the bases. The good base stealers, just like good baserunners, learn to be good by working at it. We encourage everyone, even runners who aren’t that fast, to work on baserunning. I knew I wasn’t speedy, but to score on a base hit from second, I knew that I had to learn how to take a good lead. So, I’d work on baserunning during batting practice and focus on trying to read the ball off the bat and try to get a good jump. You’ll see that a lot of good baserunners aren’t necessarily the fastest. Being a good runner comes down to instinct and focusing on getting a good lead and learning the pitchers.

We try to get our players to be aggressive on the bases. We want to find out who likes to run and who can run, so except for the catcher, everyone is encouraged to run; [they] have the green light here to run, unless we specifically take the “run” sign off. As for the New York Yankees, there’s only a handful of guys who run; with all those great batters and power, they don’t have to run. That goes for most of the American League; a lot of teams don’t have to run.

It pays to study the pitchers. Sometimes they’ll tip off when they’re going to the plate and not realize it. Some pitchers will tip off their pitches by setting themselves with their hands away from their body and follow with a fastball or set themselves with their hands closer to the body, which means an off-speed pitch. Throwing an off-speed pitch means they need to get a better grip on the ball, which means that sometimes they’ll keep their hands closer to their body. Knowing what pitch is on the way can affect a lot, from the hitters to the baserunners.

There’s a lot that goes into the game that the average fan doesn’t realize. They think we come to the park at 4:00 P.M., take batting practice, and then play the game and go home. But a lot of these players are here at noon or 2:00 P.M. and taking batting practice, spending time in the indoor cage, or stretching. And you have guys watching video. A lot is going on.

There’s a lot going on during the game as well. We watch the pitchers and watch the opposing coaches and try to pick up the signs. All of a sudden we’ll know they’re about to hit and run, or steal. And then they’ll know we have their signs, and they’ll change ’em.

Sign stealing is a big part of baserunning. I talk to our catchers all the time about keeping their arms in enough when giving the signs so the runner and the first-base coach can’t see. The only guys who should be able to see your signs are the pitcher, shortstop, and second baseman. Catchers can get lazy and keep their legs apart, and boom, the other team knows their signs. I even remember a time when I was coaching a college team, and we picked up the sign because the opposing catcher was keeping his elbow close to his body when he wanted a fastball, and away from his body for a breaking ball. We pummeled the poor kid on the mound, and he had no clue what was happening. His catcher was giving the signs away. But picking up these things is the fun part of the game. 

There are several approaches to the question “How much is a player worth?” One way to measure “value” is to estimate the market value of a player as reflected by his price (i.e., the value of his contract) in the free-agent market. A second approach is to assess a player’s economic value to his team—how much additional revenue (and asset appreciation) he could be expected to generate for his prospective employer. This article focuses on the latter approach, assessing the economic value of a player to his team, called his marginal revenue product—the amount of incremental revenue a team can be expected to generate owing to the win-contribution of a player’s performance on the field. By estimating the amount of revenue a team would generate with and without a “3-win” or “4-win” player, we can estimate the dollar value of the player to the team. The concept of marginal revenue product as applied to a player’s value refers to the marginal quality of the player and its impact on revenues versus some predetermined baseline, usually a replacement- level player.1

The process to estimate a player’s dollar value follows two key steps: Convert a player’s performance into a win-contribution to the team and translate changes in the team’s on-field performance into its impact on team revenues and  the  value  of  its assets. Fortunately, numerous statistical analysts have translated a player’s performance into his win contribution to his team. Wins above replacement player (WARP) from analysts at Baseball Prospectus, win shares above bench (WSAB) from Dave Studenmund at the Hardball Times, and value sins (VW) from Fangraphs.com, derived from Tom Tango’s wins above replacement (WAR) metric, are examples of this effort. However, in order to convert a player’s win contribution into dollar value, we need to delve deeply into the team’s economics and financials to better understand how revenues fluctuate with the team’s on-field performance. By applying regression analysis to individual team attendance, broadcast revenues, and other revenue streams, we can estimate how a team’s annual wins impact each of these revenues, while adjusting for such factors as new stadium openings, past work stoppages, and previous postseason appearances. (See the sidebar below for a comparison to other research in this area and for some additional detail regarding my methodology.)

Furthermore, by analyzing the relationship between attendance revenues and an MLB team’s other revenue categories, we are able to gain a more complete picture of the impact that winning has on team revenues. (An in-depth analysis of the win—revenue analysis of all MLB teams is one of the subjects of my book Diamond Dollars: The Economics of Winning in Baseball.)2 Having taken this approach in some instances with team-specific proprietary data and, in other cases, with team-specific publicly available data, I’ve reached four important conclusions that generally apply to the win–revenue relationship for all MLB teams:

Winning and revenues are highly correlated and behave in a predictable and measurable way, influenced by the strength of the team’s brand, the loyalty of its fans, and the size of its market. Each team’s win—revenue relationship is unique, which means that a player’s value is best defined in the context of a team. Winning affects revenues over a range—generally, from 70 to 100 wins for a season—but, at the low and high extremes (<70 and >100), winning has little impact on revenues. For example, if the San Diego Padres should improve on their 63-win season of 2008 by winning 68 games in 2009, the effect on revenue is expected to be negligible.

The fan response to winning is somewhat lagged. Statistically speaking, the strongest relationships between wins and attendance occur when wins are defined as a combination of the previous and current year’s annual win totals. This makes intuitive sense since a team’s season-ticket renewals and advance sales are influenced by the team’s just-completed season as well as by fans’ perceptions of offseason trades and player signings. If a team gets out of the gate strong with a winning April and May, it bodes well for second-half ticket revenues. If the team sustains their performance for the balance of the season, that is likely to benefit advance sales for the following season.

A significant revenue windfall occurs when a team reaches the postseason. This is due to a pattern of fan behavior that is commonplace across all of baseball but is most pronounced when a team reaches the playoffs after having missed qualifying for several years or more. The implication of this finding is that not all wins between 70 and 100 are equally valued. Those wins that heighten the chance of a postseason appearance are clearly valued at a premium.

THE POSTSEASON EFFECT

When a team reaches the postseason, particularly after a prolonged absence, a predictable pattern of fan behavior occurs, which translates into a revenue windfall. Two recent examples of this impact were triggered by the 2005 White Sox and the 2006 Tigers. Once a team qualifies for October baseball, fans invariably scramble for playoff tickets, only to find the seating selection or price in the secondary market disappointing. With their newfound optimism about the future prospects of their favorite team, some fans decide to purchase full- or partial-season tickets for the next season. They view these as “options” on future playoff seats. In addition, the newly validated playoff team experiences strong advance single-game sales for the coming season as well as improved broadcast ratings, which can lead to more advertising revenue.3 Corporate sponsors jockey for position to secure their team affiliation, and even luxury-suite demand increases as the team’s games become a more desirable customer entertainment option. Furthermore, teams show greater resolve to raise ticket prices—and fans show a greater willingness to absorb them—for a playoff team. From the inception of the wild card in 1995 through 2008, teams that reached the postseason raised ticket prices for the following year, on average, 4.5 percent more than teams that did not reach the postseason.4

An important conclusion about the playoff windfall is its multiyear benefit. Even if the team fails to reach the postseason for the next several years, not all of the newfound supporters disappear immediately. My analysis of attrition rates of playoff teams suggests that, while the revenue effect declines each year, it may take up to five years before the last new season

ticket-holder gives up hope and fails to renew. When added to the game revenue from the playoff games (including concessions, etc.), the estimated flow of revenues from a postseason appearance is shown in figure 1. The net result of summing all of these revenue effects can be a future revenue stream with a net present value (NPV) equal to 20 to 30 percent of a team’s local revenues, beginning in the season follow- ing a team’s playoff appearance. (The White Sox received an added financial “kicker” from the team’s increased popularity after winning a world championship.)

Figure 1. Postseason Effect—% of Revenues by Year
(100% = total impact of reaching the postseason)

For a team, such as Philadelphia or Seattle, whose revenue base is in the second or third quartile for MLB teams, reaching the postseason could mean anywhere from $30 million to $40 million (NPV), while winning a world championship could double that amount. For teams in the top quartile, such as the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets, the postseason value could be more than $50 million.5

How do we integrate the value of the postseason into the win–revenue relationship? One way is through a two-step process that allows us to create an expected value of the postseason that corresponds to each win total. The first step involves analyzing the historical probabilities of recent divisional and wild-card races. By applying a logistic regression we can estimate the probability of reaching the postseason at each win total. Given the quality disparity in recent years between the two leagues, it is not surprising the results yield a different probability for an AL versus NL team. (See figure 2.) To complete the process, we take the probability of reaching the postseason at each win total and multiply that by the total value of the post-season. The net result is an estimate of a team’s win–revenue relationship, including the expected value of the postseason—a team’s win-curve.

Figure 2. Probability of Reaching the Postseason, 2002-2008

A PLAYER’S VALUE IS SITUATIONAL

A team’s win-curve is the culmination of all revenue sources and their relationship to a team’s on-field performance. The example in figure 3 shows an estimated win-curve for the 2008 New York Mets, with the post-season effect overlaid on the in-season win–revenues. (Note: The win-curve begins at 70 wins, the point from which the incremental revenue from winning is measured.) The postseason effect causes the win-curve to be nonlinear. When a team is in contention, it is operating along the steepest portion of the win-curve, meaning that a few more wins (or slightly fewer wins) carry the highest financial value. Consequently, a player’s dollar value—his marginal revenue product— is greatly influenced by where his team is on the win-curve. For example, if the Mets add a 4-win player to an otherwise 88-win team, the player is expected to generate $20.5 million in revenue. The same player added to an 80-win team would generate only $10.5 million. In the first example, our player elevates the Mets to a 92-win team, thereby improving the Mets’ probabilities of reaching the postseason by 34 percentage points. In the latter example the Mets are only 9 percent more likely to make the postseason due to the roster addition. (See figure 3.)

