Ed Barrow (SABR-Rucker Archive)

The Toronto franchise of the International League was one of the strongest and had one of the longest tenures—from 1895 (when the league was called the Eastern League) until 1967. Ed Barrow had a lengthy, esteemed career as a baseball executive that ultimately landed him in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. This article tells the story of a relatively short period of time, 1900 through 1902, when the paths of this strong franchise and this storied baseball executive crossed.1 It is a story of the leadership of a brash young manager (and de facto general manager) who was learning the ropes of assembling a baseball team, skills he would put to good use when he later turned the forlorn New York Yankees franchise into one of the greatest powerhouses in the sport.

This article builds on the earlier work of Jane Finnan Dorward which discussed Barrow’s time in Toronto.2 However, this article focuses particularly on the personal qualities of Barrow as a leader and sports entrepreneur, and will demonstrate how Barrow developed those leadership and entrepreneurial qualities at a time when baseball was transforming itself from a gentleman’s recreational game into a money-making business, and how Barrow was preparing himself for his future success on the major-league stage. The story will begin with a discussion of Ed Barrow and the contributions he made to the Toronto baseball team, followed by the introduction of Charlie Maddock, a lower-profile, but important, actor on the Toronto baseball scene. The third section describes the turbulent environment facing a baseball manager in the early 1900s. This sets the stage to describe the Toronto team’s fortunes, 1900–02, when Barrow was manager. The article concludes with an analysis of how Barrow developed and applied the leadership and entrepreneurial skills in Toronto that he would eventually employ with the Yankees.

THE ROLE OF ED BARROW

Edward Grant Barrow was born into a poor family in Springfield, Illinois, in 1868.3 His family moved to Nebraska to homestead, but his father’s health was not up to the back-breaking labor, so the family relocated to Des Moines, Iowa. Ed left high school at about age 15 to take on a number of different jobs to support himself and contribute to the family.4

He never played baseball professionally, but he had aspirations until he injured his arm in amateur ball.5 He was something of a serial entrepreneur (not always successful) before settling into baseball. He and his brother bought a huge quantity of soap and moved to Pittsburgh, to make their fortune.6 They sold virtually nothing.7 He could have been more successful had he remained part of a fleeting partnership he had with Harry Stevens, who ultimately became the premier concessionaire for most baseball stadiums as well as other entertainment venues, but Barrow chose baseball.8

When he took over the Toronto Baseball Team in 1900, he was still learning his trade, but at 32 years old, he was already an experienced baseball executive. He had managed the Wheeling (West Virginia) Nailers in 1895, and the Paterson (New Jersey) Baseball Club in 1896, and spent three years (1897–99) as president of the Atlantic League.9

When the Atlantic League folded at the end of the 1899 season, Barrow was looking for his next job in baseball. A friend put him in contact with Arthur Irwin, a Canadian who had managed the Toronto team in 1898 and still owned a 25% interest in the team. Barrow’s description of how he was hired as manager is really quite simple: “He [Irwin] sold me on the idea of buying his interest and becoming manager.”10 This seems to have been a fairly normal way of doing business at the time.11 However this transpired, the fact is that at the beginning of the 1900 season, Barrow was manager and part-owner of the Toronto baseball team.

In 1900, the job of managing a minor-league baseball team was quite different from what we think of today. In many cases, the manager was the only full-time, permanent employee of the organization. Some teams did have business managers, and Toronto hired a business manager in 1905, but there is no mention of a business manager at this point.12 Barrow was responsible for anything that the part-time president, treasurer, or other members of the board did not want to take on. This included scouting, recruiting, and signing players; managing day-to-day business affairs; ensuring the quality of the stadium; making travel arrangements; functioning as athletic trainer; and on-field leadership.

Barrow showed throughout his career that he was the sort of proactive leader who questioned the status quo and was always seeking ways to do things better. Many changes occurred in the Toronto franchise during the relatively short time Barrow was there. From a distance of 120 years, it is difficult to determine exactly what role Barrow played in these changes, but, as a manager with a predisposition to activism, it seems certain that Barrow would have played a fairly significant role in anything that happened on his watch.

Change in the ownership structure. When Barrow arrived in late 1899, the majority owners of the team were Lawrence (Lol) Solman and the Toronto Ferry Company.13 Relationships here get a bit murky; Solman is sometimes described as a director or the manager of the ferry company.14 It was fairly common at this time for transit companies to own baseball franchises, which provided riders for the company’s vehicles.15 Solman had a similar motivation because he owned a hotel, amusement park, vaudeville theater, and other interests on the Toronto islands, where the team played its games at Hanlan’s Point.16

By the end of the 1900 season, Solman and the Toronto Ferry Company wanted out of the business, so Barrow, who already owned a 25% interest in the team, secured an option to purchase. It was suggested that he was working with interests in Buffalo to bring Toronto into Ban Johnson’s newly christened American League, but obviously this never happened.17

Barrow seems to have taken a leadership role in securing local investors who would purchase the club.18 On November 20, 1900, “[t]he largest and most enthusiastic baseball meeting held in years in Toronto took place.” The outcome of the meeting was the creation of a joint-stock company called the Toronto Baseball and Athletic Association. At this meeting, the approximately 50 shareholders selected a board of directors and corporate officers and began the steps necessary to purchase the Toronto franchise from Solman and the ferry company for $6,000.19 The newspaper account is unclear, but presumably the shareholders were purchasing a 75% interest in the club, since Barrow’s 25% remained intact.

At this meeting, the group selected Ed Mack as President, a position he held until November 1902.20 Mack was a high-profile baseball fan who owned a tailor shop in downtown Toronto. It is difficult to determine how large or successful his operation was, but he had a small advertisement in the Toronto Daily Star virtually every day. During the 1900 season, he ran a promotion that involved awarding the player with the highest home batting average his choice of a top coat or a suit of clothes.

As a result of the change in ownership, the team would be governed by a small group of directors, but major decisions would be made by a meeting of all 50 stockholders. Barrow was surely aware that the large number of shareholders meant that his 25% interest put him in a very strong position.

Construction of Diamond Park. When the Toronto team was founded in 1895, it played at a field at Queen and Broadview that would later be known as Sunlight Park. It moved to Hanlan’s Point for the 1897 season when it was owned by Solman and the ferry company. This meshed nicely with their business interests.

However, when the ownership changed after the 1900 season, it was a foregone conclusion that the team would play in a stadium on the mainland because it would be more accessible. There were constant complaints about the quality of the ferry service to the islands. Barrow had built ballparks previously when he managed in Wheeling and Paterson, and he seems to have taken complete control of the decision-making process in Toronto, which would become somewhat convoluted.21 His first attempt was to negotiate with the city for the use of a city-controlled site.22 When this failed, he looked more broadly. The newspaper accounts of the decision-making process are incomplete and confusing.23 The Toronto Street Railway wanted to avoid entering a competition, but it seems that it was willing to offer a rent-free location “‘within 12 minutes ride’ of Yonge and King streets.”24 When it was pointed out that this could be as far away as Bloor Street, the Star regarded this as “corner lots in the cow pastures.”25 Thus, this “offer” was not given serious consideration.

Barrow and Mack finally arranged to lease a property close to downtown at the southeast corner of Liberty Street and Fraser Avenue, which would suggest that the park was located immediately south of the southwest corner of what is now Lamport Stadium.26 Construction soon began with the understanding that the stadium would be ready by Opening Day of the 1901 season.27 The estimated cost of $10,000 “to put the grounds in shape” required another trip to the money market for Barrow, who seemed to have full responsibility for all aspects of fund-raising and construction.28

As sometimes happens in these cases, construction was not completed in time for the start of the 1901 season, so the team had to play its first 13 games on the road. Since the Leafs had been scheduled to open the season at home, this required other teams to adjust their travel schedules.29 However, when the stadium did open, a local journalist rose to great rhetorical heights:

’Twas a great opening. President Ed Mack, the fashion plate of baseball society, and his co-directors expanded their chests and smiled gigantic smiles with joyful rapidity as they observed the 5,000 spectators crowd into the stands …

The street parade, which preceded all this, was a gorgeous spectacle, and it awoke the populace down-town to the fact that something was happening out west about Fraser avenue [sic], and they immediately set sail for the new ball grounds …

When all of the 5,000 had been properly seated in the commodious stands and had concluded their rapturous admiration of the grounds, Easter (sic) League President Powers…took his seat in the box of honor … 30

The team continued to play at this venue until 1907. A group of businessmen including Solman, took over the team in 1905 and moved it back to the island for the 1908 season. The team returned to Diamond Park briefly in 1909 when the island park burned down.31 Diamond Park was demolished in 1911 to make way for a factory.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are born. Throughout most of its existence, the name of this team was the Maple Leafs. This has led people to project backward to the idea that it always bore that name, but the name was officially used for the first time in the 1902 season. On April 5, 1902, the Toronto Daily Star carried a short story announcing that the team would now be known as the Maple Leafs because “this name would appeal strongly to Torontonians, and Canadians generally.”32 The previously-used “T” on the players’ uniforms would be replaced by a maple leaf on the left breast. A follow-up note a few days later assured readers that “The name ‘The Maple Leafs’ for the Torontos has made a big hit.”33 The new name merited a one-sentence mention in the Globe.34

It is not clear why the team adopted this label at this time. The name Maple Leafs was not new. The 1894 Guelph Maple Leafs baseball team won the national championship, and the name was so closely associated with Guelph that newspapers confidently used just the name to refer to the Guelph team. The name was also used by a Hamilton baseball team, a hockey team in Port Dalhousie, Ontario (now a part of St. Catharines), and a football team in Carrberry, Manitoba.35 It was also used by teams in curling and lacrosse. The use of the name by the baseball team predated the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team by a quarter-century.36

Team names and nicknames were not universally used in newspapers at this point, so the moniker did not catch on immediately. A review of newspaper stories about the team for the 1902 season found an occasional reference to Maple Leafs, but the team was usually called the Toronto baseball team with an occasional reference to Canucks, Torontos, or Barrowites. This was likely a matter of style in that nicknames were simply not used very much at this time, but it also had to do with practicalities. So many teams in so many different sports used the Maple Leafs moniker that journalists had to be cautious about ambiguities. Even the advertising that was paid for by the team did not include the Maple Leaf appellation. However, the name did eventually catch on. By 1908, Maple Leafs and other team names were used more frequently.

There is no mention that the idea came from Barrow. However, it seems that very little happened around this team that did not go through Barrow, and this is the sort of thing that would appeal to Barrow’s style.

The Love Interest. Good baseball stories always seem to have a love interest—Annie Savoy in Bull Durham and the troubled relationship of Roy Hobbs and Memo Paris in The Natural—and this is no exception. Barrow describes his situation in Toronto in 1902: “I was happy in Toronto, and also I met a young lady, Frances Elizabeth Taylor. I was in no hurry to leave.”37 As charming as it sounds, there was a small problem—both Barrow and Taylor were already married to other people at the time.

Barrow married Alice Calhoun in 1898 in New York City. She was a performer, probably a dancer, and little is known about her.38 Barrow does not mention her in his autobiography, and she does not seem to have been highly visible in the baseball part of his life. In May 1901, their only child died shortly after birth. Alice seems never to have recovered from this tragedy and they drifted apart.39

Frances (Fannie) Taylor married Harry N. Briggs on September 19, 1900, in Toronto. He was described as “travelling representative of Messrs. Dick, Ridout & Company,” a paper bag manufacturing company. It seems to have been a high society wedding. The Globe commented, “They were the recipients of many beautiful and costly presents.”40 Not much else is known about the groom.

Understandably, Barrow’s relationship with Fannie is not well documented. He always referred to her by her maiden name, because she almost surely would have taken her husband’s name when they married. He mentioned that he was pleased to return to Toronto in 1906 for a second stint as manager because it would bring him closer to Fannie.41 Also in 1906, Fannie gave birth to a daughter, Audrey. Barrow does not mention this in his autobiography, but his biographer, Daniel R. Levitt, comments that Barrow treated Audrey as his own daughter.42

Barrow had another stint as manager of the Maple Leafs in 1906, but it was disastrous and he did not complete the season with the team. Instead, he decided to forsake baseball, at least temporarily, in order to purchase and manage a hotel in Toronto from 1906 until 1909.43

There is no evidence that Barrow ever divorced Alice, but she died in April 1911, by which time Fannie was also free of marital bonds. In his autobiography Barrow describes that he “…finally broke down Fannie Elizabeth Taylor.”44 (Alice’s death is not mentioned.) Ed and Fannie were married in Buffalo on January 3, 1912, in a church not far from the baseball stadium.45

Ed and Fannie seem to have had a very positive relationship over the remainder of their lives together. She is mentioned fondly, if not often, in his autobiography. However, it is unclear how much of a role she played in his life. There is only one picture of her in his autobiography, sitting with the wives of Joe McCarthy and Lou Gehrig, probably in Yankee Stadium in the 1930s. There is no photograph of Ed and Fannie together in the book, although there are numerous ones of Ed with baseball personalities and the requisite photo of him with his baseball scout and good friend, Paul Krichell, holding fish they had caught on one of their trips to Canada. Levitt notes that his office in Yankee Stadium was lined with pictures related to his baseball career, but does not mention any family pictures.46 Barrow seems to have been the stereotypical man who is married to his job, with little room for other relationships.

THE ROLE OF CHARLIE MADDOCK

The other person who played an instrumental role in the Toronto baseball team at this time is Charlie Maddock.47 He provided a counterpoint to Barrow; Maddock was a competent, low-key baseball guy who never took on the mantle of leadership or sports entrepreneur in the way that Barrow did. There is little biographical information about him. By 1900, he had been active on the baseball scene in southern Ontario for about 30 years as a player and manager. He was a catcher and, later in his career, a second baseman on some great Guelph Maple Leafs teams.48 He was managing Toronto’s earlier entry in the International Association in 1890 when the league folded, taking all the teams with it.49

The Globe exonerated Maddock of any guilt in the collapse and described how his loyal players stayed on in Toronto after they were paid off to play a game to benefit Maddock.50 Shortly after the demise of the Toronto team, he was offered a job as manager of the Syracuse club in the American Association.51 Later, he was instrumental in obtaining the franchise for the new Toronto team when it was awarded in 1894 for the 1895 season. He was described at that point as having “a modest exterior” but being a “stern disciplinarian.”52 He managed the team for part of its first season until he was relieved of his duties.53 He seems to have been something of a raconteur. On one rainy day, he entertained the young players with stories of how he had played on a team that once scored 113 runs in one game, and on another occasion a mere 78.54

At this time, teams did not typically have coaches to assist the manager, but he seems to have been a presence around the team. He umpired practice games before the season started.55 When Diamond Park was built, he was named superintendent of the grounds, and received high praise for his work.56,57

Beyond his work with this franchise, his name was frequently mentioned in the sports pages as an umpire of local games and in other capacities.58 In sum, he seems to have been an elder statesman with fairly deep roots in the Toronto baseball community.