Figure 3. New York Mets’ Estimated 2008 Win-Curve

The marginal value of the last piece of the puzzle can be much higher than the value of the same player added to an 80-win team. Let’s apply this approach to prospectively valuing the Mets’ Carlos Beltran for the 2009 season.6 In our example, we will examine how Beltran’s value is impacted by both his performance and the team’s performance. According to fangraphs.com, Beltran has averaged approximately 5.5 value wins over the past six years. Before the 2009 season, the Mets are once again filled with optimism. The team narrowly missed the post-season in 2007 and 2008 and they hope to contend once again in 2009. Let’s begin with the scenario that defines Beltran as a 5-win player added to an 85- win-baseline Mets team—meaning a team that would be expected to win 85 games with a replacement player, instead of Beltran, in center field. Under this scenario, Beltran raises the probability of the Mets reaching the postseason by 44 percentage points— from 21 percent to 65 percent—and, in doing so, a 5-win Beltran has an expected value of $26.2 million. The $26.2 million consists of $19.8 in expected value of achieving the postseason revenue stream and $6.4 million in the value of 5 wins, independent of achieving a playoff spot. Figure 4 shows various scenarios of Beltran performance, in the context of various team performance scenarios and the resulting expected dollar value of Beltran.

It is interesting to note that, at both the low end and the high end of the team-performance scale, Beltran’s value drops. At the low end it conjures the image of the famous Branch Rickey quote to Ralph Kiner, “We could have finished last without you,” while the high end of the team performance scale implies they likely would have advanced to the postseason without Beltran. According to the estimates in figure 4, Beltran would not “earn” enough revenue to cover his salary as a 3-win player. As a 4-win player, he would justify his salary only if the Mets were an 84-to-89-win team without him. If Beltran turns in a 5-win performance, he is expected to generate the revenue to cover his salary as long as the Mets ultimately win 87 to 95 games. Our win-curve analysis demonstrates that a player’s value is situational, dependent not only on a player’s performance but also on team performance—its location along the win-curve.

An interesting implication of this analysis is the “accountability” for delivering value. If Carlos Beltran performs at a 5-win level but the team is an 81-win- baseline team prior to his performance, the estimate

Figure 4. Carlos Beltran — What If?
Incremental Revenue from Various Performance Scenarios

Notes

1. An analogy in a non-sports business environment would be to compare a top-quartile salesman in a firm to the “replacement level” salesman that could be hired off the unemployment (In times of high unemployment, replacement level can rise significantly.) Suppose your top-quartile salesman is expected to sell $500,000 worth of products annually, with a net margin of $125,000 (net of all product costs and associated expenses, except his compensation), and a replacement salesman is expected to deliver $60,000 in net margin dollars; then the marginal revenue product of the top-quartile salesman is $65,000 over replacement level.
2. Vince Gennaro, Diamond Dollars: The Economics of Winning in Baseball (Hingham. Mass.: Maple Street Press, 2007).

3. Most teams have multiyear agreements for their broadcast rights, which means team broadcast revenues may be fixed for any given On the other hand, teams that own a share of a regional sports network (Red Sox and NESN, Yankees and YES, etc.) share in both the annual fluctuation— in ad rates and the change in the asset value of the network—resulting from on-field performance.
4. The level of success a team has during its postseason run has an impact on the size of the postseason When the 2005 San Diego Padres qualified for the postseason with only 82 wins and then were ousted with three straight playoff losses to the St. Louis Cardinals, much of the potential benefit of reaching the postseason was negated by the Padres’ poor performance. The combination of their modest win total and their poor showing failed to provide a motivating fan experience, nor did it validate the Padres as a bona fide future postseason contender.
5. Given evidence of the “postseason effect,” simply analyzing a team’s revenues as a function of wins is likely to miss the impact of the postseason and lead to an erroneous conclusion as to the impact of on-field perform- Approximately 10 to 15 percent of the postseason revenue stream will likely occur during the year the team reaches the postseason, about 40 percent will occur the following year, and the remaining 45 to 50 percent will occur in years 2 through 5 following the postseason appearance.
6. For the purpose of this analysis, I am operating with the assumption that the Mets’ win-curve did not change from my 2008 In reality, once some of the financial parameters of the new Citi Field become available, I would expect to conclude the win-curve will shift considerably, yielding additional revenue at each win level.

Other Research on Player Value and Further Discussion on Methodology

Shortly after free agency became a reality three decades ago, as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I embarked on a project to estimate the marginal revenue product for major-league players. (The results of the project became the topic of an article in The Sporting News in the spring of 1979.) The resurrection of this project several years ago led to my series of team-specific models to estimate the relationship between a team’s on-field performance and its resulting revenues.

The process combines statistical analysis—primarily multiple regression—and detailed financial analysis of the key factors that drive a team’s profit-and-loss statement. In these instances I am using publicly available data. I divide a team’s revenue into three categories: attendance, broadcast, and all other. The process begins with a team-specific regression model, with average annual per-game attendance as the dependent variable. (The reason team-specific is important is that the differing local economics of teams mean that the value of a win to the Yankees may be 4 times the value of the same win to the Kansas City Royals, rendering useless an analysis that pools all teams and deals in MLB averages.) The independent variables include those that reflect a team’s wins—last year’s and the current year’s wins— and dummy variables to adjust for the impact of new stadium openings, work stoppages, and other nonrecurring events. This model creates the foundation of a team’s win-curve by quantifying the win-attendance relationship. By multiplying the estimated attendance values by the average ticket-price data compiled and published by Team Marketing Report, we can translate this estimate into attendance revenues. The next step is to impute the impact of wins on all other revenues, using a team’s historical ratio of attendance to all other revenues published in financial data released as part of the Blue Ribbon Panel Report. (For teams that have provided proprietary data, the process of developing the win-curve is considerably more involved, as it enables me to analyze each separate revenue stream.)

The final revenue category, broadcast, requires different approaches depending on whether the team has ownership in a regional sports network (e.g., Yankees and Red Sox, with YES Network and NESN, respectively) versus a more “traditional” broadcast arrangement with a Fox Sports–type local affiliate. In the former scenario I analyze the networks’ household penetration, distribution fees from cable/satellite operators, and advertising revenues and rates. In an attempt to create “transparency” between the broadcast entity and the team, I “credit” the team with the relevant broadcast revenues that are attributable to winning. In the latter case I use a fixed fee plus a small performance bonus for reaching the postseason.

A key to estimation of the win-curve is a detailed analysis of the postseason and its impact on all of a team’s revenue streams. This analysis is aided by teams that have shared their proprietary data. The additional level of detail provided by proprietary data has enabled me to make inferences about how various revenue streams respond to postseason appearances for teams in comparably sized markets.

In “Is Alex Rodriguez Overpaid?” his chapter in Baseball Between the Numbers, Nate Silver, a driving force behind the success of Baseball Prospectus, detailed his work in the area of player value. One significant difference in Silver’s approach is his MLB-wide model of team wins and revenues, in which he stops short of creating team-specific models that differentiate the value of a win in New York versus one in Kansas City. My team-specific models not only differentiate between the value of a win in New York and the value of a win in Kansas City, but I further differentiate the win-curves of teams within a city, such as the Yankees and Mets, the Cubs and White Sox. One similarity in our two approaches is the way in which we incorporate the value of the postseason into the value of a win—by taking the probability of reaching the post-season at each win level and multiplying that by the estimated dollar value of the postseason.

of $16.9 million in incremental revenue suggests that Beltran will fail to “earn” his $18 million salary for 2009. However, in this example, the accountability for Beltran’s shortfall in value may fall on team management for failing to provide Beltran with a sufficient supporting cast, since he would have earned his salary if the team were a bit more competitive. (See figure 4.) In other words, when signing a player of Beltran’s stature (and compensation), it is implicit that, for the player to deliver value comparable to his salary, the team will likely need to be competitive. This reality often makes the free-agent market a cost-prohibitive option for teams that are noncompetitive.

As MLB grows as an industry, more teams are managing their business with the analytical tools necessary to make $100-million decisions. For the most astute teams, gone are the days of pure instinct and gut feel as the basis for signing a free agent. More teams are relying on statistical analysis of game situations to influence their in-game tactics and on statistical analysis of players to influence their roster choices. The disciplined, more objective analytical approach is now spilling over into the boardroom, as teams evaluate commitments of mega dollars to key players. Intuitive judgment will always be a critical factor in successfully running a MLB team—it’s just no longer the only factor.

On learning that he had collected 29 stolen bases in his only full season in the majors, I had as my original intention in writing this article to recall and honor Washington’s achievement. I saw Washington as vaguely heroic, the star of a reality-TV drama, “So You Want to Be a Major League Baseball Player?” The establishment, save Finley, expected Washington to fall on his face (figuratively, if not literally), making him the ultimate underdog. Surely, I thought, my research would prove that the critics were wrong in their hasty, probably mean-spirited dismissal of Washington. I knew in my heart that those 29 stolen bases had to mean something, especially since the A’s were world champions in 1974.

ALLAN LEWIS, “THE PANAMANIAN EXPRESS”

Perhaps the best place to start is with the man to whom the A’s previously assigned their pinch-running duties: Allan Lewis. Lewis began his career with the Kansas City Athletics in 1967. During his career (which ended with his release after the 1973 season), Lewis stole 44 bases in 61 attempts for a 72.1 percent success rate. Lewis’s highest yearly stolen-base total was 14 in 1967.

Although theoretically Lewis could hit and field, he did neither with much proficiency. A’s manager Dick Williams commented that “he was strictly a runner. I don’t know if Lewis even owned a glove.”2 If anything, Lewis was an “emergency” fielder. In Baseball’s Last Dynasty: Charlie Finley’s Oakland A’s, Bruce Markusen recounts a 15-inning loss to Chicago on September 19,

1972, when Lewis, “who almost never played a defensive position,” pinch-ran for first baseman Mike Epstein in the eighth inning and played right field, where he remained until the fourteenth inning.3

It is therefore something of a misrepresentation to say that Washington deprived a “real” ballplayer of his roster spot.4 If Washington replaced anybody, it was Lewis. In signing Washington, Finley decisively (and perhaps misguidedly) embraced the notion of the designated pinch-runner. In switching from a player whose major function was pinch-running to another for whom that was his sole function, Finley merely re- fined a tactic he had already developed with Lewis. In other words, perhaps the real innovation can be found with the use of Lewis in 1973. Finley’s signing of Washington merely built on that precedent.

THE DH REVOLUTION

The institution of the designated-hitter rule also provides some important perspective for evaluating Herb Washington’s 1974 performance. For many (including me) who as baseball fans came of age after the American League had adopted the “designated pinch-hitter” for the 1973 season, the DH is a given, but it should be remembered that the introduction of the DH represented a drastic rules change.5 Other ideas proposed by Finley to spice up the game for the modern era were interleague play, the three-ball walk, and the designated pinch-runner.6 In the version of the DH rule proposed by Finley, a pinch-runner would be used without the replaced player (i.e., the batter) being removed from the game. The designated runner would apparently complement the designated hitter, taking over the baserunning chores if and when the DH reached base. When the final ballot among American League owners featured the DH but not Finley’s “DR,” Finley voted against this diluted version of his original designated-hitter rule.7

As reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer in October 1974, A’s manager Alvin Dark, speaking of Washing- ton’s contribution to the team, advocated use of the designated pinch-runner. “What I’d like to see baseball try next is using a designated runner for the designated hitter. How much longer would a Mickey Mantle have been around with somebody to run for him?”8 In spring training 1975, the year after Washington’s turn as a pinch runner up to four or five times per exhibition game. 9 

Against this back drop, the idea of a designated pinch-runner does not sound so crazy anymore. Now that the MLB had taken the radical step to allowing a position player to bat for a pitcher throughout the course of a game, having a player “do the running” for a hitter can be seen to represent a natural extension of that thinking. As with the DH, the objective is the same — to inject more offense into the game. it is logically inconsistent to accept the DH on the one hand, and on the other, to reject the designated pinch-runner as absurd or silly. The two differ only in degree, not kind. If anything, the designated runner is a less extreme modification, as only one aspect of the offen- sive player’s responsibilities has been transferred to another player. Compare this to the designated-hitter rule, which completely eliminated the pitcher as an offensive player, thereby altering the very rhythm of the game.

WHY HERB WASHINGTON?

At first glance, at least, one can readily understand why Finley chose Washington to be his designated pinch-runner. He was fast. Washington was a four- time All-American at Michigan State University, lettering in track and football. Among his other accom- plishments, he set records for both the 50- and 60-yard dash as well as capturing the Big Ten Conference championship for the 100-yard dash in 1970, 1971, and 1972. After seeing Washington compete in an indoor track meet on television, Dark recommended that Finley sign him.10 Such was Washington’s ability that a live tryout on a baseball diamond was deemed un- necessary by Dark; apparently neither Dark nor Finley was concerned that Washington’s only previous base- ball experience was in high school. Dark and Finley weren’t the only ones who saw in Washington’s foot speed the potential to excel at the highest levels of pro- fessional sports. The NFL’s Baltimore Colts and the World Football League’s Toronto Northmen both wanted to sign Washington as a wide receiver.11

THE STATISTICS

In the 1974 campaign, Washington stole 29 bases in 45 attempts, for a success rate of 64.4 percent. Here’s how Washington’s performance stacks up against those of the other top ten AL base stealers in 1974:

Table 1 shows that, to some extent, Washington’s performance was weaker than those of the other top American League basestealers in 1974. Table 2 corroborates this initial conclusion as it provides a look at Washington’s statistics in the context of the sabermetric of net stolen bases, which gives a more refined and realistic assessment of Washington’s value.12

By this measure, Washington’s baserunning actually did more harm than good, hurting the A’s chances of scoring (and winning). The lost scoring opportunities of the caught-stealing outcomes overshadowed the positive effect of his 29 total stolen bases. It also bears noting that the other top AL base stealers all landed on the plus side of the ledger, representing a net gain to their teams.

Another sabermetric, run-expectancy matrix, confirms what tables 1 and 2 tell us. Using run-expectancy matrix, one can gauge the impact of the attempted stolen base (be it successful or not) on a team’s potential to score runs. Data from Baseball-Prospectus.com show the likelihood of a team scoring during the 1974 season. For example, with a runner on first base and no outs, a team scored, on average, .826833 times in 1974; in contrast, with no runners on base with one out, teams scored only .24098 times.13 When we follow this reasoning, a failed stolen-base attempt decreases a team’s likelihood of scoring by resulting in an out and removing a baserunner; it is the cost of a caught-stealing. In my example, that cost is .585853 runs. 14

To apply run-expectancy matrix to Washington’s 1974 season, I reviewed play-by-play accounts of all A’s games in which Washington attempted a stolen base (available via Retrosheet.org) to determine how his performance affected the A’s opportunities to score runs. The result: Washington cost the A’s 1.1 054 runs over the course of the season. Even more egregiously, during the stretch drive to the end of the regular season in September and October, the cost balloons to 1.79352 runs. Against divisional foes, Washington’s cost is even higher, topping out at 2.18809 runs.15 These numbers become all the more decisive in that, unlike the case of Allan Lewis, Washington’s base- running was the only way he could contribute to the A’s success.16

The data support the notion that there is an art to a base-stealing—something more than raw speed alone is needed for success. If anything, it is this skill as practiced by an experienced player that makes the stolen base attempt an informed risk (notwithstanding the gospel of sabermetrics) as opposed to a “Hail Mary” desperation tactic. It seems safe to assume that Washington’s performance suffered because he failed to augment his natural abilities with baseball knowledge.17 As some of his critics sardonically commented at the time, Washington was operating at a distinct disadvantage as there was no starter’s gun and/or runners blocks on the infield.18 More specifically, even with the tutelage of Los Angeles Dodgers’ basestealing legend Maury Wills19 and teammate Billy North20 (among others), Washington lacked the ability to effectively read pitchers’ pick-off moves and get a good lead or jump.21

THROUGH AN (ALVIN) DARK LENS

With the foregoing in mind, it is interesting to consider Athletics’ manager Alvin Dark’s take on Washington’s season. As noted above, Dark commented to Bill Lyon of the Philadelphia Inquirer that “Herb has won eight games for us by himself since July 1.” Dark then cited two games as proof of his point: “In Minnesota, we put him in and they pitched out three straight times. We went on to a four-run inning. In Anaheim, they were so worried about him that they kept pitching out and we got three runs and won 7—5.”22

Let’s look at each game individually. The second game was the A’s 7—5 win over the California Angels on July 2, 1974. Washington was inserted into the game as a pinch-runner for Joe Rudi with one out in the eighth inning. At the time, Oakland led California 5—3. On the strength of a home run and double by Angel Mangual, the A’s had already knocked starter Frank Tanana from the game. Oakland’s starting pitcher, Ken Holtzman, had been touched up for seven hits through the first five innings but none in the sixth or seventh. As Washington entered the game, the game was close and the outcome still in doubt.

As Dark suggested, the Angels’ worrying about Washington may have resulted in pitcher Skip Lock- wood walking Gene Tenace. But, maybe not. Dark’s thesis is at least somewhat suspect, as Tenace led the American League with 110 bases on balls—many pitchers gave Tenace a free pass without the “distraction” posed by Washington. More tellingly, Tenace fared well against Lockwood over the course of his career, hitting .318 (7 for 22) with two home runs, four RBI, and six walks in total. Given that former A’s manager Dick Williams was at the helm of the Angels and obviously knew the opposition well, it is improbable that Lockwood or California took Washington to seriously. Moreover, Lockwood must have found his groove quickly, as he struck out the next batter, the “hot” Angel Mangual, who had driven in four runs off Tanana. The decisive blow was a single, by pinch-hitter Pat Bourque, that scored Washington and Tenace. (Dark incorrectly recalled that the A’s scored three runs in the inning—they actually scored two). From the play-by-play summary at Retrosheet, it appears that Pat Bourque’s clutch hitting proved decisive and that Washington had precious little to do with the favorable result. So far, Dark is 0—1.

The Minnesota game mentioned by Dark is tougher to pinpoint. A review of Oakland’s 1974 contests against the Twins in Minnesota suggests that Dark was referring to a game on May 21.