By any measure, he was a great baseball guy, and had an important, if unclear, relationship with the team. However, his role was always second to Barrow’s leadership role, and his personality contrasted with Barrow’s in ways that will be discussed later.

THE BASEBALL ENVIRONMENT IN THE EARLY 1900S

The early 1900s was a difficult time to run a professional baseball team.59 Organized baseball was digesting a great many changes in a short time period. The Eastern League was a beacon of comparative stability; it had operated at the high minor-league level with small blips since 1884. It consisted of eight teams based in the northeastern United States plus, sometimes, Montreal and Toronto. Almost every year saw turnover in the eight cities represented, but the league itself was quite stable. However, it was affected by the turmoil around it.

After the 1899 season, the National League contracted from 12 to eight teams. This left many players without major-league jobs and four cities without major-league teams. In 1901, Ban Johnson decided to move the American League to major-league status on a par with the National League. These changes meant that the number of major-league teams competing for players had gone from 12 in 1899 to eight in 1900 and back up to 16 in 1901. The fluctuating number of major-league players had an obvious impact on the high tiers of the minor leagues. Then, in 1902 an “outlaw” league called the American Association came on the scene and needed to attract players from the existing leagues.60 It bore the “outlaw” designation because it did not abide by the existing agreements between the major and minor leagues governing player movement among teams.61

The Eastern League was caught in a situation where it was losing some of its best players to both the American League and the American Association. This turmoil was exacerbated by some confusion about the status of player contracts.62 The general idea was that teams would usually, but not always, recognize the current contract of a player, but not the reserve clause. In other words, teams would generally not try to steal a player who was under a current contract with another team, but they would not recognize the reserve aspect of that contract, so that when a contract expired, poaching the player was acceptable.63 However, even this fairly lax convention was not strictly followed, and there were numerous examples of players jumping from one team to another even while under contract. This was particularly problematic for teams in the high minor leagues which were forced to fend off raids by other leagues, while engaging in their own raids to replace players they were losing. This was the complex environment that Barrow and other team executives had to navigate in the early 1900s.

It was not easy to build a team over several years when there was so much turmoil. However, Barrow prided himself on having a good eye for baseball talent and being well-connected among baseball executives. He would need these skills to assemble a competitive team in Toronto in 1900.

BARROW WORKS HIS MAGIC

Table 1 illustrates the fortunes of the Toronto team before, during, and after Barrow’s tenure. The 1899 team that Barrow inherited when he became manager in 1900 was the personification of mediocrity—it finished in fourth place in an eight-team league with a .500 record. However, the team improved significantly over his three-year tenure. After slipping a bit in his first year, the team jumped from sixth to second, and in 1902, he completed the job when the team won the league championship. How did Barrow accomplish this progression?

 

Table 1. Toronto Won–Loss Record

Table 2 provides an indication of the problem that Barrow faced. It lists the players who played the most games at each position for the years before, during, and after his time as manager. In his first year as manager in 1900, two of eight non-pitching position players from the previous year returned, so he had to recruit players for the other six positions. In 1901 he did much better with five returning players. In the year of his ultimate success, 1902, he began the season with only two returning players.

Table 2. Continuity of Position Players

Table 3 provides similar information for pitchers, but the story is pretty much the same. In most years he had to re-staff the pitching corps. In particular, in 1902 he had only one returning pitcher, Lou Bruce, and this requires some explanation since he is not listed in the 1901 column. Bruce was an extraordinary player who pitched in addition to playing almost every day that he did not pitch at either shortstop or in the outfield. He did pitch some games in 1901, although Baseball Reference does not list him as a pitcher and does not provide his pitching record.

Table 3. Continuity of Pitchers

Barrow obviously had a difficult time in the 1900 season as indicated by the worsened won-loss record. However, he was willing to experiment with bringing in new players. He was criticized in the local media because by July he had used a total of 31 players in an era when the standard roster was 15 players.64

There were some good players on the 1900 team. The most outstanding player both on and off the field was clearly Lou Bruce. He played in Toronto for five years, usually with a batting average over .300 and with a cumulative pitching record of 34–9.65 He had a short, and much less successful, career in the majors with the Philadelphia Athletics. He had degrees in dentistry from the University of Pennsylvania and in theology from Syracuse University, and he worked as both a dentist and a Methodist minister. He was a proud member of the Mohawk tribe and spent much of his life advocating for First Nation causes. His pleasant personality made him a popular figure wherever he went.66

One of the benefits of the corporate restructuring that Barrow engineered after the 1900 season was that he had more money to spend on players going into 1901.70 This was welcome because the change in the American League’s status increased the level of competition for players. He was able to land pitcher Nick Altrock and second baseman Frank Bonner, and to keep third baseman Bob Schaub.71 Altrock had one outstanding year with Toronto on his way to an extended major-league career with the White Sox and Nationals, including a stellar World Series with the 1906 White Sox. His career WAR was 9.2.72 Bonner’s .340 batting average was a strong contribution to Toronto, but it was pretty much the height of his 13-year career which included six years in the majors. Barrow assembled a very good hitting team supported by Altrock and other good pitchers. He and his backers must have been pleased that the team moved from sixth place to a more respectable second place. However, as indicated in Tables 2 and 3, many of these players moved on at the end of the 1901 season, making it necessary for him to start over in 1902.

After the 1901 season, Mack challenged Barrow’s leadership and suggested that replacing Barrow with a player/manager would save money. This seems an odd stance to take with a manager who has just moved a team from sixth to second place in one year. However, there was some idea that Mack was motivated by a personal grudge. The directors supported Mack by a vote of 3–2, but that decision was overridden by a 58–29 vote of the stockholders, and Barrow remained as manager, although his relationship with Mack was surely damaged.73

Profits were down in the 1901 season, and there were limited funds to attract and retain players for 1902. This problem was exacerbated by the tumultuous situation among the various leagues described above. Tables 2 and 3 indicate that Barrow lost six of the eight position players and retained only one pitcher. This did not augur well for 1902.

THE 1902 CHAMPION SEASON

The season started with the players meeting Barrow at the Grand Union Hotel in Toronto on April 8, 1902.74 Two Canadians were among those reporting, although neither made the team.75 Barrow had assembled a good team by following his usual methods of playing a bit fast and loose with contracting rules.76

Most of the teams in the Eastern League played preseason practice games (as they were called) with each other, which involved travelling around the Northeast—not a pleasant experience in April. With the recent construction of Diamond Park and other expenses, the team was facing a cash crunch. Barrow elected to keep his charges at home, where they played various local teams such as the University of Toronto, the Crescents, and the Night Owls.77 The Toronto team usually won by a large margin, so it is questionable how much real practice they were getting. However, occasionally an opposing player was given a tryout by the Toronto team, much to the delight of the local media.78

When the season started, the Maple Leafs got off to a weak start. Figure 1 tracks the won-loss averages over the entire season for Toronto and Buffalo, the runner-up.

Figure 1. 1902 Pennant Race—Buffalo and Toronto

After a weak start Toronto pulled substantially ahead of Buffalo in June, but the situation reversed in July as the surging Buffalo team overtook the hometowners. In August it looked as though Toronto had a comfortable lead until Buffalo started on a long, steady increase, which fell just short of overtaking Toronto at the end of the season. The headline in the Star reported that Toronto “won by a good margin,” but the Maple Leafs were fortunate that the season ended before Buffalo could overtake them. Toronto needed to win both games of a double-header on the last day of the season to out-distance Buffalo by a half-game. Even then, Buffalo supporters could point out that Buffalo was victimized by playing seven more games than Toronto. This was the result of rained out games not made up and tie games (caused by darkness or a team needing to make train connections), which did not count in the standings.

Table 4. 1902 Eastern League Final Standings

Toronto had played in the Eastern League since 1895, and this was its first championship. This was cause for great excitement among the Toronto faithful. Barrow was popular, and the locals wanted to tie him down for a future stint as manager, so he was given a contract extension and a significant pay increase. Attendance for the season was 130,000 over 57 home dates for an average of 2,300 per game. This was quite an achievement for a minor-league team, and was better than two National League teams (though only half of what Buffalo drew). It generated a profit of $3,692, which gave the club enough confidence to buy the stadium property, which it had previously been leasing.79

Table 5 lists the non-pitchers who appeared in the most games at every position. Table 6 lists the main pitchers. This information indicates that Barrow did a good job of putting together a group of solid players who had good, if not outstanding, careers. Outfielder Jimmy Bannon and pitchers Buttons Briggs and Jake Thielman, who was only with the team for part of the season, 80 went on to short but respectable major-league careers. All of the other players were career minor leaguers.

Table 5. 1902 Players

Table 6. 1902 Pitchers

BARROW AS LEADER AND SPORTS ENTREPRENEUR

When Barrow came to Toronto for the 1900 season, he was a fairly young baseball manager on his way up. He served his three years in the high minors in Toronto, but was ticketed for greater things. His next job was managing the Detroit Tigers, and over time, he became manager of the 1918 World Series champion Red Sox, and in 1920 went on to be business manager of the Yankees, where he stayed until 1945. During his Yankees tenure, the team won 14 American League pennants and 10 World Series. He was clearly an effective leader and entrepreneur.

However, baseball was changing in another way. Baseball originated as a gentleman’s game played for recreational purposes, and for the entertainment of the players. Over time, baseball was becoming a money-making business, and in order to meet that imperative, baseball followed the broader societal trend of the 1900s in developing a highly structured organization with specialization of labor, and businessmen-entrepreneurs in charge.82 Charlie Maddock and Ed Barrow provide examples of how different people adapted, or did not adapt, to this change.

Charlie Maddock had played the game very well, and moved up to manage several teams. He stayed involved in all aspects of the game by being a groundskeeper at Diamond Park, umpiring community games, and sometimes playing the role of raconteur in the clubhouse. He really knew the game and seems to have been well-respected by all those involved. However, he never moved to the next level.

Barrow never played professional baseball, but he moved into baseball after failing at some other business ventures because he was interested in the game and because the opportunity presented itself. Barrow was clearly a good baseball man. He took over a mediocre team in Toronto and led it to a league championship, and he did this while working in a very turbulent environment. But beyond that, he understood the business side of baseball in ways that Maddock did not. Barrow took the initiative in reorganizing the ownership structure of the Toronto team. He recognized that the team could make more money playing on the mainland, so he built a stadium close to the center of town. He branded the team as Maple Leafs in order to appeal to the patriotism of local residents.

Barrow also exhibited the political skills required of an organizational man. Levitt’s biography of Barrow is generally positive, but Levitt does suggest that Barrow sometimes exhibited a lack of political skills.83 Of course, Barrow did lose some battles, as would be expected of anyone who had a habit of being dissatisfied with the status quo. However, he did demonstrate political skills on several occasions. He was instrumental in managing the purchase of the Toronto club in 1900 by over 50 shareholders. This involved raising the money for the initial purchase of the club, as well as some operating funds, and the money necessary to build a new stadium. He did all of this in a city (and country) in which he had arrived only recently. When Mack attempted to unseat him as manager, Barrow lost the first battle with the directors, but won a resounding victory with the totality of the shareholders.

Barrow’s political skills extended to an ability to meet and cultivate relationships with the right people. When he was a young upstart in Pittsburgh, he met Al Buckenberger, an old baseball hand and manager of the Pittsburgh team. He won the confidence of Harry Stevens, who went on to be one of the best-known names in baseball.84 When the Atlantic League folded, he had the right contacts to land a job managing a team in the high minors. He seems to have had significant political skills that extended to making the right contacts at the right time, and employing those contacts in beneficial ways.

Smythe “recognized the value of a market.” Barrow came to the foreign city of Toronto and expanded the ownership base of the team to include influential businessmen like Ed Mack and a large number of other investors who would surely be effective ambassadors for the team. This community ownership broadened the appeal of the fledgling team among the general population.

Second, Barrow followed Smythe’s maxim that “It’s all about the talent.” Barrow was quite successful in bringing players to Toronto who would improve the quality of the team and ultimately win a league championship. In fact, Barrow rebuilt and improved the quality of the team every year. He was able to do this because he was a superior judge of talent, and because he had contacts throughout the baseball world.

Third, Smythe is credited with the genius of changing the name of his hockey team from the St. Pat’s to the more Canadian Maple Leafs. In fact, the foreigner Barrow had beat him to this idea by a full quarter century.

Finally, Smythe recognized the importance of an attractive venue when he built Maple Leaf Gardens. Barrow’s Diamond Park lacked the architectural grandeur of the “cash box on Carlton Street”—as Maple Leafs Gardens became known—but it was recognized as a comfortable, modern venue in its time that was easily accessible to patrons. He established the venue at a central location on the mainland and avoided the temptation of the “cow pasture” land on remote Bloor Street.

These are examples of the ways in which Barrow was honing his skills in Toronto that he would demonstrate later in his lengthy baseball career. In New York he recognized the pride New Yorkers famously hold for their city. He built on it by assembling excellent teams, and built a venue as grandiose as the personalities that played there, which would become one of the most iconic venues in sports.

CONCLUSION

This has been the story of the intersection of one of the longest-running and most successful franchises in minor-league baseball with a young man on the rise who was learning skills that would make him one of the most renowned leaders and entrepreneurs in sports. Barrow established his credentials as a good baseball man who could take over a mediocre team and turn it into a league champion. He also recognized that baseball was moving beyond its recreational roots to become a business. He developed the political skills needed to work with a governing board, the financial skills needed to assemble funding for operations and for major projects, and the marketing skills needed to attract patrons to the ballpark. He was a model of the sports entrepreneur of the twentieth century. 

DAVID SIEGEL has been a member of SABR since 2006. After 40 years as a professor of political science and administrator at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, he has turned his attention to researching and writing about baseball.

Notes

1. Barrow returned to Toronto for a brief stint as manager during the 1906 season, but this was disastrous for both Barrow and the team.

2. Jane Finnan Dorward, “Ed Barrow’s Toronto Years,” in Jane Finnan Dorward, ed., Dominionball: Baseball Above the 49th (Cleveland: The Society for American Baseball Research Inc., 2005), 101–108.