In that game, Washington pinch-ran for pinch-hitter Sal Bando in the seventh inning. At the beginning of the inning, the score was tied at 1—1. Oakland scored six times in the inning, with four of these runs coming after Washington had entered the game; thus, when Washington made his appearance, the score was 3—1 in Oakland’s favor. According to Dark’s account,

Minnesota focused their attention on Washington, yielding a walk to Billy North. This put runners on first and second with none out. In this instance, given North’s relatively pedestrian career numbers against relief pitcher Tom Burgmeier (who had relieved starter Joe Decker after the A’s scored on a Gene Tenace home run to start the inning)—0 for 2 up to this point, 3 for 12 (all singles) in his career—Dark’s case for Washington’s effect on the pitcher is at least somewhat stronger. Bert Campaneris then laid down a sacrifice bunt, moving Washington to third and North to second. Burgmeier served up a sacrifice fly to Joe Rudi, scoring Washington, followed by a two-run homer to Reggie Jackson. For the final run of the inning, Pat Bourque doubled home Angel Mangual, who had singled. Again, it is tough to see how Washington affected the outcome beyond possibly contributing to the walk to North. Still, it is worth noting that Burgmeier previously had Joe Rudi’s number. Rudi was 0 for 5 against Burgmeier up to this point, and in his career, he had a paltry two hits off him in 16 at-bats, for a .125 average.

On the other hand, one of those two hits would be a home run. In any event, the real muscle in the inning was provided before and after Washington was on the field. While this is a somewhat closer call than the Angels game, Dark is 0—2.

Puzzlingly, Dark in his comments about Washing- ton omitted several appearances in which Washington did demonstrate value to the team. In the eighth inning of the August 2 game at Chicago, with two outs, Billy North singled off Wilbur Wood and stole second. Sal Bando knocked in North with a single, tying the game at 2—2, prompting White Sox manager Chuck Tanner to summon relief pitcher Terry Forster to stop the bleeding. Washington came into pinch-run for Bando, stealing second. Reggie Jackson then drove home Washington with a single, giving the A’s a lead they would not relinquish.

On August 13 against the Yankees, the A’s led 3—1 going into the bottom of the seventh. Replacing Dal Maxvill (who had drawn a walk), Washington stole second off Doc Medich and Thurman Munson and took third on Munson’s throwing error, one of three errors for Munson on the day. Now, rather than having a man on first with none out, the A’s had a runner on third base. Billy North singled Washington home, giving the A’s a three-run cushion and ending Medich’s day. The A’s scored twice more that inning en route to a 6—1 triumph.

More stunning still is Dark’s claim that Washington “can’t lose us a game” because “he can’t strike out with the bases loaded” or “drop a fly ball.”23 Overall, I counted eleven different situations during the 1974 regular season where Washington’s performance directly hurt the A’s chances of winning a ballgame.24 By way of illustration:

• On May 4 against Cleveland, Washington pinch- ran for Pat Bourque in the seventh Gaylord Perry picked Washington off first, but Washing- ton took second on an error by first baseman John Ellis. Undeterred, Perry picked Washington off second base, ending the inning in a game Cleveland won 8—2.
• On May 7 against Baltimore, Washington pinch- ran for Gene Tenace with one out in the ninth inning and the A’s trailing by six Angel Mangual lined out to second baseman Bobby Grich, who threw to first baseman Enos Cabell to complete the double play and end the ballgame. Where was Washington going? He should have been anchored to first base, as the play was in front of him.
• On August 19 against Milwaukee, Bert Campaneris led off the eighth inning with a Washington was inserted as a pinch-runner and was promptly caught stealing second. The Brewers would prevail 1—0.
• On September 25 against Minnesota, Washington replaced Jesus Alou in the sixth inning and stole second (So far, so good.) Billy North sacrificed Washington to third. Then Twins catcher Phil Roof picked Washington off third, ending the rally and preserving the Twins’ 1—0 lead. The Twins would go on to win the game by that count.

In the Lyon article, Herb Washington takes up his own pro se defense of his baseball credibility, noting that, in a game against Cleveland’s Gaylord Perry, he scored from third base “on a short fly to left.” With a little sleuthing, we know that Washington is speaking of the A’s—Indians game on July 8. With one out in the top of the ninth inning and Cleveland holding a one-run lead, Joe Rudi tripled off Perry. Washington ran for Rudi. A Gene Tenace sacrifice fly scored Washington with the tying run. The A’s went on to win the game in the tenth inning. Washington exacted revenge on Gaylord Perry for his rough treatment about two months earlier.

Here, Washington may have a point. A ball hit to left is tougher to score on than a ball hit to center or right: The throw from left to the third-base side of the plate is shorter. Also relevant is that the left fielder, John Lowenstein, had only an average arm.25 Washington’s speed very well could have made the difference, enabling him to score when someone else might not have.

In sum, however, the statistical evidence clearly suggests that Washington’s stint as a “designated runner” was pure folly. If anything, the A’s succeeded in capturing their third consecutive championship in spite of (not because of) him. Rather than being a “hood ornament”—a thing of aesthetic appeal, which does not affect a vehicle’s performance—Washington impaired the functioning of the “biggest, baddest Blue Odomest Cadillac in the league.” 

NOTES

1. See Josh Wilker, “Herb Washington” (7 December 2006), http://cardboardgods.baseballtoaster.com/archives/609836.html (accessed 30 April 2009).

2. Glenn Dickey, Champions: The Story of the First Two Oakland A’s Dynasties—and the Building of the Third (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2002),

3. Bruce Markusen, Baseball’s Last Dynasty—Charlie Finley’s Oakland A’s (Indianapolis: Master’s Press, a division of Howard W. Sams, 1998), 128.

4. Among others, A’s catcher and first baseman Gene Tenace expressed this See Markusen, 287.

5. The Baseball Digest (April 1973) devoted nine pages to “The Designated Pinch-Hitter Rule,” including “Pro” and “Con” columns by Shirley Povich (of the Washington Post ) and Harold Kaese (of the Boston Globe), respectively.

6. Markusen, 17; see also Dickey, 11—12.

7. Markusen, 183—84.

8. Bill Lyon, “They Scoffed but Dark Says Washington Has Won 8 for A’s,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 13 October 1974.

9. “A’s Runner on Spot This Time,” UPI, 20 March 1975 (from National Baseball Hall of Fame, player file for Herb Washington).

10. Dickey, 77

11. If anything, Washington had more recent experience as a football player than as a baseball According to the article “Herb Washington” (November 2003), at Simply Baseball Notebook: Forgotten in Time, http://z.lee28.tripod.com/sbnsforgottenintime/id24.html (accessed 30 April 2009), Washington was a wide receiver on the Michigan State football team in 1971 and 1972, catching one pass for 41 yards

12. For an explanation of “net stolen bases,” see, for instance, Rich Lederer’s article “Net Stolen Bases: Leaders and Laggards” (25 October 2006), Baseball Analysts, http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2006/10/php (accessed 30 April 2009). In general, the underlying concept is that “caught stealing” must reflect not only that an out was recorded but also that a runner has been removed from the basepaths and a scoring opportunity eliminated. As Retrosheet categorizes being picked off as a form of caught stealing, I used the following formula to derive net stolen bases: Net stolen bases = Stolen bases − (2 x caught stealing).

13. See Baseball Prospectus, baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=148993 (accessed 30 April 2009). For an introduction to run expectancy matrix (as well as a more general application of sabrmetrics to stolen base attempts), see “Thou Shalt Not Steal” (14 January 2009), Backell’s Big Blog of Bodacious Brewing Brainstorms, www.sportingnews.com/blog/backell/130093 (accessed 4 May 2009).

14. When considered in the context of run-expectancy matrix, the stolen-base attempt can be fairly characterized as something of a The cost of failure (an out and the loss of a baserunner) outstrips the potential benefits (moving a base runner into scoring position without sacrificing an out). To illustrate using the above example: If the runner had stolen second base with no outs, a team’s likelihood of scoring would rise only to 1.07689. This represents a “gain” of .25006 runs, as compared to the possible cost of .585853 runs.

15. Still, this figure is something of a restatement of the immediately pre- ceding calculation, as from September 2 through the end of the 1974 season the A’s played against only teams in the AL

16. As Sal Bando pointedly commented, although Lewis’s talent may have been negligible, he “could play a position here or there if you needed ” See Markusen, 209.

17. Markusen recounts an early regular-season game where Washington asked his manager whether he should steal second base—even though the base was occupied at the Markusen, 294.

18. See article “Finley Worships Speedsters,” 13 April 1974 (from National Baseball Hall of Fame, player file for Herb Washington).

19. Markusen, 286—87.

20. See article “A’s Washington Is Gaining Respect of His Teammates,” 18 August 1974 (from National Baseball Hall of Fame, player file for Herb Washington).

21. As Washington was a true neophyte, the issue of the comparative merit of jump versus lead is moot

22. See n. 8

23. See 7. For absolute irony, the date of the Lyon article coincided with that of Washington’s ignominious performance in the ninth inning of Game 2 of the 1974 World Series, when he was picked off first base by Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Mike Marshall. The Dodgers won Game 2 and evened the series at one game apiece.

24. I admit to a significant amount of subjectivity here, especially as I relied on the play-by-play feature of Retrosheet. In most instances, Washing- ton’s successes and failures on the basepaths did not affect the outcome of the game, and his mistakes were “harmless ” For example, in the July 30 game against Texas, Washington pinch-ran for Pat Bourque and stole second base in the sixth inning. As the A’s held an 8—2 lead at the time and would eventually win 11—3, it is clear that Washington’s stolen base had no effect on the outcome of the game.

25. In 1974, Lowenstein had 5 assists as a left fielder, compared to 13 for Lou Piniella and 11 for Carlos

Tobin then investigates whether it is plausible that such a large increase can be attributed to PEDs. In section 2, entitled “What Do Steroids Do?” he presents lots of evidence from the scientific literature justifying his starting assumption for the remainder of the analysis. Namely, he assumes that the main effect of steroids vis-à-vis home-run production is to increase the batter’s muscle mass by 10 percent. Since I have no expertise in this area, I will simply take it as a reasonable starting point. Tobin next develops section 3, entitled “How Much Can More Muscle Enhance Home- Run Production?” This section is really the heart of the paper and the one I will discuss at length. Tobin’s chain of reasoning involves two distinct steps:

1. Increased muscle mass results in higher bat speed and therefore higher batted-ball speed;
2. Higher batted-ball speed results in longer fly balls and therefore higher

Step 1 involves partly biomechanics and partly physics. Step 2 involves partly physics and partly statistics. Tobin arrives at the following conclusion: It is plausible that a 10 percent increase in muscle mass can lead to a 50 percent increase in HRBiP for the elite home run hitters.

In the present paper, I will discuss the steps in the analysis chain, first presenting Tobin’s argument and then my own. Although Tobin and I may disagree on some details, I will end up agreeing with his essential conclusion.

MUSCLE MASS AND BATTED-BALL SPEED

Tobin initially argues that a 10 percent increase in muscle mass leads to the batter supplying a 10 percent greater force to the bat, resulting in a 5 percent increase in bat speed. The argument is essentially one of energy conservation, where the work done by the batter in applying a force to the bat over a fixed distance is converted to kinetic energy of the bat. Since kinetic energy is proportional to the square of the velocity, a 10 percent greater force leads to a 5 percent increase in bat speed. In a “Note added in proof,” Tobin revises his estimate downward to 3.8 percent, based on Robert K. Adair’s argument that the work provided by the muscles is converted to kinetic energy that is shared between the bat and some fraction of the body mass of the batter, mainly the arms.2 The essential point is that both the bat and the batter’s arms are moving. Therefore not all of the work provided by the body muscles goes into kinetic energy in the bat, and a fraction must also go into kinetic energy of the body. In an unpublished article that I have posted on my website,3 I have estimated that only about half the kinetic energy goes into the bat. With the additional assumption that half of the batter’s pre- steroid weight is muscle, Tobin and I both agree that a 10 percent increase in muscle mass can lead to about a 3.8 percent increase in bat speed.

From a purely physics point of view, the easiest part of the analysis is to estimate how an increase in swing speed affects batted-ball speed. Suppose a pitched ball crosses the plate at 85 mph, a reasonable value for a good fastball given that the ball loses about 10 percent of its speed between pitcher and batter. Suppose also that the pre-steroid batter swings the bat at 70 mph at the sweet-spot location. Then, if we assume a perfect head-on collision, the resulting batted ball will exit the bat at about 100 mph. If such a ball is slightly undercut, giving it backspin, and is launched at an angle of 30 to 35 degrees, it will travel close to 400 feet. Suppose now the post-steroid batter swings the bat 3.8 percent faster, or 72.7 mph. Then the batted-ball speed will increase to about 103 mph,4 a 3 percent increase and a number Tobin agrees with in his “Note added in proof.”

So, Tobin and I both conclude that a 10 percent increase in muscle mass can result in a 3 percent increase in batted-ball speed, a number that is on very solid footing. We next examine how such an increase will affect home-run production.

BATTED-BALL SPEED AND HOME-RUN PRODUCTION

To estimate how a 3 percent increase in batted- ball speed affects home-run production, an aerodynamics model is needed to determine the additional distance traveled by a fly ball. When we use statistical information on the distribution of fly-ball distances relative to the fence, we can estimate the change in HRBiP. Unfortunately, that statistical information is not readily available, so Tobin resorts to a numerical simulation. For a given aerodynamics model,5 he assumes a normal distribution of batted-ball speeds and launch angles to calculate a distribution of fly-ball distances. He defines a home run to be a fly ball that has a height of at least 9 feet at a distance of 380 feet from home plate. He then adjusts the parameters of the normal distributions until the distribution results in 0.10 HRBiP, the baseline number for elite batters. The resulting fly-ball distribution is shown as the solid curve in figure 1. He then repeats the calculation with the mean batted-ball speed increased by 3 percent, as expected for a 10 percent increase in muscle mass, resulting in the distribution shown by the dashed curve in the figure. He finds HRBiP increase to 0.149, an increase of nearly 50 percent. 

Given the importance of figure 1 for the conclusion of the analysis, it is worthwhile discussing it in more detail. The figure shows that the distribution of fly-ball distances is smooth and continuous, whereas a home run is a binary event on the tail of that distribution. For elite home-run hitters, the slope of the distribution at the home-run threshold (380 feet) must be very steep to achieve simultaneously the 10 percent HRBiP figure and the known rarity of very long home runs— say, those in the vicinity of 500 feet or greater. The steepness of the slope means that there must be a lot of near misses, so that a small change in the mean of the fly-ball distribution can have a large effect on the fraction falling above the home-run threshold.

There is an alternate way of reaching the same conclusion, using data compiled on actual home-run distances for the 2007 MLB season.6 By inspecting the distance of the landing point from the nearest fence, one can estimate that each additional foot of fly- ball distance increases the home-run probability by

4 percent. Combining that with the aerodynamics “rule of thumb” that each additional mph of batted- ball speed increases the fly-ball distance by 5.5 feet, along with the previously estimated mean increase of 3 mph in batted-ball speed, and one arrives at a 66 percent increase in home-run probability, a number even larger than Tobin’s estimate. Adair has conducted a similar analysis. Based on his detailed study of home- run statistics, he estimates that each additional percent of fly-ball distance increases home-run probability by about 7 percent.7 If we use 380 feet as the baseline home-run distance, a 3 mph increase in batted-ball speed leads to a 4.3 percent increase in batted-ball distance and therefore a 30 percent increase in home-run probability. Putting together all these independent analyses, I find that an increase in HRBiP in the range of 30—70 percent is completely plausible.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

I find that the conclusion reached by Tobin, that a 10 percent increase in muscle mass can lead to a large increase in home-run probability, is well supported by my own analysis. In fact, Tobin puts the increase in the range 30—70percent, depending on the details of the underlying assumptions. Obtaining a precise number is not really the point of the paper, but rather that a modest increase in muscle mass can lead to a very large increase in HRBiP. On that, we both agree.

ALAN NATHAN, professor of physics at the University of Illinois since 1977 and a fellow of the American Physical Society, is the author of more than 80 publications in scientific journals. His research specialty is experimental nuclear/particle physics. He has written numerous papers on the physics of baseball, primarily on the physics of ball–bat collision and on baseball aerodynamics. His website devoted to the physics of baseball is www.npl.uiuc.edu/~a-nathan/pob.

Acknowledgments

I thank Professor Roger Tobin for many interesting discussions, for a critical reading of this paper, and for providing the figure, and Greg Rybarczyk for providing the 2007 home-run data. And I thank my mentor, Professor Bob Adair, for his seminal contributions to our understanding of the science of baseball.

Notes

1. The paper is published in American Journal of Physics 76 (2008): 15—20. A copy can be downloaded for personal use at http://webusers.npl.illinois.edu/~a-nathan/pob/Tobin_AJP_Jan08.pdf.

2. The argument is presented in Adair’s book The Physics of Baseball, 3d (New York: HarperCollins, 2002). See the discussion in chap. 6, “The Optimum Bat Weight”. Note particularly figure 6.1 (page 117) and the formula on page 139.

3. See http://webusers.npl.uiuc.edu/~a-nathan/pob/swingspeedmass.pdf.

4. In Tobin’s paper, the factors multiplying vbat and vpitch in equation 1 are approximately 2 and 0.2, respectively.

5. Tobin recognizes that there is uncertainty in the so-called drag and lift coefficients that are needed to carry out the trajectory However, the uncertainty does not alter his principal conclusion.

6. See hittrackeronline.com.

7. Adair, 97

Because of its unique historic place in American society, baseball has always had to live up to a higher standard than have the other sports, and therefore its failure to act on the American creed of equality has made it vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy. Macht argues that because “America was a racist society in the first half of the twentieth century” you cannot blame Commissioner Landis for not taking the lead on integrating the sport. As an individual Kenesaw Mountain Landis may not have been more conservative on the race issue than the owners he ruled over, but he had the power to lead on it, and he did not choose to employ that power. As the “czar” appointed to clean up the mess left by the Black Sox scandal, Landis had enormous powers, which he used to ban the alleged fixers of the World Series, even though a Chicago jury had ruled them innocent. Though Macht is correct that Landis could not destroy the farm system that Branch Rickey had ingeniously invented to enable his small-market St. Louis Cardinals to compete with the big-pocketed big-city owners, the commissioner did free dozens of minor leaguers from Rickey’s and other clubs’ systems. Though I agree that it is poor historical judgment to expect Landis to have had the racially pro- gressive vision of, let us say, today’s pro football, which mandates minority interviewing for front-office positions through the Rooney Rule (named after the owner of one of their most racially progressive franchises, the Pittsburgh Steelers), it is nonetheless true that Landis could have taken more positive steps to push for racial integration. The evidence is clear that Landis did not want to take a leadership role on this issue.