3. Daniel R. Levitt, Ed Barrow: The Bulldog Who Built the Yankees’ First Dynasty (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008), 10.

4. Edward Grant Barrow with James M. Kahn, My Fifty Years in Baseball (New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1951), 11, 13.

5. Barrow with Kahn, My Fifty Years in Baseball, 14.

6. Spelled Pittsburg at the time.

7. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 2008, 15.

8. Barrow with Kahn, My Fifty Years in Baseball, 28, 48.

9. Baseball Reference https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Ed_Barrow, accessed, June 23, 2023.

10. Barrow with Kahn, My Fifty Years in Baseball, 49.

11. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 38–9.

12. Untitled, Toronto Daily Star, July 30, 1900, 6; “Stars in Bad Way,” Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY), April 25,1901, 15; Untitled, Buffalo Express, December 2, 1901, 9; “Baseball.” The Globe, February 11, 1905, 21.

13. Barrow with Kahn, My Fifty Years in Baseball, 50.

14. “New Arrangements by the Ferry Co.,” The Globe, April 22,1903, 4; “At Lakeside Home,” The Globe, May 30, 1903, 24.

15. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 37.

16. The Toronto islands are a much-loved group of islands that form Toronto harbour. They are mostly parkland with a fancy yacht club and some privately owned cottages; motor vehicles are prohibited. Torontonians see the short ferry ride to the islands as a welcome escape from the hustle and bustle of city life. Hanlan’s Point is revered by baseball fans as the locus of Babe Ruth’s first home run in a regular season game. In more recent times, the beach at Hanlan’s Point has become a gay meeting place, and is the only municipally sanctioned clothing-optional beach in the city. Times change.

17. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 41.

18. “Toronto Ball Club Affairs,” The Globe, September 28, 1900, 8; Levitt, Ed Barrow, 41.

19. “Baseball Club Changes Hands,” Toronto Daily Star, November 21, 1900, 6.

20. “Baseball Club Changes Hands,” Toronto Daily Star, November 21, 1900, 6.

21. Dorward, “Ed Barrow’s Toronto Years,” 102.

22. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 43.

23. “Baseball Club Changes Hands,” Toronto Daily Star, November 21, 1900, 6; “Officers of the New Ball Club,” Toronto Daily Star, November 22, 1900, 8; “Getting Grounds on the City Side,” Toronto Daily Star, December 8, 1900, 7.

24. “Baseball Club Changes Hands,” Toronto Daily Star, November 21, 1900, 6.

25. “Officers of the New Ball Club,” Toronto Daily Star, November 22, 1900, 8.

26. “Deal for Grounds Ratified,” The Globe, March 6, 1901, 10; Levitt, Ed Barrow, 43, 50.

27. “Deal for Grounds Ratified,” The Globe, March 6, 1901, 10.

28. “Liners,” The Globe, March 26, 1901, 10.

29. “Baseball, The Globe, April 16, 1901, 10.

30. “Toronto Beaten in the Opening Game,” Toronto Daily Star, May 11, 1901, 15.

31. “Ball Club To Play At Diamond Park.” Toronto Daily Star. August 13, 1909, 9.

32. “Will Be Called the Maple Leafs,” Toronto Daily Star, April 5, 1902, 8.

33. “Baseball Brevities” Toronto Daily Star, April 8, 1902, 8.

34. “Liners,” The Globe, April 7, 1902, 10.

35. “Cornwall Goals Inches Too High,” Toronto Daily Star, February 13, 1902, 8; “Football Paragraphs,” Toronto Daily Star, April 4, 1902, 8.

36. Kevin Shea and Jason Wilson, The Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey Club: The Official Centennial Publication (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2016), 33.

37. Barrow with Kahn, My Fifty Years in Baseball, 52; Levitt, Ed Barrow, 70.

38. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 35.

39. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 44.

40. “Social and Personal,” The Globe, September 20, 1900, 12; “A Marriage at St. Enoch’s To-day,” Toronto Daily Star, September 19, 1900, 5.

41. Barrow with Kahn, My Fifty Years in Baseball, 61.

42. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 84.

43. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 71–2.

44. Barrow with Kahn, My Fifty Years in Baseball, 76.

45. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 84.

46. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 325.

47. William C. Maddock. His name was also sometimes spelled Maddocks in the Toronto newspapers.

48. Louis Cauz, Baseball’s Back in Town (Toronto: A Controlled Media Publication, 1977), 23.

49. “Liners,” The Globe, April 11, 1902, 10.

50. “The American Curlers,” The Globe, July 10, 1890, 6.

51. “Baseball,” The Globe, July 14, 1890, 6.

52. Daily Mail and Empire, April 15, 1895, 2.

53. David Siegel, “Professional Baseball Comes to Toronto to Stay: The Toronto Baseball Club in the Eastern League, 1895,” in Andrew North, ed., Our Game, Too (Phoenix, AZ: Society for American Baseball Research, Inc., 2022), 184–93.

54. “An Off Day for the Ball Players,” Toronto Daily Star, August 6, 1902, 8.

55. “Maple Leafs in a Practice Game,” Toronto Daily Star, April 12, 1902, 8; “Scott and Brennan at Work,” Toronto Daily Star, April 29, 1902, 8.

56. “Liners,” the Globe, March 12, 1901, 12; “Diamond Park in Fine Condition,” Toronto Daily Star, April 2, 1902, 8.

57. “Friday, Opening Day,” The Globe, May 8, 1901, 10.

58. “Baseball Brevities,” Toronto Daily Star, April 21, 1902, 8; “Varsity Beat St Michael’s,” The Globe, April 30, 1900, 12; “Other Saturday Games,” The Globe, July 8, 1901, 7.

59. Dorward, “Ed Barrow’s Toronto Years,” 102.

60. Harold Seymour and Dorothy Seymour Mills, Baseball: The Early Years (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960), 315 and passim.; Bill O’Neal, The American Association: A Baseball History 1902–1991 (Austin, TX: Eakin Press, 1991), 3: Neil J. Sullivan, The Minors: The Struggles and the Triumph of Baseball’s Poor Relations from 1876 to the Present (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990), chapters 2 and 3.

61. Robert Obojski, Bush League: A History of Minor League Baseball (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.), 10; Sullivan, The Minors, 18, 38, 44.

62. Obojski, Bush League, 13 ff.

63. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 42.

64. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 39.

65. Baseball-Reference, https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=bruce-001lou, accessed, February 5, 2025.

66. Rory Costello, “Lou Bruce,” SABR BioProject https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/lou-bruce/, accessed, February 5, 2025.

67. Chris Rainey, “Harry Bemis,” SABR BioProject. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/harry-bemis/, accessed, February 5, 2025.

68. Harry Bemis, https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=bemis-001har, accessed, October 26, 2023.

69. Charlie Carr, https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=carr–001cha, accessed, October 26, 2023.

70. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 42.

71. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 43.

72. Nick Altrock, https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=altroc001nic, accessed, October 26, 2023.

73. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 47.

74. “Toronto Team Reports.” The Globe, April 9, 1902, 10.

75. “The News of Sport” The Globe, April 9, 1902, 10.

76. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 48–9.

77. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 49.

78. “Frank Scott Has Signed,” The Globe, April 25, 1902, 10.

79. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 50.

80. Jake Thielman, https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=thielm001joh, accessed, October 27, 2023.

81. John L. Allen, “Professional Sport,” in Matthew J. Robinson, Mary A. Hums, R. Brian Crow, and Dennis R. Phillips, eds., Profiles of Sport Industry Professionals (Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen Publishers, Inc., 2001), 119–30.

82. Peter Levine, A.G. Spalding and the Rise of Baseball (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985) describes this evolution and how Spalding was able to make the transition from player to baseball executive to sporting goods entrepreneur. See also: Levitt, Ed Barrow, 3–4.

83. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 43, 45–6.

84. Levitt, Ed Barrow, 19.

85. Julie Stevens, “Conn Smythe: the complexity and contradiction of a hockey entrepreneur” Sport in Society, vol. 23, no. 9 (2020), 1474–5. https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2020.1723242.

Hanlan’s Point illuminated in 1928, not for baseball, but for opera. (City of Toronto Archives)

As soon as it became possible to play ballgames at night, baseball purists scoffed at the idea. In 1915, the Toronto Daily Star declared that night baseball had always been, and would always be, a dismal failure. “When it has been tried in the United States,” the sports editor wrote, “the light was wretched and it was impossible to follow the flight of a baseball.”1 In 1923, Hall of Famer Honus Wagner, syndicated in newspapers across North America, recalled an experimental night game he played in Wilmington, Delaware, which sent disappointed patrons rushing to the box office to demand refunds. Playing under lights “made it impossible to make a good catch in the outfield,” recalled the Flying Dutchman. He noted that “hitting a baseball at night was simply out of the question.” Night games were “a joke,” and he assured his readers he’d seen “the end of night baseball.”2 Writing in the Toronto Globe in 1927, columnist Michael Rodden lamented that athletes of the future would likely be forced to practice at unsatisfactory hours and under the indecorous glare of arc lights.3 Lou Gehrig, speaking on the radio in 1939, said that night games were “not really baseball” and “were strictly advantageous to the owners’ pocketbook.” Baseball, according to the Iron Horse, “should be played in the sunshine.”4 Decades later, when Canadian author W.P. Kinsella wrote Shoeless Joe, his protagonist, Ray, first bonded with the specter of Joe Jackson by discussing the unfortunate illumination of ballparks:

“What happened to the sun?” Shoeless Joe says to me, waving his hand towards the banks of floodlights that surround the park. “Only stadium in the big leagues that doesn’t have them is Wrigley Field,” I say. “The owners found that more people could attend night games. They even play the World Series at night now.” Joe purses his lips, considering. “It’s harder to see the ball, especially at the plate.” “When there are breaks,” I add, “they usually go against the ballplayers, right?” Joe grins. “I’d play for the Devil’s own team just for the touch of a baseball. Hell, I’d play in the dark if I had to.”5

By the early twentieth century, no one needed to play in the dark. Yet, for nearly three decades after it became practical, not a single ballgame was played under lights in the city of Toronto. Then, a group of adventurous young women, willing to play ball whenever they could during the Great Depression, played under the stars and sold tickets to the spectacle. Their success on the field and at the box office ensured the new-fangled idea had come to stay. Floodlight baseball took Toronto by storm.6

EARLY ELECTRICITY IN TORONTO

Electric lighting arrived in Toronto one evening in 1879 when two arc lights were turned on at McConkey’s restaurant at 145 Yonge Street. Power was supplied by a generator that was driven by a small steam engine. McConkey’s celebrated the occasion by serving free ice cream.7 Such steam-powered “dynamos” were the first electrical generators capable of delivering power for personal or professional use. Beginning in 1881, dynamos were used to illuminate the Canadian National Exhibition, allowing it to continue each evening until 10:00PM rather than closing at sundown.8 Later that year, dynamo-powered electric lights were used to illuminate a sports venue for the first time in Toronto, at the Adelaide Street skating rink.9 In June 1883, a 1,300-pound dynamo powered lights for the outdoor curling rink at the uptown Granite Club. The Queen’s Own Rifles regimental band played an evening concert at the venue. “A great many persons spent their entire time [at the Granite] examining the dynamo-electric machine which produced the electric light,” wrote the Globe. “The light was quite mellow and would bring out colours the same as the sunlight.”10 By 1884, dynamo generators energized a small electric railway at the Toronto Industrial Exhibition, known today as the Canadian National Exhibition, and illuminated displays about the wonders of electricity both indoors and out.11 Though ground-breaking and significant, the era of the dynamo would be short. By 1882, electrical pioneer, inventor, and entrepreneur J.J. Wright had already built the first Canadian-made electric generator in the back room of the Firstbrook Box Factory in downtown Toronto.12

By the end of 1897, Toronto had 1,079 electric arc lights on its streets, but just 17 in its parks. These were supplemented by 23 remaining “ordinary gas lamps” that the city continued to service.16 By 1903, Alderman Daniel Chisholm was demanding action in the form of 125 new lamps for parks.17 But electrification of recreational spaces continued to advance at a snail’s pace. Earlier that spring, 17 Ontario municipalities had joined together to create a large enough market to justify the transmission of power from Niagara Falls to Toronto with diversions to towns and villages along the way.18 Hydroelectricity and its seemingly limitless potential was headed to Hogtown.

Sunnyside Park in 1924, before the installation of lights. The diamond was oriented so that fly balls landed on Lakeshore Boulevard. (City of Toronto Archives)

TEMPORARY LIGHTING FOR OUTDOOR SPORTS

The Track and Field Oval at Hanlan’s Point was the first athletic venue in Toronto to regularly advertise organized sporting events at night. The Oval, part of the collection of amusements, athletic facilities, and attractions on Toronto Island, would place portable arc lights, similar to those being used in theaters, alongside the track. The Oval was within home run distance of Hanlan’s Point Stadium, home of Toronto’s professional baseball club, the Maple Leafs. On September 8, 1907, with the lamps mounted on poles, a footrace was billed as “a scintillating Saturday night under arc lights.” Famed English distance runner Alfred Shrubb and star Maple Leafs outfielder Jack Thoney were featured in separate one-on-one challenge races. Thoney, wearing his baseball uniform, raced a lacrosse player for 100 yards and then battled another runner in a 220-yard race. Thoney was said to be “not even trying” by the end of each of his races, which he won easily. The Daily Star reported that “Thoney left last night for Cincinnati where he is fully expected to beat the world around-the-bases record.”19 During the mile-long main event, as Shrubb was beating American champion Thomas J. Kanaly by “a lap and a half,” the lights went out. “Something unfortunately went wrong with the electric power,” reported the correspondent on the scene. “The fifty odd arc lights, which illuminated the track, died away without warning, leaving the grounds in a state of almost total darkness.”20 Shrubb and Kanaly kept running under the light of the moon. Two years later, a 15-mile race was scheduled, this time with 100 mounted arc lights. The light flickered and nearly faltered, but thousands of paying customers were able to watch three runners round the track for nearly 90 minutes.21

More reliable lighting was on the way. In anticipation of publicly controlled power from Niagara reaching Toronto in early 1911, the city installed 18,000 single incandescent light bulbs and an additional 12,000 light-ready poles along its streets and in its parks. Those poles got their lights over the next 18 months.22 On December 22, 1911, the municipal government financed the lighting of a temporary skating rink inside Varsity Stadium for the winter. The skating pond was 100 by 200 feet, and the new hydroelectric power ensured its surface was well lit and its dressing rooms well heated.23 In the ensuing years, big-top circuses, red carpet arrivals, lakeshore swims, royal visits, lawn bowling lanes, cycling tracks, livestock competitions, soccer matches, and rugby games were all staged under temporarily constructed lighting rigs in the city of Toronto.24

In time, arc lights gave way to more powerful and reliable floodlights. The baseball park on Hanlan’s Point was outfitted with at least three floodlights that could be mounted along the top of the grandstand whenever a rugby match, football game, or starlit opera required light.25 Despite Hanlan’s Point Stadium being home to the Toronto Maple Leafs for 22 seasons, not a single ballgame was ever played at night there.26

It is worth noting that during the First World War, Canada’s Forestry Corps and the all-Black No. 2 Construction Battalion formed an integrated baseball team that played games against other soldiers behind the lines. By June 1917, the Forestry Corps, which included soldiers from Toronto, had generator-powered lighting rigs erected on tall poles at their camp in Jura, France. These makeshift work lights allowed the Foresters to complete their milling and construction duties throughout the night. The war diary of the No. 2 reveals regularly scheduled night baseball games at Jura, presumably under those same lights. Illuminated baseball games were exceedingly rare in 1917. Both the permanence of the light fixtures and the frequency of these games may have been global singularities.27

As the 1920s began to roar, the high-voltage wires began to hum. Reliable, permanent illumination for sports came to Toronto’s recreational parks before fields dedicated to soccer or baseball, though various sports teams used the general grass areas. Both Moss Park and Jesse Ketchum Park were noted spots for rugby, hockey, and soccer players to practice and play after dark.28 Lighting towers were erected at a tennis court along the Humber river and by 1923, the field used by the Parkdale Senior football team had permanent hydro-powered lights.29

Yet, despite a growing number of spaces where games could be played at night, no baseball leagues or teams took up the torch. Afternoon baseball games remained the overwhelming norm. Teams playing in the Toronto Playgrounds League down in Christie Pits or the Beaches League in the east, and even the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League in their brand new (unlighted) Maple Leaf Stadium, played most games at 3:00 or 4:00PM on weekends and “twilight games” beginning around 6:00PM on weeknights.30

In 1930, Sunnyside Stadium on the Lake Ontario shore, Ulster Stadium in the city’s east end, and Oakwood Stadium on St. Clair Avenue West became, in that order, the first stadiums in Toronto to feature purpose-built, permanent floodlights.31

Ulster Stadium, a 10,000-seater nestled in Toronto’s residential Leslieville neighborhood, primarily hosted soccer. Its grandstand and standing area were often full when visiting European teams, such as those from the English Football Association, paid a visit to Toronto. Within two weeks of lights being installed in mid-October 1930, the stadium hosted nighttime soccer, football, and rugby games.32 But not baseball.

Oakwood Stadium, located at Oakwood Avenue and St. Clair West, was originally a track and field facility with a grandstand. Oakwood’s inner field was used for soccer, rugby, and football. The permanent lights for the stadium were designed by noted Toronto athlete and architect Jim Crang. They were erected in late October 1930. A rugby league scheduled Wednesday night games for every week until the snow fell.33 By the 1950s, Oakwood Stadium had been converted into a successful stock-car racetrack. But no baseball games were being played under the lights there.

Sunnyside Stadium was different from the others. It was built in 1925 as one structure among many others at Sunnyside Amusement Park, “the playground by the lake.” The 3,000-seat stadium was specifically designed for use by female athletes, who were still a curiosity during the 1920s. In August 1930, Sunnyside became the first stadium in Toronto to be affixed with permanent lights. The 24,000-watt floodlight system was financed and installed by the Toronto Harbour Commission.34 Somewhat fittingly, the stadium stood on the shore of Lake Ontario in between two of the massive steel towers carrying the 110,000-volt power lines filled with hydroelectricity from Niagara Falls.35 In appearance, purpose, and now features, Sunnyside Stadium stood out. Something else was different about Sunnyside Stadium: She was a ballpark.

Stars of Sunnyside: Phil White, Pat Turnbull, and Dot Annis as featured in the Toronto Daily Star in 1933. (Toronto Daily Star)

SOFTBALL AND BASEBALL GAMES UNDER LIGHTS

Night baseball was still considered somewhat uncouth in 1930. At the conclusion of its season, the Central League in the United States went so far as to “give nocturnal baseball the ban.” In 1931, the CL brass decreed that “teams in our circuit will play only in the daytime.”36 In the International League, the Buffalo Bisons hosted the Montreal Royals in what was billed as the “first night baseball game in the East” on July 3, 1930.37 One skeptic outside the ballpark told the travelling Globe reporter that he’d wasted a trip. “The players will not be able to see the ball because the sphere will be out of sight most of the time.”38 In Toronto, the Daily Star spoke to baseball fans outside Sunnyside Stadium and asked their opinions on night games. Frederick Lyonde told the paper he was convinced baseball under lights was impossible. Isobel Hanes, an athlete herself, said she didn’t think she’d like to play under lights very often. An anonymous fan was quoted as saying it wouldn’t make a difference for the umpires, since blind men can’t see anyway.39

So, with baseball either experimenting, reluctant, or openly hostile, it fell to softball to christen Toronto’s nighttime diamonds. By 1930, amateur, semipro, and professional softball had become popular with female athletes. The game exploded in popularity after the end of the First World War and had replaced baseball for women by 1920.40 Sunnyside Stadium had been the main women’s softball facility in Toronto since 1925. From the day it opened, competitors in three different leagues played in front of huge paying crowds.41 The National League, the Major League, and the Sunnyside League hosted both daytime and twilight games at the stadium nearly every day during the summer. Canadian track and field legend Bobbie Rosenfeld, already internationally famous for winning gold and silver medals at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, agreed to manage and play for the Sunnyside version of the Maple Leafs. Her presence gave games at Sunnyside Stadium a boost in both popularity and press. In a decade dominated by “crazes” and “fads,” the women playing softball on the lakeshore, and regularly smashing home runs into the water or onto Lake Shore Boulevard, had no trouble selling tickets.42

Newspaper coverage of the women who played softball at Sunnyside was considerable. Images of catcher Isobel Savage, infielder Pat Turnbull, and outfielder Dot Annis appeared in the Toronto Daily Star, all of whom were described as “pretty damsels of Sunnyside diamond fame.”43 Daily Star sports columnist Lou Marsh regularly wrote about softball in the city, including the women’s game. Pioneering sports columnist Alexandrine Gibb covered the “news and views of feminine activities” in her “No Man’s Land of Sport” column. Gibb not only gave extensive coverage to the three leagues operating at Sunnyside, but through her gifted writing, described the games in a fashion that undoubtedly sold tickets. During the 1929 season, Gibb kept tabs on the trash talk emanating from the dugouts at Sunnyside. Boosters could buy tickets just to hear a lady swear. Gibb described the gimmicks being employed by Sunnyside promoters to exploit the expletives:

The Toronto Women’s Softball Association has arranged for four burly bobbies to be on hand. At the first inappropriate remark from the sidelines, the offender will be dragged out into the middle of the diamond where all can take a look at the “hero” who calls names.44

In July 1930, Billy D’Alexandro, president of the TWSA, and John F. “Duke” McGarry, President of Sunnyside’s National Softball League, announced that Sunnyside Stadium, which continued to operate as normal while lights were installed, would host Toronto’s first ballgame under the stars. On August 18, the Supremes would take on the Lakesides in a seven-inning affair. The organizers elected not to honor season passes for the night game, nor would any seats be reserved. Any fan wishing to attend needed to buy tickets, with prices slightly elevated, of course, at the stadium box office during business hours between August 15 and first pitch at 9:30PM on the 18th.45 The game needed to start late owing to “absolute darkness being necessary for the floodlights to operate.46” Rower and Olympic silver medalist Jack Guest, sprinter and Olympic champion Percy Williams, and high jumper, Olympic champion, and former baseball standout Ethel Catherwood would all be on hand for ceremonies before the game. When the lighting system was tested on the eve of the event, “the floodlights at the girls softball stadium were pronounced perfect by players who caught fly balls and picked up grounders for thirty minutes under the lights.”47 The players present for the test were informed that tickets for their game were selling fast.

August 18, 1930, presented perfect weather for softball. Two lines of people stretched along the boardwalk, anxiously waiting for the gates to open. Close to 3,000 people happily shelled out 25 cents each.48 Former Toronto Mayor Tommy Church, who helped organize shipment of baseball equipment to Canadian soldiers during the Great War, helped kick off the opening ceremonies before the sun went down and was happy “to see Toronto’s first softball played at night.”49

The rooters and fans waited eagerly, then impatiently, in the growing darkness. Some began calling for the lights to be turned on. At 9:05, the switch was flipped and the audience literally saw the future of ballgames in Toronto. “A gasp of astonishment swept through the stands,” wrote the witness for the Daily Star. “In a few seconds the bewilderment had subsided and as every corner of the field was plainly seen, the fans quickly realized the possibilities of perfect ball.”50 Ethel Catherwood tossed the ceremonial first pitch, surrounded by other dignitaries, municipal politicians, and the assembled press. The players and coaches then formed two neat rows along the baselines for the official photograph. With the moment immortalized, the Supremes battery of Marge Ellerby and Dot Humpage took their positions. Then, Lakesides leadoff hitter Hilda Thomas became the first person in Toronto to ever dig in at the plate with electric lights, rather than sunlight, illuminating her batter’s eye. The game see-sawed and featured some brilliant hitting and fielding.51 The Lakesides won, 12–7.

Despite the long and notable list of disbelievers, skeptics, and naysayers, both spectators and players were pleased with the innovation of ballgames at night. The game was said to flow “the same as in daylight” and was considered “a big success.”52 National League president McGarry said, “The game as played under floodlights is just what is needed.” D’Alexandro of the TWSA was even more enthusiastic: “Floodlight baseball is a wonderful thing for the playoffs. There will now be no need to hurry though supper, or to dash away and leave dishes in the sink. The players do not seem to be under any strain and their fielding is just as good as it ever was.”53 Mrs. Joe Wright, a fan in the stands, correctly predicted the future: “I think floodlight baseball will be much more popular than daytime baseball. Many more fans will be able to conveniently get down to watch a game.”54 The crowds at Sunnyside kept coming after dinner and the dishes. Crowds in excess of 2,000 paying customers remained common at night games for the remainder of the women’s softball season. For comparison, in 1934, the professional men playing in their new lakefront stadium, the soon-to-be International League champion Maple Leafs, averaged just 1,793 fans per game.55

For more than three years, Toronto’s women remained the only ballplayers hitting and fielding at night. The evidence regarding the integrity of gameplay was overwhelming and the lost revenue for reluctant leagues was becoming foolhardy. Amateur men’s baseball teams in Ontario cities like London and St. Thomas, as well as professional men’s teams across North America, were regularly playing games under lights by 1932. Yet Toronto the Good proved Toronto the Stubborn when it came to male ballplayers playing at night. There was such success for women playing night games that a second lighted location, Acorn Park, was opened to invite even more paying customers. The ladies of the Acorn Park Softball League played before a 3,000-seat grandstand in a residential neighborhood south of College Street.59

The Toronto Amateur Baseball Association finally brought men, and the traditional game of baseball, under the lights for the first time in Toronto on September 4, 1933. A playoff game between the Beaches and Valley Views was scheduled for Ulster Stadium with an 8:30PM start.60 The event was met with little fanfare or recognition, though the Globe wondered if night baseball would “further popularize” the men’s game.61 Nine days later, Toronto’s male softball championship was slated to be played under the Ulster Stadium lights.62 Throughout 1934, amateur and semipro men and women played night games at Sunnyside Stadium, Acorn Park, and Ulster Stadium. When Honus Wagner wrote in 1923 that he’d seen the end of night baseball, he’d failed to consider improving technologies, economic necessities, and the pioneering spirit of those damsels of Sunnyside diamond fame.

THE TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS FOLLOW SUIT

In March 1934, the Toronto Harbour Commission, builders of the Sunnyside light standards, revived what the Daily Star called the “dead idea” of floodlights at Maple Leaf Stadium.63 The board elected to start work on light towers for the municipally controlled Fleet Street ballpark as soon as weather permitted. Management of the International League Maple Leafs believed lights would allow the Leafs and their fans to participate “in nocturnal sport” at least two or three times per week.64 Lou Marsh, who’d been writing about the successes at Sunnyside for nearly four years, criticized the city for not building lights sooner at Toronto’s municipal stadium. The fact that the ballpark had not been optimized for nighttime use by other teams, events, and local organizations was “poppycock,” Marsh wrote. Lights would finally allow the “municipally owned stadium to be put to its fullest use by the local sports world.”65 Indeed, simply the promise of lights in March was enough for Toronto promoter Jack Corcoran to book the facility for gridiron football and professional wrestling events in July.66

On June 9, the Maple Leafs organization and the Harbour Commission followed the lead of the Sunnyside women and began construction on eight light towers on top of and around Maple Leaf Stadium. The work was completed by June 20 and, demonstrating the obvious business sense of the lights, the Maple Leafs scheduled their first night game for just eight days hence. The steel used to build the towers, light fixtures, bulbs, and reflecting mirrors all came from Canadian firms.67 The outfield light towers stood 93 feet tall and weighed over seven tons. The combined illumination power of the new lighting setup was over 19 million candle power.68

The Leafs placed ads in the various daily papers calling their inaugural night game vs. the Rochester Red Wings the “event of the baseball season” and “the thrill of a lifetime. This is an all-Toronto night to cheer the lads to victory under the best lighting system in organized baseball.”69 Former Chicago White Sox pitcher, vaudevillian, and on-field comedian Nick Altrock was hired to provide a pregame frolic before the baseball began at 9.70 The lighting system “was a great success” as Rochester beat the Maple Leafs, 8–2. The Daily Star recorded there were “plenty of bright lights” at Maple Leaf Stadium, “but the Leafs did not shine.”71 The Leafs played 15 additional night games in 1934, raising their average attendance by nearly a thousand fans.72 During a crucial pennant-race series, Montreal field manager Frank Shaughnessy demanded that the Royals play only under lights when in Toronto or he would remove his players from the field. He said Royals players didn’t like the afternoon or twilight conditions at Maple Leaf Stadium one bit.73 This protest may have been strategic on the part of Shaughnessy as the Leafs were deemed “jinxed” under lights in 1934.74 The Maple Leafs shook off the bad electrical mojo and won the International League championship later that year.