Macht cites Landis’s public statement in the summer of 1942 that baseball has no rule that bars players of color from being signed. He does not mention that the commissioner was reacting to the pressure of what New York Daily News sportswriter Hy Turkin described as being “assailed by more than a million letters, telegrams and phone calls” that landed on his desk calling for integration, a grassroots movement organized by American communist activists but obviously not limited to their backers. According to Larry Lester in an important if rhetorically overheated article in the fall 2008 issue of the new journal Black Ball (McFarland Press), both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Cleveland Indians promised in 1942 to give tryouts to several Negro League players, but both franchises got cold feet and certainly were not encouraged by the commissioner to proceed.

One of the problems in producing evidence about a conspiracy of silence is that there is rarely a smoking gun to prove complicity. (In Soul of the Game, the HBO fictionalized 1995 movie about Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, and Jackie Robinson, an unintended hilarious misreading of the baseball color line came when there appeared on the screen the headline “Landis Bars Negroes.”) It is interesting, though, that Macht himself quotes Dodgers general manager Larry MacPhail admitting, at the very same time that Landis was deny- ing, that there was indeed a gentlemen’s agreement against signing players of color. Responding to the pressure of the especially active sports-minded communists in Brooklyn, MacPhail in 1942 told their paper the Daily Worker that if the Dodgers won the World Series they might play the winners of the Negro League pennant in a postseason tournament. The offer became moot when the Dodgers fell two games short of the National League pennant and MacPhail resigned from his position to reenter the military. One wonders, though, how sincere MacPhail’s offer was, given his adamant opposition to integration three years later, once Branch Rickey had beaten every team to the punch by signing Jackie Robinson. When MacPhail returned as president of the Yankees in 1946, he spearheaded the secret report that warned of dangers to the “physical properties of franchises” if Robinson integrated the Dodgers—that is, too many black fans might chase away more-prosperous white fans. It also seems highly unlikely that Landis would have approved MacPhail’s suggestion of a postseason series against the Negro League champs, given that Landis had long discouraged white players from competing in such off-season exhibitions.

It required a practical visionary like Branch Rickey to make integration work, and, despite all the criticisms of his bombastic style leveled by his con- temporaries and by later historians, the substance of his program and its example for other efforts at deseg- regation remains a stirringly successful saga. I have never been a big fan of “What Would Have Happened If” history and Norman Macht’s foray into the genre is not convincing when he suggests that if Sam Breadon had rehired Rickey in St. Louis there never would have been a Jackie Robinson signing in Brooklyn. With the Negro League player market ripe for mining, Rickey, I think, would have found a way to tap it, if not in St. Louis then in another city.

Speculative “If” history might be useful regarding what might have happened if Landis had lived through the end of World War II and was faced with the fait accompli of the Robinson signing. My educated guess (and it can be only a guess, of course) is that Landis would not have made any major objection. Once New York State passed the antidiscriminatory Ives-Quinn Law during spring training 1945 and Rickey exclaimed to his wife at the breakfast table, “They can’t stop me now!” there was little Landis could have done, especially with a federal Fair Employment Practices Commission statute already on the books.

Macht is correct that Branch Rickey shared the fears of all the baseball owners about what might happen “if a black player got into a fight on the field or argued with an umpire—who knew what might spark a riot in the bleachers?” But it did not stop him from going on with his grand plan to add talented African American prospects to the products of his lat- est burgeoning farm system in Brooklyn. Rickey’s fear of black overreaction, though, explains why he took such pains to stress to Jackie Robinson that he must be a symbol of probity and modesty in his role as a racial pioneer. Later historians and black activists have been critical of Rickey’s cautious handling of the issue and Robinson’s buying into the program, yet there should be no trimming of the historical record to dilute praise for Rickey’s leadership on the issue.

What is incontrovertibly true is that Rickey shrewdly planned for the racial revolution, trying to defuse the opposition from both whites and blacks by “attacking prejudice on its blind side,” as he would put it in a remarkable series of interviews on Pittsburgh public television in 1959, during which he also pithily defined prejudice as “strong opinion without cause.” He understood that the legacy of racism was deep among owners and players alike, and therefore he sought a pioneer whose ability on the field was so outstanding and his demeanor off of it so impeccable that he could not be resisted by both those who wanted a winning team and those who wanted to do the right thing after a million African Americans had served their country in World War II.

To me, then, the issue is not the black eye that Landis allegedly has received but rather the garland that baseball deserves for setting the standard, however reluctantly, for the integration of American society that was to begin, however haltingly, in the years ahead. In this area, I wholly endorse Norman Macht’s conclusion that baseball “deserves recognition for leading—dragging—the rest of America a little closer to the ultimate goal of equality of opportunity.” 

Before addressing these issues let me just mention two points of fact raised by Macht that I would question as proof of anything. First, to blame baseball’s failure to desegregate on the customers—or, as Macht would have it, “our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents”—is ludicrous. The customers no more controlled the racial makeup of baseball than they controlled the rules of the game, the price of tickets, the salaries of players, or the profits of the owners.

Second, that baseball led the nation by integrating before either Truman’s civil-rights legislation or the desegregation of the NBA is, although true, a diversionary claim. Macht’s claim conveniently ignores the fact that the NFL was the first professional sport to desegregate, that African Americans were playing intercollegiate sports all through its history, and that President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8802, by which he created the Fair Employment Practices Commission, was issued in 1941, well before the desegregation of baseball.

But I digress.

What Macht offers as one of his main arguments supporting Landis is that the commissioner was a product of his times. He was immersed in a racist culture and therefore his racism, and indeed that of baseball, should not be used to condemn either Landis or baseball. This is a dubious proposition on several counts.

From what Macht tells us, and from several other sources, including Landis’s major biographer, David Pietrusza, it is clear that Commissioner Landis was a bulwark against change. His denials of any rule or ban on African Americans in baseball was a convenient way of saying, I can do nothing to change things because there is nothing to change. At the same time, Landis denied there was what Larry MacPhail called “an unwritten law tantamount to an agreement between major league clubs on the subject of the racial issue.”1 It seems to me that the hypocrisy of Landis’s public posture is clear and that for whatever reason Landis was ducking the issue.

When desegregation did come, the existence of such an agreement became clear, as MacPhail and the other owners mounted considerable resistance to Branch Rickey’s signing of Jackie Robinson. This is well documented by Jules Tygiel, Lee Lowenfish, and others.2 The slow pace of desegregation is also a clear indication of resistance among the owners.

As the leader of a major public institution, Organized Baseball, Judge Landis resisted attempts to move that institution to desegregate. One can argue that he was simply a man of his times and therefore his behavior is understandable. One can also argue that those who defended institutional racism at any level, which meant a vast majority of white Americans, were part of the problem.

One thing we know about Landis is that in both his judicial career and his time as commissioner he was a staunch defender of the status quo. We also know that he was a man who saw himself in tune with the will of the populace. In both roles, he played to the public, relished public adulation, and loved the spotlight. For Landis to have moved to desegregate baseball would have been an action out of character.

In a changing world in which the forces attacking segregation were beginning to move forward, Judge Landis failed the test of leadership and hid behind dissembling rhetoric. He was indeed a man of his times, not a leader of them.

As for baseball, does it deserve this black eye? Did it resist social change and social justice? Did it do so while describing itself as the game of democracy, the national pastime, and the American game? Did it see itself as a vehicle for teaching democracy to American immigrants? Did it see itself as a vehicle for spreading democracy and civilization around the world? Did it see itself as democratic because it conducted its business under the rules of fair play and equal opportunity, proclaiming its purity as a meritocracy?

If you can answer all these questions in the affirmative, and I am certain from my own work that you can,3 then Norman Macht’s primary question can only be answered in the affirmative. Baseball deserves this back eye.

As for Landis, was he a racist? No more so than his contemporaries. He was the commissioner of baseball who defended the institutional racism within Organized Baseball, and he failed to seek any alteration of the status quo. In this, he shared a responsibility with many. As Tygiel notes, Landis did not “single-handedly perpetuate baseball segregation.”4 As Pietrusza points out there were no owners pressing Landis to support their desire for change, and there was no rush to desegregate after Landis’s death.5

The question about Landis should not be whether he was racist but whether, as commissioner of baseball, he provided leadership for justice and equality. 

Notes

1. David Pietrusza, Judge and Jury: The Life and Times of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis (South Bend, : Diamond Communications, 1998), 419.
2. Jules Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), passim; Lee Lowenfish, Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), passim.
3. Richard Crepeau, Baseball: America’s Diamond Mind (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), 2.
4. Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, 32.
5. Pietrusza, Judge and Jury, 427.

Had I been the presenter, I would have replied, “How do you know that Landis was so instrumental in barring blacks?”

How do we know anything that we think we know? By what means do we know it? By taking somebody else’s word for it? By reading it in two or three or six places and concluding that it must be true? Or by researching and analyzing the pieces objectively and independently?

What we think we know about the past is laced with uncertainty. There’s very little we can be sure about. We must be open to challenging what we think we know when we come across contrary evidence, or across something that doesn’t quite fit. That’s not easy. Once we form an opinion or reach a conclusion, it’s natural to stop searching and therefore stop thinking. The mind stays closed and refuses to accept other findings that might discredit that opinion.

In medicine this is called confirmation bias: confirming what you expect to find in your research by selectively accepting this or ignoring that and clinging to a single explanation arrived at earlier without considering other possibilities.