The lights erected in the outfield at Maple Leaf Stadium could be seen clean across the waterfront from the Leslie Street Spit. They served as a beacon of the future. Within a few years, no professional baseball team in Toronto would ever play a majority of its games in the daytime. Night games, whose proof of concept in Toronto was pioneered and solidified by the women of Sunnyside and Acorn parks, became, like the lights themselves: a permanent fixture. 

STEPHEN DAME is a father, teacher, softball coach, and baseball researcher in Toronto. He presents research papers each year at the Canadian Baseball History Conference. He is a member of SABR’s Hanlan’s Point chapter and thinks the organization should change its name to the Society for North American Baseball Research.

Notes

1. “An Eye on the Sporting World,” Toronto Daily Star, September 13, 1915, 11.

2. Honus Wagner, “Hans Wagner’s Baseball Story,” Toronto Daily Star, December 17, 1923, 11.

3. Michael J. Rodden, “Canadian Gridiron Punts and Passes,” The Globe, October 6, 1927, 11.

4. Nathan Maciborski, “When Yankee Stadium Was Lit,” Yankees Magazine 41, no. 3 (May 2020), https://www.mlb.com/news/first-night-game-in-yankee-stadium-history, accessed January 13, 2025.

5. W.P. Kinsella, Shoeless Joe (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1982), 16.

6. “Softball By Floodlights Big Success at Sunnyside,” Toronto Daily Star, August 19, 1930, 8.

7. Robert M. Stamp, Bright Lights Big City: The History of Electricity in Toronto (Toronto: City of Toronto Archives, 1991), 11.

8. Stamp, 13.

9. Stamp, 15.

10. “Local News,” The Globe, June 9, 1883, 14.

11. “Canada’s Great Fair,” The Globe, August 29, 1885, 4.

12. Stamp, Bright Lights Big City, 12.

13. Stamp, 15.

14. Derek Hughes (author of the blog Life By Numbers, lifebynumbers.ca), email interview, June 6, 2024.

15. “Civic Lighting Plant,” The Globe, May 28, 1894, 5.

16. “Factory Water Rates,” The Globe, January 7, 1898, 7.

17. “For Better Inspection,” The Globe, August 19, 1903, 12.

18. Pierre Berton, Niagara: A History of the Falls (Toronto: Anchor Canada, 1992), 288.

19. “Extraordinary Scene at Finish of Shrubb Race,” Toronto Daily Star, September 9, 1907, 8.

20. “Extraordinary Scene.”

21. “An Attractive Offering,” Toronto Daily Star, May 19, 1909, 23.

22. Stamp, Bright Lights Big City, 31.

23. “College Notes,” The Globe, December 23, 1911, 15.

24. “Bears Ride Roller Skates,” The Globe, July 8, 1922, 15; “Will Introduce Olympic Victors,” Toronto Daily Star, March 3, 1924, 13; “Sporting Views and Reviews,” Toronto Daily Star, August 23, 1927, 10; “Princes Dance With Canadians on Board Ship,” Toronto Daily Star, July 28, 1927, 1; “Veiled Hint New Toronto May Jump Highway Pact,” Toronto Daily Star, April 4, 1928, 10; “The Racing Cycling Season Opens June 14,” Toronto Daily Star, June 3, 1913, 11; “Flood Lights Used to Judge Course,” Globe, July 20, 1928, 20; “Canada V. Great Britain in Big British Rugby Game,” Toronto Daily Star, September 7, 1928, 4.

25. “Starlit Grand Opera Is First in Toronto,” Toronto Daily Star, July 11, 1936, 16.

26. A photograph exists in the Toronto Archives that purports to show “baseball at night” at Hanlan’s Point Stadium in 1928. A close examination of the photo reveals a stage standing in the middle of the infield. The photo is likely of a dramatic performance held after the Leafs vacated the stadium in 1925. Over the span of time the Leafs called Hanlan’s Point home, due to fire they were only able to occupy the park for 22 of those seasons: 1897–1900 and 1908–25.

27. Stephen Dame, “Coloured Diamonds: Integrated Baseball in the Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914–1918,” Journal of Canadian Baseball 1, no. 1 (November 2022), 14, https://ojs.uwindsor.ca/index.php/jcb/article/view/7696, accessed January 13, 2025.

28. “Free Kicks,” The Globe, September 26, 1911, 13; “Bickle, The Argo Half Is Out of the Game,” Toronto Daily Star, October 15, 1914, 14.

29. “Misses Wilson and Backus Feature Humber Singles,” The Globe, September 11, 1928, 6; “P.C.C. Seniors Face Strong Opposition,” The Globe, October 24, 1923, 10.

30. “Twilight Season Opens at the Pits,” Toronto Daily Star, May 3, 1933, 14.

31. “Softball By Floodlights Big Success”; “Gridiron Frolics Under the Flares,” Toronto Daily Star, October 29, 1930, 12; Lou Marsh, “With Pick and Shovel, Slams and Salve,” Toronto Daily Star, October 17, 1930, 12.

32. “Soccer Night League to Open at Ulster Tuesday,” Toronto Daily Star, October 23, 1930, 17; “Tiger Cubs and Balmy Beach Play Here Thanksgiving Day,” Toronto Daily Star, November 6, 1930, 18; “Gridiron Frolics Under the Flares.”

33. Marsh, “With Pick and Shovel.”

34. “Night Softball Carded for Sunnyside Monday,” The Globe, August 15, 1930, 7.

35. Mike Filey, I Remember Sunnyside: The Rise and Fall of a Magical Era (Toronto: Dundurn Group, 1996), 59.

36. “Where Night Baseball Is Unpopular,” The Globe, November 21, 1930, 11.

37. “Baseball at Night Is Voted Success,” The Globe, July 4, 1930, 8.

38. “Baseball at Night.”

39. “Softball By Floodlights Big Success.”

40. Barbara Gregorich, Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball (San Diego: Harcourt and Brace, 1993), 49.

41. Filey, I Remember Sunnyside, 61.

42. “Sporting Views and Reviews,” Toronto Daily Star, June 12, 1928, 8.

43. “Pretty Damsels of Sunnyside Diamond Fame,” Toronto Daily Star, June 22, 1933, 11.

44. Alexandrine Gibb, “In the No Man’s Land of Sport,” Toronto Daily Star, September 21, 1929, 8.

45. “Night Softball Carded For Sunnyside Monday,” The Globe, August 15, 1930, 7.

46. “Night Softball Carded.”

47. “Flood Lights Given Trial,” The Globe, August 16, 1930, 11.

48. “Softball By Floodlights Big Success.”

49. “Tonight at Sunnyside,” The Globe, August 18, 1930, 7.

50. “Softball By Floodlights Big Success.”

51. “Softball By Floodlights Big Success.”

52. “Softball By Floodlights Big Success.”

53. “Softball By Floodlights Big Success.”

54. “Softball By Floodlights Big Success.”

55. “1934 Toronto Maple Leafs Roster,” Stats Crew, https://www.statscrew.com/minorbaseball/roster/t-tl15009/y-1934, accessed January 13, 2025.

56. “Inter-City Game Won By Maple Leafs,” Toronto Daily Star, August 21, 1930, 11.

57. Gibb, “In the No Man’s Land of Sport.”

58. Gibb.

59. Gibb.

60. “Baseball,” The Globe, September 4, 1933, 6.

61. “To Install Lights Again Down East,” The Globe, September 2, 1933, 6.

62. “Beach and Clubmen Open Series Monday,” Toronto Daily Star, September 9, 1933, 11.

63. “Sport Parade,” Toronto Daily Star, March 16, 1934, 14.

64. “Sport Parade.”

65. Marsh, “With Pick and Shovel.”

66. Marsh.

67. “Preparing for Night Baseball,” The Globe, June 22, 1934, 11.

68. “Preparing For Night Baseball.”

69. Maple Leaf Stadium, advertisement, Toronto Daily Star, June 27, 1934, 12; Maple Leaf Stadium, advertisement, The Globe, June 26, 1934, 12.

70. Maple Leaf Stadium, advertisement, The Globe.

71. Charlie Good, “Plenty of Bright Lights,” Toronto Daily Star, June 29, 1934, 10.

72. Bert Perry, “Leafs Drop Second Straight to Red Birds,” The Globe, October 1, 1934, 11.

73. Charlie Good, “No Twilight Tilts for Shag,” Toronto Daily Star, July 18, 1934, 10.

74. W.T. Munns, “Night Games Jinx to Leafs,” The Globe, June 22, 1934, 11.

Gus Greenlee, in hat and tie, shown here with some members of his Pittsburgh Crawfords team. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

The United States Negro Baseball League is mostly known for its minor role in the Jackie Robinson story. It was famously backed by Branch Rickey in 1945, possibly for use as a cover for the Brooklyn Dodgers to scout Black players or to test the White public’s reaction to Black players in Brooklyn and Montreal.1

Little research has been done on how the league operated on a day-to-day basis. One can find contradictory information about the league, even for basic questions, such as the identity of the teams in the league or even whether the 1946 season was played in full, partially, or not all.2 Because of the barnstorming nature of the USL, as it was generally abbreviated, and no better than spotty coverage of it in the Black press, research has proven difficult. Nonetheless, increased digitization and improved indexing of newspapers mean we can investigate how the league operated.

This new portrait allows us to see that the league labored through its two seasons, struggling to find its place in the Black baseball scene. Surprisingly, given its name, it found more success attracting crowds in Canada, a development that played a role in finding a destination for Black players after the demise of the Negro Leagues.

GETTING ORGANIZED

The USL was the brainchild of Gus Greenlee, former owner of the Pittsburgh Crawfords. Greenlee had sold the team amid tough times following the 1938 season, after which the club moved to Toledo. He had attempted to get back into baseball in 1944 by resurrecting the Crawfords as an independent team. Unable to secure a franchise in the Negro National League, Greenlee built a six-team league for the 1945 season.3 While some of the clubs announced in January backed out in the next few months, the league started its operations in mid-May with the Crawfords joined by the Detroit Motor City Giants, Toledo Cubs, Chicago Brown Bombers, Philadelphia Hilldales, and Brooklyn Brown Dodgers.

The notion of home city was vague in the USL. The league was based on the principle that whenever two league teams played each other, it would count as a league game. This meant that the teams were almost always barnstorming, and rarely if ever playing in the city they represented. Most league games were played in the Northeast and the Midwest, but the league also ventured to the South (Texas, Mississippi, Alabama) and Canada, mostly to Quebec but also to Manitoba and Ontario.

Rickey, in his public support of the league, had approved the use of the stadiums of the Dodgers’ 22 farm teams, which helps explain the constant barnstorming. But while the league used the ballparks in the Dodgers’ system in Olean, New York; Trois-Rivières and Montreal, Quebec; Newport News, Virginia; Asheville, North Carolina; Fort Worth, Texas; and St. Paul, Minnesota; they also played in many other cities.

The intention was to make a marquee team out of the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers, but they had the disadvantage of starting from scratch, while other teams had operated as independent clubs the previous year. To accelerate the Brown Dodgers’ development, the Hilldale Giants of Philadelphia, who had made a splash by signing Oscar Charleston as manager, were swapped to Brooklyn.4 A new version of the Hilldales was put together in time for the start of the season.5 At age 48, Charleston’s playing days were over, although he made a pinch-hit appearance for the Brown Dodgers in a game in Brooklyn in June.

The league struggled to attract top talent and mostly recruited from the fringes of the Negro Leagues. Apart from Charleston, the only other big name was 44-year-old Turkey Stearnes, who played regularly for Toledo. Some of the promising rookies included Luke Easter (Detroit), Stanley Glenn (Brooklyn), and Everett Marcel (Philadelphia).

Greenlee’s Crawfords were the cream of the league. Boasting a core of young and promising players, the team, which had enjoyed considerable success as an independent club in 1944, dominated the USL.6 The Crawfords featured Eudie Napier behind the plate, Maurice Peatros at first base, Joe Atkins at third base, and Fred Morefield and Cuban import Jose Colas in the outfield. On the mound, the star was Willie Pope, a tall left-hander the league tried to sell as the next Satchel Paige. The deep staff also included Cecil Kaiser and 42-year-old Joe Strong.

Trying to generate publicity, the USL did its best to stay in the news. First, it publicly invited Happy Chandler, Ford Frick, William Harridge, and the presidents of the Negro National and American Leagues to the season opener.7 There is no evidence that any of them acknowledged the invitations. A few weeks later, league officials announced that they had instituted a new rule that forced teams to throw a strike before issuing an intentional walk.8 No further mention of the rule was made.

1945 SEASON

After a few exhibition games, the league opened its activities on May 20, 1945, with games in Detroit, Toledo, and Pittsburgh. While the doubleheader in Dequindre Park in Detroit drew reasonably well (reported attendance of 5,000), the draws were disappointing in Toledo (2,000) and Pittsburgh (2,500).9 On May 24, the league debuted in Ebbets Field in Brooklyn to a disappointing reported crowd of 2,000 as the Brown Dodgers defeated the Philadelphia Hilldales, 3–2. The next event in Brooklyn, a May 30 doubleheader against the Detroit Giants, drew either 2,000 (Brooklyn Daily Eagle) or 8,000 (New York Age).10

In these first few weeks, the league mostly stayed in the Northeast, with games in Buffalo, New York; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Hagerstown, Maryland, as well as a game at Braves Field in Boston between the Crawfords and the Hilldales. After that, new markets were explored. The Chicago Brown Bombers and Toledo Cubs headed south, playing in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas; Memphis, Tennessee; Little Rock, Arkansas; Montgomery and Birmingham, Alabama; and Jackson, Mississippi. They attracted their biggest draw for a doubleheader in Dallas, playing in front of 6,000.11 Jesse Owens, former Olympian and part-owner of the Toledo Cubs, toured with the teams, providing various exhibitions such as racing against relay teams of ballplayers or even against racehorses. Owens’s presence did generate publicity, but since newspaper coverage tended to focus almost exclusively on him, it might have overshadowed the league.12 Owens, the Cubs, and the Brown Bombers were part of the Juneteenth celebration at Buff Stadium in Houston.13

Meanwhile, the Crawfords and the Hilldales headed north of the border for games in Montreal, Quebec, and Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario. The Montreal doubleheader drew a big crowd of 7,465.14 However, the level of play was called disappointing by the media and controversy arose as newspaper Le Samedi accused the teams of scamming fans. With many fans wanting to bet on the game but not knowing the teams, a substantial crowd showed up for pregame warm-ups and infield practice, where it was soon apparent to most observers that the Hilldales were the superior team. Suspicions should have arisen when most could find willing takers for bets on the Hilldales. The Crawfords easily swept the doubleheader, leaving fans with empty pockets and a sour taste in their mouths.15

In May 1945, the league had received coverage in the Black press that was roughly on par with the Negro National and American Leagues. Coverage decreased substantially in June as it became apparent that the USL was not on the same level as its more established rivals.21 While the league, and particularly the Crawfords, were adept at generating advanced publicity for games by drawing on the history and reputations of the old Crawfords and Hilldales, a recurrent comment was that games had not lived up to expectations, which made repeat business a particularly challenging task.22

The Chicago Brown Bombers—seemingly the weakest team in the league, with a record of 6–18 among league games recovered in the newspapers—disappeared from the press for most of August, but most of their roster soon showed up with the New Orleans Crescent Stars.24 In what appears to be a poor attempt at rebranding, fans were warned that the Crescent Stars would play in Chicago uniforms after losing theirs on a trip north.25 Given how poorly the Brown Bombers had played, it might have seemed a good strategy to adopt the identity of a famous independent team to attract larger crowds, but no mention is made of the Crescent Stars joining the USL. The Brown Bombers recovered their identity for a few exhibition games in late August, but no league game has been found after July 22, when they appeared in a three-team doubleheader at Ebbets Field.26

That event in Brooklyn was the occasion for a reboot of the Brown Dodgers, now managed by Webster McDonald, who had a long career as a pitcher in the 1930s, mostly with the Philadelphia Stars of the Negro National League.27 Having had little success with second engagements in Detroit and Pittsburgh in June, the USL teams didn’t rent any other major league parks other than Ebbets Field for the remainder of the season. A crowd of 7,000 saw the Crawfords beat both the Brown Dodgers and Brown Bombers in the doubleheader on July 22. Still at Ebbets Field, an August 5 doubleheader featured the Detroit Giants, in one of their only trips to the East Coast, while a September 9 event featured the Crawfords, Brown Dodgers, and the Knoxville Grays of the Negro Southern League.

The publicity claim that the Crawfords and Brown Dodgers were virtually tied for first place was pushed to sell tickets for their trip to upstate New York and Quebec.28 However, by calculating the standings from the game scores reported in the various newspapers, we obtain a much different portrait: The Crawfords had a record of 38–7, while the Brown Dodgers were 8–14. The Hilldales (20–18) were the only other team with a winning record among recovered games. The Crawfords won all six games on the trip, leaving no doubt about their dominance.

A return trip to Montreal in July had been rained out, although the Crawfords and Brown Bombers had successful exhibitions in Quebec City and Sherbrooke, Quebec.29 The August trip was again hindered by bad weather that twice postponed the game in Montreal, which eventually drew a disappointing crowd of 1,000.30 But they did well again in Quebec City, attracting 3,500, reportedly the largest crowd there since the beginning of the war.31

Oscar Charleston was one of the most prodigious hitters in the Negro Leagues over the course of his career. In the over 900 games we have stats from, spanning age 23 to 44, he compiled over 48 WAR and OPS+ of 185. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

After the appearance of the Knoxville Grays in Brooklyn, there was momentum for collaboration with the Negro Southern League, which was also in the midst of its first season, the original league of that name having disbanded following the 1936 season. In early September, the Hilldales toured the South, playing against the Asheville Blues and the Atlanta Black Crackers.32 Plans for a North-South All-Star Game on September 16 at Ebbets Field were announced, to rival the classic East-West game.33 The collaboration did not please the authorities of the Negro National and American Leagues. While the United States Negro Baseball League was not on good terms with the established Negro Leagues, the Negro Southern League was, opting to act as a minor league. Threatened with a boycott, the Southern League backed out of the project.34 Still, a few weeks later, the Crawfords visited the Grays in Knoxville.35

After the Crawfords easily dismissed any contenders for the league crown, league games stopped. Teams, however, continued to barnstorm for a while and the Crawfords were again the most active. In early September, they accompanied the Honus Wagner All Stars, a barnstorming team of former major- and minor-leaguers managed by the Hall of Famer, through North Dakota and Manitoba. The game in Fargo attracted 7,500 fans, the highest estimated attendance of the season.36 The four-game set in Winnipeg also drew well, with the two teams splitting the series. After a quick trip through Brooklyn, the Crawfords moved south, playing exhibition games in Tennessee, Texas, and even in some border cities in Mexico. The last mention in 1945 newspapers mentions a three-game series in Ciudad Juarez.37

1945–46 OFFSEASON

The baseball world was shaken in October 1945 when Rickey and the Dodgers announced the signing of Robinson. Newspaper accounts of the signing mention the United States Negro Baseball League, such as a story from the Associated Press that mentioned the Brown Dodgers and how Rickey could scout Black players for that team.38 The California Eagle’s Eddie Burbridge also editorialized that Greenlee had played a role in the operation, if only by getting the ear of Rickey and getting him interested in the plight of the Negro Leagues.39 The media exposure was not all good: Burbridge called the USL ill-fated. Additionally, in an article in which Negro Leagues authorities were condemning Rickey for signing their players without compensations, the Baltimore Afro-American added an editor’s note to (mistakenly) inform their readers that the USL “failed to function after about five weeks of play.”40 But the league was not dead, and USL officials even attended Robinson’s historic debut for the Montreal Royals in Jersey City the next spring.41

Forcing his way back in the Negro National League was still the preferred outcome for Greenlee. In the offseason, he tried to convince his former colleagues to accept his proposal for two new franchises, based in Brooklyn and Montreal. While considered, the proposal was rejected; the market in New York City was already crowded, and Montreal (like Boston, also mentioned) had a small black population.42

Greenlee thus reorganized his USL for 1946, with the Crawfords and the Brown Dodgers returning, alongside two new teams, the Boston Blues and the Cleveland Clippers. The Blues were owned by Allen Johnson, who had owned various teams in the past, including the 1939 St. Louis Stars of the Negro American League.43 The two new teams barely tested their new grounds, mostly playing on the road. Two events were scheduled at Cleveland’s League Park, with one rained out, and no report of games in Boston have been found.44

Meanwhile, the Crawfords alternated between Pittsburgh and Montreal, using the whole province of Quebec as part of its home base. When a league representative traveled to Montreal ahead of an upcoming series, he put forward long-term plans, never to be realized, to put teams in Toronto and Quebec City and rename the league the International Negro League.45

1946 SEASON

While the Crawfords lost some of their top players, they added Willie Pope’s younger brother Dave, on his way to four seasons with the Cleveland Indians and Baltimore Orioles, and pitcher/outfielder Ted Toles. Now managed by Red Parnell, the Crawfords were surprised in the season-opening series by the Boston Blues, who swept the three games, including a doubleheader at Forbes Field.46 For Boston, manager and veteran Negro Leaguer Tom “Big Train” Parker had amassed a solid collection of players, including Ed Mayweather, an All-Star in 1937 and 1940, Johnny Hayes, Jesse Warren, and Emmett Wilson. The deep pitching staff featured LeRoy Sutton, Chip McAllister, and Ross “Satchel” Davis. Davis had been a strong prospect who, like many others, had had his career derailed by military service. He enjoyed a standout season in 1946 as the ace of the Blues.

The remaining two teams, however, were struggling. Once again, the Brown Dodgers failed to live up to the Branch Rickey affiliation. While they poached Willie Hubert from the Crawfords and veteran catcher Roy Gaston from the Homestead Grays, the team, managed by Bob “Killer” Palm, started the season slowly, as they had in 1945. A wire story from the Associated Press allows us to learn of the extreme measures taken to improve the team. For example, when the Brown Dodgers wanted to add pitcher Doc Bracken from the independent St. Louis Giants, they ended up buying the whole team to guarantee his services.47 Meanwhile, the Cleveland Clippers, managed by Jim Binder, still only had one win in early July. David “Speed” Whatley and Raymond Taylor were among the few Negro League veterans on the team, along with Chip McAllister, signed away from the Crawfords.

The Crawfords spent the first half of June in their new home in Quebec, hosting the Blues and later the Clippers. During that trip, the Crawfords played an exhibition game against the Sherbrooke Canadiens of the Class C Border League. Only 100 fans showed up on a cold, rainy night, but the game was meaningful. Not only is this the only reported game against a team in the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (NAPBL), the umbrella organization for the affiliated minor leagues, but the Canadiens were one of the NAPBL’s four integrated teams that year, as Manny McIntyre was the shortstop for the Canadiens. McIntyre, a native of New Brunswick, was better known as a hockey player. He had starred on the local senior team that winter, pairing with brothers Ossie and Herb Carnegie to form an all-Black line, known as the Black Aces. The Crawfords lost the game, 11–7.48 On the same trip, the Crawfords also played leagues games in Trois-Rivières and Montreal, hosts of two of the other three integrated minor league teams. The Crawfords and Blues also ventured to Jonquière, about 135 miles north of Quebec City. This was a region never before visited by barnstorming teams and a region that had rarely seen any Black people, much less 20 of them.49 Compared to 1945, the attendance was not as big in Montreal (3,200) but it was stable in Quebec City (3,000).50 Lloyd McGowan of the Montreal Gazette recognized that the games were better than in 1945, but noted that “they will have to put more life into their game if they hope to draw here.… They don’t hustle, fail to back up the bases. This isn’t surprising, for the players make many of their hops through the night by bus, catching sleep as they roll.”51

Both games were among the biggest reported draws of the season, but the biggest was a June 9 doubleheader at Ebbets Field. Unfortunately, the 5,000 fans saw the hometown Brown Dodgers easily swept by the Blues.52

Two big trips were organized in the second half of June. The Crawfords made their way back to Winnipeg, with stops in Minnesota and Wisconsin along the way. They were accompanied by the Clippers on a trip that had been planned at least a month prior.53 Meanwhile, the Blues and Brown Dodgers travelled south, all the way to Alexandria, Louisiana, hometown of Blues manager Tom Parker. The trip included stops in Kentucky and Texas.

While the Crawfords played a Fourth of July doubleheader against the famous House of David team in Louisville, a three-team doubleheader was organized at Ebbets Field. The independent Milwaukee Tigers surprised the Blues in the first game before losing to the Brown Dodgers in the second.

On July 6, the Chicago Defender published standings that showed the Crawfords and Blues tied with 18–8 records, with the Brown Dodgers (7–15) and Clippers (1–13) far behind.54 Just a few days earlier, the Clippers had enjoyed their second win of the season, 5–4 over the Crawfords in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. But with the Milwaukee Tigers making a good impression, it was announced in mid-July that the Brown Dodgers and Clippers would consolidate under the Brown Dodgers name and that the Tigers would take the fourth spot in the league.55

The Crawfords switched into high gear in the second half. After losing the first game of their series against the Blues, they won the last four games before winning nine out of 10 against the newly consolidated Brown Dodgers. The series featured two doubleheaders in Brooklyn, one in Montreal and a game at Forbes Field. One of the doubleheaders in Brooklyn drew reasonably well (3,000 spectators) but the one in Montreal did not (1,395).56 Fred Johnson threw a no-hitter against the Brown Dodgers at Ebbets Field.57 A new market visited was Kingston, Ontario, which responded with a decent crowd of 2,400.58

Meanwhile, the Blues and Tigers were in the Midwest. During a visit to Waterloo, Iowa, on July 21, the Waterloo Courier offered a rare glimpse of the finances associated with a typical game. A crowd of 1,537 was reported, with $88.29 being paid for the use of the ballpark, and the two teams walking away with a total of $606.92.59 These details help us to better understand the daily realities of teams in the league.

The last standings published in the media are from the St. Louis Argus in early August, showing the Crawfords (31–11) and Blues (27–14) in a close fight for the lead, with the Brown Dodgers (9–25) and Milwaukee Tigers (1–4) far behind.60 Unceremoniously, the league moved in the second half of August to a final series between the Crawfords and the Blues to determine the champion.61 The first six games were split, including one of the biggest draws of the season (4,000) in Binghamton, New York.62 A final trip was planned to Quebec, but the Montreal game only received spotty coverage by the local press and the Quebec City doubleheader drew only 721 fans.63 After multiple trips in the province and with the Montreal Royals in the midst of a historic season, it probably was a one trip too many. Still, the Crawfords swept the Blues in what the press called a pennant-clinching win.64

Freed of their league obligations, the Crawfords moved south and seem to have established a base in Louisville, where they had drawn well in 1945. They organized a number of doubleheaders in September and October. Their opponents included the Knoxville Grays of the Negro Southern League, the Detroit Giants (back as an independent team), and the Zulu Cannibal Giants, a controversial novelty team. The Crawfords also travelled to Asheville to face the Negro Southern League’s Blues.65 Meanwhile, the Boston Blues returned “home,” closing the season not in Boston but against local teams in Cairo and Murphysboro, Illinois, near owner Allen Johnson’s home in Mounds.

A few players got a chance to play for a few more weeks as part of the Jackie Robinson All-Stars, with many USL players acting as support staff. Emmet Wilson, Robert Scott, Ernest Smith and LeRoy Sutton of the Blues, Willie Pope of the Crawfords, and Harvey Peterson of Brown Dodgers toured with Robinson, mostly in California.66

While no newspaper reports came of the league stopping its operations, it never returned. As late as October 30, 1946, league officials took out an ad in The Sporting News congratulating the magazine for its diamond jubilee.67 With Greenlee weakened by a heart attack in July and Rickey bringing Robinson to Brooklyn, there didn’t appear to be a desire—or money—for another season.68

POST 1946

As Robinson was breaking the color line in the National League in 1947, the former USL players had to find new homes. While the best players and prospects found their way to the more established Negro Leagues, some others stayed with Johnson, the former Blues owner, who relaunched his St. Louis Stars as an independent team featuring many of his former players.69 The Pittsburgh Crawfords were briefly reorganized for a doubleheader in Louisville in August 1947, proudly announced as Gus Greenlee’s two-time USL champions.70 They were swept by the independent Cincinnati Chivos, with no details of their roster surviving.71

This new look at the daily operations and rosters of the USL allows us to see one of its indirect impacts on the Negro Leagues. In 1947, the Farnham Pirates integrated the Quebec Provincial League, a top league outside of the NAPBL, by signing four former USL players: outfielder Fred Morefield, infielder Jimmy Johnson, and pitcher Fred Johnson of the Crawfords, and pitcher LeRoy Sutton of the Blues.72 While it’s not clear how the link between Farnham and the USL was built, it seems likely that connections occurred while the Crawfords toured the province: Farnham is about 35 miles from Montreal, and a mere 15 miles of St. Jean, where the Crawfords played in 1946.