Then I would have reminded the judge’s critic that, yes, it’s precisely because we are standing here in 2006, and Landis and baseball’s club owners were operating in a different time and a different society. A historian who judges a man in the context of today’s time and standards and not the standards and conditions of the time in which the subject lived commits a scholarly sin. The attempt to understand people in their context and on their terms requires that we temporarily suspend judgment.

Understanding the America of the 1920s and ’30s and ’40s obliges us to make the effort of not judging it by the standards and values of today. Their values were their values, not necessarily ours. As Gibbon wrote of the Roman general Belisarius, “His vices were the vices of his time; his virtues were his own.” This forces us to remove the halo of thinking our values are eternal. They are not, and that can be troubling to us.

There is a vast, unbridgeable distance between what we like to believe we always were as a society and what we really were. Most of us never knew that pre-World War II society, never lived there. I ask you to join me now in trying to cross that bridge, leaving behind the baggage of your values and biases and what you think you know about other people in other times.

*****

America was a racist society in the first half of the twentieth century. A society is not a soulless abstraction. It is people; in this case, the white majority of America— our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents.

They grew up in a time when populists like William Jennings Bryan and William Allen White openly opposed any form of integration. Newspapers and popular music regularly used terms like coons and darkies. The president of Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson, addressed a group of alumni on February 8, 1903. Referring to Teddy Roosevelt’s nomination of a black man to be customs collector in Charleston, South Carolina, Wilson drew laughs when he joked, “The groundhog has returned to its burrow because it feared that Roosevelt would put a coon in to replace him.”

Americans went to movies where blacks, except for musicians and dancers, were cast as maids and mammies like Hattie McDaniel, fluttery caricatures like Butterfly McQueen, or slow-witted Stepin Fetchits. Joe Louis was admired by whites because he knew his place and was a credit to his race. When I was young, those phrases were in common use.

Even later, two Brooklyn Dodgers heroes, Southern-born Red Barber and Pee Wee Reese, admitted that everything in their upbringing had imbued in them the belief that the black man was inferior. Reese told author and historian Jules Tygiel, “You hear this all your life, you believe it.”1

The Ku Klux Klan was as strong in the Midwest as in the South, dominating city halls and chambers of commerce in the 1920s. Klan dinners and dances were covered as social news on the front pages of small-town newspapers. In 1925 they almost elected one of their own as mayor of Detroit. There were Klan members in major-league clubhouses.

In 1926, New York sportswriter Joe Vila wrote:

Stories are in circulation that certain major league managers are having trouble with their players who are hostile to members of the Ku Klux Klan. A few years ago one of the Western teams was said to have been disrupted by serious clashes on religion.

According to the gossips, several managers, opposed to the Klan, have been getting rid of members who are members of the hooded order, regardless of their skill as batters and fielders. If such conditions exist they should be investigated by the bosses of Organized Baseball.2

In the 1930s many blacks went north in search of a better life. Northern whites who deplored Southern customs when the problem was far away were less generous in their support when the victims arrived at their doorsteps.

From Maryland to California there were lynchings every year until the 1950s. Respectable citizens who did not take part stood by and condoned them. In 1933 the governor of California went so far as to declare a lynching in his state “a fine lesson for the whole nation.”

In 1937, a federal antilynching bill was filibustered by Southern Democrats in the Senate, tying up all Senate business. Editorials all over the country urged that the antilynching bill be abandoned so other business could be done, and it was. The fact is that in prewar America civil rights and equal opportunity were nowhere on this society’s agenda.

From 1933 to 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt never proposed a single civil-rights law, never supported efforts to pass a federal antilynching law, never pushed Congress, which had jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, to end any aspect of segregation there.

In 1941 it took the threat of a march on Washington to force the president to issue an order ending discrimination in employment in defense industries. Yet nobody accuses FDR of being a racist.

As late as 1948 no city was more tightly segregated than Washington, D.C.—churches, hospitals, schools, universities, hotels, restaurants, lunch counters, parks, department stores. Blacks could be served at some lunch counters but they had to stand—and the dishes they used were smashed instead of washed when they were done. Even if they could buy something in a store, you wouldn’t find any blacks working behind the counter. City and federal offices were almost all-white. Anyone could ride the streetcars and buses, but only whites could drive them. The code of ethics of the Washington real-estate board, which included all the leading banks and title companies as well as realtors, included this statement: “No property in a white section should ever be sold, rented, advertised, or offered to colored people.”3 This was the rule, not the exception, throughout the country. The Supreme Court didn’t ban restrictive covenants until 1948.

We’re not talking about Klansmen in sheets and hoods but the business elite of the nation. In a 1939 survey, 53 percent of Americans polled said Jews should be restricted in their lives and occupations. Resort hotels advertised that they were “restricted,” which meant no Jews allowed. For blacks that had long been the reality.

Terrifying deadly riots in Chicago and Washington in 1919 had left deep scars on our ancestors, who were in no mood for any form of integration. In 1933, Ohio State University barred blacks from on-campus housing and restaurants. When the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the university’s right to deny housing to a black coed, the school president, George Rightmire, said, “Knowing the feelings in Ohio, can the administration take the burden of establishing this relationship—colored and white girls living in this more or less family way?”4

This was Ohio—not the deep South.

Knowing the feelings in Ohio, could you blame Cincinnati Reds owner Powell Crosley and Cleveland Indians owner Alva Bradley for not putting “colored and white” boys together in “this more or less family way” in their clubhouses?

The mood of America—including its baseball fans—in May 1940 was illustrated by an editor at the Philadelphia Record deciding, against the advice of the sports department, to begin a campaign urging the city’s two major-league teams to sign Negro players.

One month later in the “Press Box” column in The Sporting News, there appeared this interesting item:

“That Philadelphia A.M. sheet has stopped its agitation to get Negro players in the majors because of the reactions of its white readers.”

On July 16, 1942, a letter from General Eisenhower’s adjutant general went to the Red Cross in London directing that black and white army personnel be segregated as much as possible. It said, “It is believed that to avoid friction between white and Negro soldiers, care should be taken so that men of the two races are not needlessly intermingled in the same dormitory or at the same table in dining halls.”5

That same year the Missouri legislature killed a civil-rights bill that would have given blacks equal access to public parks, theaters, and restaurants.

In 1943 race riots in Detroit forced the postponement of a game at Briggs Stadium. Federal troops were called in and stayed for six months. There were similar riots in Harlem and Los Angeles that summer.

In August 1944 there was a weeklong transit strike in Philadelphia. What was it about? The upgrading of eight Negroes to jobs formerly held exclusively by whites. Ten thousand union members shut down the city, the nation’s third-largest war production center, because they didn’t want blacks taking white drivers’ jobs. Blacks were fit only for menial jobs—janitors and mechanics and the like. Roosevelt sent in 5,000 troops and averted a major riot, but 300 storefronts were smashed in the black North Philadelphia neighborhood.

If you were the 81-year-old Connie Mack, with your life and assets invested in the Athletics, would you have stood up to those strikers and risked your business and personal safety by telling them that blacks were equal to whites and you were going to sign black players who would take white players’ jobs?

I don’t think so.

The same thing was true in Washington, where there was a wartime shortage of motormen and conductors. The transit company advertised for workers—white only—in cities as far as 200 miles away, despite the availability of qualified blacks in the city. Both the union and the CIO claimed that race riots would occur if blacks were hired for those positions.

When the D.C. fire chief proposed that black firemen be transferred to fill the many vacancies at white fire stations, he was attacked in a resolution passed by the AF of L Firemen’s Local. At this same time, the CIO and AF of L were joining black sportswriters in berating Clark Griffith for not integrating MLB.

Hypocrisy thrived in those days too.

In 1937, Griffith had told Baltimore Afro-American sports editor Sam Lacy, “I know the time will come, but the climate isn’t right. We wouldn’t have the support of society.” He was right. And Lacy conceded that baseball’s integration was an unrealistic goal at that time. Incidentally, Griffith Stadium was the only nonsegregated public place of amusement in Washington.

Negro Leagues star Leon Day later said, “They couldn’t have signed any black players in the 1930s even if they wanted to. It would have been suicide for the club owners and murder for the players.”6

This was the society that Kenesaw Mountain Landis, born in 1866, grew up in and lived in. Now that we’ve placed him in his time, let’s look at the charges leveled against him. Landis was a racist because

• he was solely or primarily responsible for pre- venting blacks from playing in the major leagues;
• as the czar of baseball, he had the power to force club owners to sign Negro Leaguers.

Let’s first look at the background of the man. There is no documentation of anything racist Landis ever did or said in or out of baseball. In researching his biography of Landis, David Pietrusza looked long and hard to find something. He found nothing. On the contrary, Landis’s family influences point the other way. His grandfather and father were outspoken abolitionists. Two of his brothers were elected to Congress in Indiana over Klan-backed candidates at a time when the Klan was strong and active there, and very few politicians dared to speak out on the issue of prejudice. They remained fierce opponents of the Klan all their lives.

When Landis was criticized by some congressmen for remaining as a federal judge after his appointment as commissioner in 1921, he was praised by black preachers in Chicago for his leniency and fairness toward black youths brought before him. This editorial appeared in a black newspaper:

The Chicago Advocate, speaking for the entire race, wishes to extend to Judge Landis their appreciation for his fair and impartial justice handed out regardless of race or creed We, the Negroes of this portion of the country, are thoroughly satisfied with the decisions of Judge Landis, and have no fault whatever to find with them. All of the Negroes ever convicted by him have been proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.