Between 1948 and 1951, the QPL became a prime destination for former players of the struggling Negro Leagues, with Farnham at the center of that relationship. The Provincial League joined the NAPBL in 1950 as a Class C league. It is with Farnham that Sam Bankhead became the first Black manager in the NAPBL in 1951.

Pitcher Willie Pope, arguably the most dominant player in the short history of the USL, spent 1947 with the Homestead Grays, and most of 1948–51 in the Provincial League. But he returned to the Homestead Grays for a few weeks in 1948, just in time to help them capture the last Negro League World Series over the Birmingham Black Barons.

Gus Greenlee, who had been the driving force behind the USL, died in 1952. The Negro American League was still in operation, but only a shell of its former self, while the Negro National League had ceased operation after that 1948 World Series.

The United States Negro Baseball League is most often thought of as a footnote to the events leading to Jackie Robinson’s signing and the eventual demise of the Negro Leagues. The recent availability of digitized and indexed newspapers shows that the league struggled in its two years of existence, failing on Rickey’s promise to improve on the shortcomings of the more established Negro Leagues. 

CHRISTIAN TRUDEAU is a professor of economics at the University of Windsor. He is a game theory specialist by day, and a historian of Quebec baseball by night. He is a co-editor of the Journal of Canadian Baseball/Revue du baseball canadien.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Gary Gillette, Will Clark, Johnny Haynes, Heidi LM Jacobs, and participants of the 2022 Center for Canadian Baseball Research conference for comments on early versions of this article.

Sources

Research was done in as many newspapers as could be found. They include those indexed by Newspapers.com, NewspaperArchive, GenealogyBank, the Fulton History Newspapers database, the Bibliothèque Nationale du Québec newspaper archives, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, and The Sporting News archives. Other resources used include Baseball Reference, the Seamheads Negro Leagues database and the Center for Negro Leagues Research resources.

Notes

1. Some doubts remain about Rickey’s intentions. See for instance Jules Tygiel and John Thorn, “Jackie Robinson’s Signing: The Real Story,” in From Rube to Robinson: SABR’s Best Articles on Black Baseball, ed. John Graf (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, 2021); Neal Lanctot, Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 266–70.

2. See for example the rosters in Dick Clark, Larry Lester, eds., The Negro Leagues Book (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, 1994), and at the Center for Negro League Baseball Research website, https://www.cnlbr.org/.

3. Lanctot, Negro League Baseball, 263–64.

4. “Oscar Charleston Signs as U.S. League Pilot,” Baltimore Afro-American, February 24, 1945, 14.

5. Lanctot, 266.

6. “Negro Teams from East to Play Here on Monday Night,” Davenport Daily Times, August 25, 1944, 28.

7. “United States League Plays In 3 Cities Sunday, New Rules, Plans Devised in Official Meeting,” Cleveland Call and Post, May 19, 1945, 19.

8. Buffalo Evening News, May 28, 1945, 16.

9. “Motor City Giants Sweep Double Bill,” Detroit Free Press, May 21, 1945, 13; “2,000 See Cubs Beat Hilldales,” Toledo Blade, May 21, 1945, 16; “Crawfords Split, Grays Win Two,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, May 21, 1945, 14.

10. “Brown Dodgers Make It 3 In a Row Drubbing Detroit,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 31, 1945, 16; “B’Klyn Brown Dodgers Take Doubleheader,” New York Age, June 9, 1945, 11.

11. “6000 Fans Turn Out For Owens, Doubleheader,” Houston Chronicle, June 20, 1945, 18.

12. A particularly egregious example occurs in South Dakota in July, where the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader mentions that the game ended 15–14, without further details like the winning team. The rest of the article is devoted to Owens. “Owens Gives Brief Display; Game is 15–14,” Sioux Falls Argus Leader, July 19, 1945, 11.

13. “‘Juneteenth’ Party to End All Parties Is Set In Buff Park,” Houston Chronicle, June 13, 1945, 20.

14. The attendance was first reported as 8,000, then 7,500. The precise number is revealed in an article hyping a third visit to Montreal in August 1945. “Brown Dodgers contre Crawfords,” Le Devoir (Montreal), August 25, 1945, 11.

15. Oscar Major, “Dans le Monde Sportif,” Le Samedi (Montreal), June 30, 1945, 9.

16. “Jesse Owens, Crawfords Win At Parkway,” Louisville Daily-Journal, June 25, 1945, 8.

17. “Crawfords Grab Pair,” Louisville Daily-Journal, July 9, 1945, 8.

18. “Negro Teams Play Snappy Baseball,” Winnipeg Tribune, July 14, 1945, 14.

19. “Colored Hurler Scores No-Hitter,” Winnipeg Tribune, July 13, 1945, 10.

20. “Pittsburgh Craws Set Lexington Night Tilt With New Orleans,” St. Paul Recorder, July 27, 1945, 1. Rickey had said, “You cannot have a league as we understand it, to function as an organization of organized clubs if you admit that the clubs in it are dependent upon outside booking agents to book them, like in Shibe Park in Philadelphia and Yankee Stadium,” adding, “If the NNL and NAL lost their influence with their booking agents the whole structure of both organizations would go wrong.” “New U.S. League Gets Full Backing of Branch Rickey,” Washington Afro-American, May 12, 1945, 15.

21. For instance, the Pittsburgh Courier provided standings of the league in its June 2 edition, alongside the Negro National and American Leagues and the Negro Southern League. On June 16, it published a box score for a Crawfords game. By the end of the month, the coverage was almost nonexistent. The Chicago Defender covered the Southern League, but rarely the U.S. League. The Birmingham Weekly Review did not typically cover the league but published complete rosters for five of its teams. “New U.S. League Made Up From Teams of Six Northern Cities,” Weekly Review, June 30, 1945, 7.

22. For instance, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram opined, after a Toledo-Chicago game, that “neither one of the teams of the new U.S. League was up to the standard expected of Negro big leagues.” “Three Negro Games in Next Four Days,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, June 16, 1945, 3.

23. Al Abrams, “Sidelights on Sports,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 6, 1945, 12; “U.S. League Kicks Out Philly, Brooklyn,” Chicago Defender, July 14, 1945, 7.

24. “Pittsburgh Craws, Ex-World Champs, Have Strong Club,” Muncie Star, August 9, 1945, 10.

25. “New Orleans Crew Wears Giant Togs,” Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), August 9, 1945, 12.

26. “Clowns Cop 2 Games from Brown Bombers,” Indianapolis Star, August 23, 1945, 14.

27. “Brown Dodgers Get Big Welcome Home,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 21, 1945, 7.

28. See for instance “Brown Dodgers Play Twice Here Sunday,” Montreal Gazette, August 25, 1945, 16.

29. “Les noirs ont raison du Verdonet par 5–2,” Le Soleil (Quebec City), July 17, 1945, 7; “Crawfords Came And Conquered With Score of 14 to 1 Over Notre Dame,” Sherbrooke Daily Record, July 18, 1945, 10.

30. “Crawfords Win Twice From Brown Dodgers,” Montreal Gazette, August 28, 1945, 16.

31. “Les Crawfords ont les parties 3–2, 6–4,” L’Action Catholique (Quebec City), August 29, 1945, 8.

32. “Asheville Blues to Meet Hilldales Club,” Asheville Citizen, September 8, 1945, 5.

33. Harry Keck, “Sports; Local Official Called Turn On Roughing The Kicker Penalty,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, September 7, 1945, 26. A committee was formed for the All-Star Game, consisting of Greenlee, league president John Shackleford, and owner Holland F. Kelley for the USL, and John Harden, Henry N. Lewis, and C.L. Hyatt for the Negro Southern League. “North-South Game, Southern Loop and U.S. League Series Set For Sunday Sept. 16, At Brooklyn,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 8, 1945, 6-B.

34. “No All-Star North-South Game with U.S. League,” Chicago Defender, September 8, 1945, 7.

35. “Grays Trim Pittsburgh,” Knoxville Journal, September 24, 1945, 7.

36. “U.S. League Scores,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 8, 1945, 7-B.

37. “Black Barons To Play Indios Here Tonight,” El Paso Times, October 11, 1945, 10.

38. See for instance Associated Press, “Rickey’s Signing of Negro Called Revolutionary Step in Baseball,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 24, 1945.

39. Eddie Burbidge, “Layin’ It On The Line,” California Eagle, November 8, 1945, 16.

40. “Baseball Owners Protest Jackie Robinson Signing,” Baltimore Afro-American, November 17, 1945, 23.

41. “USL Officials Attend Jackie Robinson Debut,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 4, 1946, 14.

42. Lanctot, Negro League Baseball, 288–90.

43. Lanctot, Negro League Baseball, 290.

44. Robert Cvornyek, “The Color of Baseball: Race and Boston’s Sporting Community,” Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal 6 (2013), 70–106.

45. “Les Crawfords et les Blues de Boston se disputent un programme double ici,” Le Canada (Montreal), June 1, 1946, 10.

46. “Crawfords lose Two,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 20, 1946, 17.

47. Associated Press, “Buys Entire Club to Get One Star Hurler,” Durham (NC) Morning Herald, June 5, 1946, 11.

48. “Canadians Trounce Crawfords With 17-Hit Attack,” Sherbrooke Daily Record, June 4, 1946, 10.

49. “Deux équipes de noirs à Jonquière ce soir et demain,” Le Progrès du Saguenay (QC), June 6, 1946, 4.

50. “Le Boston Blues bat les Crawfords 10–2,” L’Action Catholique, June 6, 1946, 10.

51. Lloyd McGowan, “Dutch Mele Old Meany Twin Syracuse Setback,” Montreal Gazette, June 3, 1946, 14.

52. “Blues Take Two From Br. Dodgers, Up League Lead,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 10, 1946, 14.

53. Howard Brantz, “A Sporting Glance,” Winona Daily News, May 15, 1946, 13.

54. “U.S. League,” Chicago Defender, July 6, 1946, 11.

55. “U.S. League.”

56. “Dark Dodgers Win, Lose at Stadium,” Montreal Daily Star, July 22, 1946, 14.

57. “Crawfords Capture Two as Johnson Throws No-Hitter,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 12, 1946, 12.

58. “Largest Crowd of Season Sees Colored Stars In Action,” Kingston Whig-Standard, July 23, 1946, 8.

59. Russell Smith, “13 Errors as Boston Wins Game Here,” Waterloo Courier, July 22, 1946, 9.

60. Hayward Jackson, “Crawfords Setting Pace in the U.S. Baseball League,” St. Louis Argus, August 2, 1946, 19.

61. “Negro ‘9’s’ Play Here Monday; Are 1–2 in the U.S. League,” Binghamton (NY) Press, August 17, 1946, 15.

62. “Crawfords Top Blues by 7–5,” Binghamton Press, August 21, 1946, 29.

63. “Les Crawfords ont battu les Blues de Boston, en programme double, 4–3, 2–1,” L’Action Catholique, August 30, 1946, 15.

64. “Caught On The Fly,” The Sporting News, September 18, 1946, 29.

65. “Crawfords Win Twin Bill,” Louisville Courier-Journal, September 9, 1946, 9.

66. “Jackie Robinson’s Stars Play Oakland Larks at Perris Hill,” San Bernardino County Sun, October 27, 1946, 23.

67. Ad in The Sporting News, October 30, 1946, B-26.

68. “U.S. League,” Chicago Defender, July 20, 1946, 11.

69. “American League Moguls Vote Eight-Team Circuit,” Cleveland Call and Post, March 1 1947, 5-A.

70. Advertisement, Louisville Courier-Journal, August 24, 1947, 53.

71. “Chivos Win Double-Header,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 25, 1947, 9.

72. “Farnham To Pay Initial Visit Tomorrow Afternoon 2:30,” Sherbrooke Daily Record, June 20, 1947, 12

Who’s the batter? Nowadays, fans attending a Detroit Tigers game at Comerica Park can just look at the player—his name and assigned number are on the back of his uniform, and his name is displayed prominently on a huge scoreboard. However, a hundred years or so ago, Tigers fans attending a baseball game at Navin Field in Detroit had to buy a scorecard to find out who was batting. Fans could see the ID number of the batter on the scoreboard on the outfield wall. (Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Navin Field scoreboard as it appeared during the 1934 World Series

 

The scoreboard had been located in left-center, but was relocated to right field to accommodate a bleacher section that was built for the World Series. In the upper left corner of the scoreboard, indicated by the arrow, it reads BATTER. The number 11 is shown, which corresponded to Schoolboy Rowe, who pitched and batted ninth in the order for Detroit that day. The line score indicates that the Cardinals completed their at bats in the top of the 5th inning, their line score being 1-0-0-0-2. The line score for Detroit (through the bottom of the 4th inning) is 0-0-1-0. According to the scoreboard, the Tigers are batting in the bottom of the 5th; there are two outs. This is in perfect synch with box score and play-by-play information given on Retrosheet for Game 6 of the 1934 World Series, confirming that Rowe is the batter.

The fans would then check their scorecards which listed the player names and their scoreboard ID numbers. Scorecards not only brought in revenue from sales at the ballpark, they were also a source of advertising revenue from local businesses. Figure 2 shows the scorecard grid for a game between Detroit and St. Louis in June 1922: four ads surround the grid. Other ads in the scorecard included Adams Black Jack Gum, Hotel Fort Shelby, Michigan Parfay Co., the American State Bank, the Haskins Agency (underwriting), Max O’Leary (Ford dealership), Louis Schiappacasse & Co. (fruits, candy, nuts, produce), and Thompson Auto Co. (Federal Motor Trucks dealership).1

Figure 2. The Detroit scorecard grid section for a Tigers-Browns game in June 1922

Unlike today, when players are assigned uniform numbers that very rarely change within a season, and some players might wear the same number for their entire careers, the ID numbers of players at Navin Field could vary from game to game. Because of changes in the roster, due to in-season transactions such as trades or promotions/demotions from/to the minor leagues, as well as changes in the starting lineups due to managerial realignments of the batting order, ID numbers would be reassigned. A new scorecard had to be bought for each game, or at least for each series, since the scorecards could not be reused from one series to the next, nor could the numbers be memorized. For example, Figure 3 compares facsimile scorecards for two games between the Tigers and the Yankees in 1926 at Navin Field, June 10 and September 11, following the same format as the scorecard shown in Figure 2.