Landis was 54 years old at that time. If he was a racist, he either had a lot of people fooled or he became one overnight and pretty late in life.

What about this myth that Landis was an all-powerful dictator who could bully or force club owners to sign black players? How do you think that would go over in cities torn by riots and strikes, and in clubhouses torn between pro- and anti-Klansmen? In truth, Landis had no authority to tell any club owners whom to sign or how to spend their money.

If Landis was really so powerful, he would have abolished the one aspect of baseball he truly hated and fought—the farm system. But he couldn’t. In 1948, when a rule restricting control of bonus players was passed, Jim Gallagher, general manager of the Cubs, said the new rule did something that Landis had tried and failed to accomplish.

“For 25 years,” Gallagher said, “Commissioner Lan- dis struggled to loosen the regulations by which major league clubs could control the careers of players for periods as long as nine years. He succeeded in reducing this term of control, which was made by slow advancement in the farm system and subsequent options by major league clubs, to six years.”7

That was as much as this so-called czar could do in 25 years of trying. As for the charge that Landis prevented blacks from playing in the major leagues, there is no evidence that he ever stopped any club owner from signing a black player. None. Ever.

More than once he said there was not and never had been any rule barring blacks. And there wasn’t.

But of course, if you are bent on condemning him, you have to call him a liar. You have no basis for it, but it might make you feel better to believe it because it enables you to identify a villain and close the case— and your mind.

More than once Landis said, “If [anybody] wants to sign one or 25 Negro players, it is all right with me. That is the business of the manager and the club owners. The business of the Commissioner is to interpret the rules and enforce them.”

When he said it on July 17, 1942, the Afro-American ran the headline “Landis Clears Way for Owners to Hire Colored.” Sports editor Art Carter made it clear that it was up to any owner “willing to blaze the trail in breaking down the bar against colored players.”

Larry MacPhail of the Brooklyn Dodgers responded, “Judge Landis was not speaking for baseball when he said there was no barrier; there has been an unwritten law tantamount to an agreement between major league clubs on the subject of the racial issue.”

An agreement between major-league clubs—that’s the key. Landis never stopped anybody. No club owner had ever tried to sign a black player. In the words of feminist Carrie Chapman Carr, “No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.” And that’s the way it was. Unlike stores and restaurants and theaters, baseball clubs were interdependent. The owners’ report of 1946 pointed out, “The individual action of any one club . . . could conceivably result in lessening the value of several major league franchises.”

Horace Stoneham might have felt that New Yorkers would accept a black player in 1938 or ’40 or ’42 (in 1954, Milton Gross reported in the New York Post that Stoneham admitted he had tried to sign a black player three years before the signing of Jackie Robinson), but what would happen when the Giants took the field in Philadelphia or Cincinnati or St. Louis? Nobody knew. The club owners were like the businessmen who ran the theaters and restaurants and stores and hotels. Their business depended on the goodwill of their customers, many of whom were just like those white strikers who considered colored people inferior and a threat to take the white man’s job. What would happen if black players drew too many black fans? And if a black player got into a fight on the field or argued with an umpire—who knew what might spark a riot in the bleachers? We can sit here now and smugly say their fears were groundless, and maybe they were, but they were real at the time—make no mistake about that. Remember, most of us weren’t there as witnesses 65 or 70 years ago, when America was a very different place.

*****

Racism had nothing to do with Major League Baseball not signing black players in prewar America—and everything to do with it. But it was not the racism of club owners Connie Mack and Clark Griffith and Spike Briggs and Tom Yawkey and Bill DeWitt and Don Barnes and the Comiskeys and Ruppert and Stoneham and Wrigley and Crosley and Bob Quinn and Bill Benswanger and Branch Rickey—and Landis—but the racism of their customers, our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents.

Yes, I included Branch Rickey in that list. In his thoroughly documented biography of Rickey, Lee Lowenfish points out that Rickey’s home was St. Louis. He had been there for 30 years. He didn’t want to leave. Had Cardinals owner Sam Breadon not fired him in 1942, he would have stayed in St. Louis and there might have been no signing of Jackie Robinson. Rickey knew that St. Louis was too much of a Southern city to risk integration in the 1930s and early ’40s. Sports- man’s Park had a colored-only seating section for as long as Rickey was there. It was the last major-league park to be desegregated—after he left. Members of Rickey’s family told Lowenfish that he just couldn’t have broken the color line in St. Louis. So you cannot honestly label all the other owners as racists and not include Rickey, whose thinking was essentially the same as theirs—economic, risk-averse, uncertain of the social consequences.

When Branch Rickey moved to Brooklyn, Judge Landis was still commissioner. In early 1943, Rickey revealed to the Dodgers board of directors his plans to scout Negro Leaguers. He didn’t talk about being ready to sign them when and if Landis died or resigned or was fired. That was significant; he knew Landis was not the barrier. Rickey was anticipating the end of the war, when American society might have changed enough to accept the integration of the major leagues—maybe. He couldn’t have been encouraged by the race riots in Detroit, New York, and Los Angeles that summer

Judge Landis died on November 25, 1944. Nobody rushed to sign black players now that his supposed ban was no longer there. Club owners didn’t fall all over themselves outbidding each other for the biggest Negro League stars. A whole year passed before Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to a Montreal contract—after the war ended. Ten years after Landis and his mythical ban were gone, half the major-league clubs still had no black players.

In many baseball histories you read the shame-filled aside that, well, of course, it was the national game except that African Americans were not allowed in. Well, blacks weren’t allowed in any other part of white American life in those days. The fact is that Major League Baseball was not the shame of the nation, reactionary, behind the times. Baseball led the nation, integrating ten months before Harry Truman became the first president to send a civil-rights message to Congress, a year before integration of the armed forces, three years before the first black player was taken in the NBA draft, and way ahead of the nation’s political mood. Washington was still sharply segregated. Throughout Jackie Robinson’s first year with the Dodgers, there was not a single mention in any Washington newspaper of any statement by any congressman—from anywhere—that was critical of the segregation policies still in effect in the capital. Baseball does not deserve this black eye. It deserves recognition for leading—dragging—the rest of America a little closer to the ultimate goal of equality of opportunity.

And you can look it up.

Related link:

• Read Richard Crepeau’s rebuttal to this essay, “Landis, Baseball, and Racism — A Brief Comment”

Notes

This article is adapted from a research presentation given at the 2007 SABR annual convention.

1. Jules Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983).
2. Joe Vila, New York Sun, 1926.
3. Harry Wender, survey, Washington Post, 8 May 1949; Kenesaw M. Landis (commissioner’s nephew) and Tom P. Barrett, Segregation in Washington: A Report, November 1948 [Chicago, 1948].
4. William Baker, Jesse Owens: An American Life (New York: Free Press, 1986).
5. Harry Butcher, Three Years with Eisenhower: The Personal Diary of Captain Harry C. Butcher, USNR, Naval Aide to General Eisenhower, 1942 to 1945 (London: Heinemann, [1946]).
6. Sam Lacy and Leon Day, interviews with author.
7. Jim Gallagher, The Sporting News, 7 July 1948, 6.

John Thomas Tobin’s playing record is well documented. He had a 13-year major-league career, mostly with the St. Louis Browns. He led the Federal League in hits in 1915 and the American League in triples in 1921. He finished his big-league career with 1,906 hits and a .309 batting average. He then wound up his playing career with Bloomington of the Three-I League in 1930. The records of the other two John Tobins are a little fuzzy. Until recently, researchers thought that there was a possibility they were one and the same player. Thanks to research by Davis Barker, we now have a clearer picture of the two players.

John Martin Tobin graduated from Fordham University in 1932. According to the university website, he is a member of the Fordham Athletic Hall of Fame. He was with Winston-Salem of the Piedmont League late in the 1932 season, per a note in The Sporting News. The league averages listed only players in ten or more games, and Tobin was not included. He pinch-hit for the New York Giants on September 22. This earned him a place in The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia (fifth edition), where his birthplace is listed as Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, a district in Boston. He went to spring training with the Giants in 1933 but was optioned to Knoxville of the Southern Association, per a note in The Sporting News (March 30). He did not play in any league games for Knoxville. His trail ends at that point. John Lawrence Tobin is the third Tobin. The middle name, Lawrence, comes from a Howe News Bureau card. Other information on the card is a little contradictory, and so we are not positive that Lawrence is the correct middle name. Tobin played in four games for Tyler of the East Texas League in 1931. A Tyler newspaper referred to him as an East Texan and listed his hometown as Texarkana. He started the 1932 season with Muskogee of the Western Association. He was beaned on May 22 and sustained a concussion. We can find no additional playing record for him that season. He spent spring training with Tyler in 1933. This clinches the fact that John M. and John L. were two different players, as John M. was with the Giants that spring. John L. did not play in any league games for Tyler in 1933, and there is no further information on him for that season.

A John Tobin played in the minors from 1934 through 1937. With one exception, all of the clubs were in Texas. It is reasonable to assume that John L. was the player. The highlight of his career was a four-home-run game on June 15, 1936, while playing for Marshall versus Jacksonville in an East Texas League Game.

Coffey Field, Fordham University, 1930s. John Martin Tobin graduated from Fordham in 1932 and was inducted into the Fordham Athletic Hall of Fame in 1980 for his collegiate baseball career. His hall-of-fame plaque indicates that he also played football. Late in the 1932 season, the year he graduated, he played for Winston-Salem of the Piedmont League and pinch-hit for the New York Giants on September 22 and was 0 for 1 in his major-league career.