Figure 3. Facsimile Detroit scorecard lineups from June 10, and September 11, 1926

Only two players had the same ID number for both games—Jackie Tavener (7) and Hooks Dauss (11). Even player-manager Ty Cobb had different ID numbers (4 and 61) for these games, reflecting that he was in the starting lineup in one game and not in the other. The scoreboard ID numbers corresponded to the lineup positions for the first seven batters, while the eighth spot is occupied by two catchers with scoreboard ID numbers 8 and 9. The pitchers have numbers in the teens and low twenties. The other players have scoreboard numbers that seem somewhat unusual—ID number 49 is that of the third-string catcher, while the others seem assigned at random: 51, 61, 71, 112, 151, and 171. (We do not know why many of these additional numbers end with the numeral one, though perhaps limiting the unique numerals used aided in the operation of the manual scoreboard.) With 27 unique home series between the Tigers and other American League clubs, there could have been as many as 27 unique scorecards, though examination of existing examples suggests they did not always update for every series. Examination of Retrosheet box scores suggests the numbers 1-6 and 8 were assigned to many different players during the course of the season. See Figure 4.

Figure 4. Possible Scoreboard ID Number Assignments for Players on the 1926 Detroit Tigers

These constant changes were certainly not fan-friendly. A simpler system would be to assign one number per player—such as a uniform number—which could be used as scoreboard ID number all season. While the idea had often been proposed, the majority of major-league clubs—including the Detroit Baseball Club—were strongly opposed because they feared it would reduce the sales of scorecards. As stated by Jack Looney in his book Now Batting, Number…, “during the idle winter months prior to the 1931 season, American League president Ernest S. Barnard informed all clubs in the league that players must wear numbers. He suggested that regulars wear #1–7, the catchers #8-11, pitchers #12–24 and utility players the rest. The #13 was left to the discretion of each team.”2 As The Sporting News reported, “The American League decided to number all of its players in 1931. It appeared to be the opinion of the owners that such identification had helped to maintain the individuality of Babe Ruth. With a number on his back, no one had mistaken him for any other player.”3 Uniform numbers had previously been used briefly, by Cleveland in 1916 and by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1923.4 The Cleveland Indians and the New York Yankees began using numbers on the backs of the uniforms of their players in 1929, and maintained the practice from then on.5 All eight National League clubs did so starting in 1932.6

The need for teams to assign one permanent ID number to each player is clearly demonstrated by Detroit Tigers scorecards from the 1930 season, the year before Barnard’s edict. Three are compared in Figure 5. See also Figure 6.

Figure 5. Comparison of the ID numbers shown in printed scorecards May 4, July 4, and September 27, 1930

In 1930, Detroit hosted 25 home series with at least 25 unique scorecards. A total of 36 players participated in at least one game. As was the custom, the ID numbers reflected the batting order, giving the leadoff hitter number 1, the next batter 2, etc. The catcher always occupied the eighth spot in the batting lineup, and both the first-string catcher and his primary backup were shown on the pre-printed scorecard, assigned numbers 8 and 9, respectively. A blank space beneath the catcher’s line was provided for the fan to fill in the name of the starting pitcher. Figure 6 presents a listing of the ID code numbers for the players on the 1930 Tigers, based on seven surviving scorecards viewed by the author.

Figure 6. Scoreboard ID Numbers for Players on the 1930 Detroit Tigers, Derived from Seven Unique Scorecards

Here are a few of the interesting aspects of the scoreboard numbers for the 1930 Tigers:

• During the season, manager Bucky Harris (who also had a code number in case he was activated) used numerous lineups and several player transactions took place. John Stone had at least five different code numbers—1, 112, 5, 6, 171. Likewise Bill Akers—61, 71, 7, 6, 223. Liz Funk, Roy Johnson, Mark Koenig, and Billy Rogell each had at least four different scoreboard numbers; Marty McManus and Charlie Sullivan each had at least three.
• The scoreboard number assigned to the most different players appears to be 7. The following seven players had scoreboard number 7 and batted seventh in the seven scorecards examined—Yats Wuestling, Billy Rogell, Roy Johnson, Bill Akers, Mark Koenig, Tom Hughes, and Johnny Watson. According to box scores for other games played at Navin Field, Frank Doljack, Bob Fothergill, and Liz Funk also batted seventh, so as many as ten players may have had ID number 7.
• The out-of-sorts scoreboard numbers on the seven scorecards examined include 31 (Charlie Sullivan), 49 (third-string catchers Tony Rensa, Gene Desautels, and Hughie Wise); 61 (Bill Akers, Paul Easterling, Mark Koenig, and Marty McManus); 71 (Akers, Bob Fothergill, and Koenig); 112 (Bucky Harris, Jimmy Shevlin, and John Stone); 122 (Roy Johnson and Shevlin); 149 (Harris), 151 (Easterling and Rogell); 161 (Hank Greenberg); 171 (Stone); and 223 (Akers). Examination of other scorecards would probably yield more players with these numbers and that there may be additional out-of-the-ordinary scoreboard numbers.

Given Barnard’s edict, one might expect that for the 1931 season, this situation would cease. And the Detroit Baseball Club did comply with the AL mandate to give uniform numbers to each of its players in 1931, but the club only followed the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law. While the players were assigned uniform numbers, the Tigers did not display those numbers on the scoreboard. They continued to use variable scoreboard ID numbers in 1931–34, ensuring that fans still needed to purchase scorecards. For example, in 1933, when Hank Greenberg joined the Tigers for good, his uniform number for the entire season was 7, but his scoreboard number varied among four different numbers—61, 5, 6, and 7.

Figure 7 shows the scorecard grid from the Tigers official scorecard for the August 2–4, 1933, series versus the Chicago White Sox. The scoreboard number (Scr. Br. No.) is given on the left of the player’s name and the uniform number (Uniform No.) is shown on the right. The player’s uniform number presented in parentheses suggests that it was not as important as the scoreboard number (at least according to the Detroit Baseball Club). For the players in the starting lineup, only Greenberg’s scoreboard number (7) and his uniform number (7) are the same. Among the pitchers and players not in the starting lineup, none have the same scoreboard and uniform number.

Figure 7. The Detroit scorecard grid section for Tigers-White Sox series, August 2–4, 1933

Examining the practices of the Tigers in the 1931–34 period reveals how the practice of uniform number adoption was changing. There are many interesting aspects to discover about the ID numbers and the uniform numbers of the Tigers players for each season during the 1931–34 period. Many of these are presented in the Appendix to this paper, which is found online at SABR.org. Some items of particular note are given here:

• In 1931, three players had unusually high (out-of-sorts) uniform numbers—Johnny Grabowski (35), George Quellich (37), and Art Herring (41), as did two Detroit coaches—Jean Dubuc (43) and (future Hall-of-Famer) Roger Bresnahan (52). We don’t know whether these numbers had any special significance to those men or if the assignments were random. Only Herring continued in the major leagues beyond the 1931 season, but he changed to the uniform number 18 in both 1932 and 1933.
• In 1931, the Tigers reassigned six different uniform numbers within the season. Uniform number 5 was worn by both Marty McManus (107 games, April 14 through August 25) and Gene Desautels (3 games, September 23–27); uniform number 6: Frank Doljack (60 games, April 14 through July 25) and Orlin Collier (2 games, September 11–23); uniform number 8: Wally Schang (30 games, April 14 through June 22) and Muddy Ruel (14 games, September 14–26); uniform number 29: Marv Owen (107 games, April 16 through August 16) and Nolen Richardson (38 games, August 20 through September 27). Three players each wore uniform number 7 at one time or another during the season—Bill Akers (29 games, April 14 through June 8), Louis Brower (21 games, June 13 through July 27), and Billy Rogell (48 games, August 8 through September 27).
• Twenty men were on the Tigers in both 1931 and 1932, but only two of them had the same uniform number in both seasons—Tommy Bridges (16) and Dale Alexander (4). But only one 1932 player had a different uniform number in 1933—Frank Doljack (21 changing to 9). Eighteen men played for Detroit in both 1933 and 1934; only three of them had the same uniform number in both seasons—Chief Hogsett (17), Ray Hayworth (23), and Charlie Gehringer (2).
• Considering the uniform numbers ultimately retired by the Tigers—1 (in honor of Lou Whitaker, 2022), 2 (Charlie Gehringer, 1983), 3 (Alan Trammell, 2018), 5 (Hank Greenberg, 1983), 6 (Al Kaline, 1980), 11 (Sparky Anderson, 2011), 16 (Hal Newhouser, 1997), 23 (Willie Horton, 2000), 47 (Jack Morris, 2018)—the following 1931 Tigers were the first ones to wear them—Hub Walker (1), Gee Walker (2), Charlie Gehringer (3), Marty McManus (5), Frank Doljack (6), Earl Whitehill (11), Tommy Bridges (16). Note that the number 42 has been retired in all of MLB in Jackie Robinson’s honor.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

In 1935, the Tigers finally did away with the practice of forcing fans to refer to variable scoreboard ID numbers for each game: the official scorecards provided only the players’ uniform numbers, which were used on the scoreboard. Even though the 1931–34 Tigers players had fixed uniform numbers to meet the mandate of the American League, the Detroit Baseball Club chose to use the same varying ID number system for display on the outfield scoreboard used in 1930 (as well as prior seasons). Examination of the uniform numbers for the Detroit Tigers during the 1931–34 seasons yields a fascinating story—revealing the strategy of the Detroit Baseball Club to circumvent the “spirit of the law” by keeping in place the scoreboard numbers while following the “letter of the law” by introducing uniform numbers, which were functionally irrelevant.

This is just one of the numerous engaging aspects that have emerged from my quest (which commenced in January 2001) to independently ascertain complete and accurate uniform numbers for the diamondeers who played for (and/or managed or coached) the Tigers (or who were on the active roster, but did not play—aka “Phantom Tigers”) from 1931 forward.7 (As described in previous articles, I have detailed other extraordinary aspects provided by the uniform numbers worn by Detroit Tiger players over the ensuing years.8) Other teams also participated in this practice of assigning scoreboard numbers, yet very little about them is mentioned in the many books about uniform numbers.9 Researching the topic is hereby heartily recommended to diehard fans of their teams, with the caveat that while the endeavor will be both challenging and rewarding, it will also likely be (very) frustrating, as exemplified by my not yet having been able to ascertain the uniform numbers (and scoreboard numbers) of Luke Hamlin and Roxy Lawson on the 1933 Detroit Tigers.10 

HERM KRABBENHOFT, a longtime SABR member—and frequent contributor to both the Baseball Research Journal and The National Pastime—has been a Detroit Tigers fan since Zeb Eaton (uniform #17) hit a pinch grand slam against the Yankees (July 15, 1945). Herm’s first in-person Tigers grand slam was by Bill Tuttle (#5) on May 20, 1956, at Briggs Stadium versus the Senators. Other memorable Tigers home runs for Herm include four by Charlie Maxwell (#4) on Sunday, May 3, 1959, vs the Yankees.

Detroit manager Bucky Harris (shown with Kenesaw Mountain Landis in 1932), was assigned various ID numbers in case he was activated as a player. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

Online appendix

Click here to view the online appendix to this article

The Harrisburg Giants joined the Eastern Colored League in 1924 with a powerful lineup centered around player-manager Oscar Charleston, a future Hall of Famer.1 But the Giants faced a problem: Pennsylvania’s blue laws prevented baseball from being played on Sundays, a significant hit to the team’s fiscal prospects.2 Yet a solution stood just 40 miles away in Lancaster, thanks to a loophole in the commonwealth’s legislation.

Lancaster itself had a history of professional baseball, starting in 1884 with the Lancasters and Ironsides. The Lancaster Maroons, later named Red Roses, were the primary home team in Lancaster from 1905 to 1914.3 The club featured future Hall of Famer Stan Coveleski 1909–11, and later iterations of the team were affiliated with the American and National Leagues.4 Based on the town’s proximity to Harrisburg, along with its infrastructure and interest in baseball, Lancaster was well positioned to host a team like the Harrisburg Giants. Most importantly, the ownership of Lancaster’s premiere baseball grounds, Rossmere Base Ball Park, allowed the Giants to operate under that legal loophole: Their games could be considered charity events.

These circumstances led the Giants to play a significant number of exhibition and Eastern Colored League games in their second home of Lancaster from 1925–27. Across their three seasons at Rossmere, the Giants regularly dazzled fans, who happily claimed them as their home team, with attendance in the thousands.5 Their league games brought future Hall of Famers Martin Dihigo, Biz Mackey, Judy Johnson, Louis Santop, and John Henry Lloyd to Rossmere. Over three seasons, the Giants won 17 of their 20 exhibition games and three of their five league games in Lancaster, with one game suspended due to weather.

Perhaps given their short-lived residency, the greatest team ever to play in Lancaster is largely absent from the town’s history. A century later, the Giants’ exploits are missing from public accounts of Lancaster baseball. The Lancaster County Historical Society mentioned them only in passing in a 2004 celebration of Lancaster’s baseball history and the county baseball historical marker outside the home of the town’s present-day professional team makes no mention of the Giants.6 While brief, the Harrisburg Giants’ time at Rossmere was notable: It was the highest level of baseball ever played in Lancaster.

ORIGINS OF THE HARRISBURG GIANTS

The exact date of the Harrisburg Giants’ founding is unclear, but the strongest evidence points to 1894. Colonel Strothers, a successful Black businessman in Harrisburg, established the team as an independent amateur or semiprofessional team around this time.7 Baseball’s color barrier prevented Black players from playing in many professional leagues, and Strothers built a roster of Black players. By 1906, the club was recognized as one of the top Black professional teams in the Eastern United States.8 Critically, the team signed outfielder Spottswood Poles, a Harrisburg native who was noted as “the Black Ty Cobb” and is today considered second only to Cool Papa Bell for speed on the basepaths.9 The Giants played their home games at Harrisburg’s Island Park, which they would call home until the franchise’s demise. By the early 1920s, the team was playing a regular schedule of games against top teams in the region.

In addition to playing in Harrisburg, the Giants barnstormed throughout the region, including in Lancaster. They played an exhibition against the Lancaster Indians in 1922 at Rossmere and several more games in 1923, against local clubs at Rossmere and at the Eighth Ward club’s Hill grounds.10 This mirrored other Black ballclubs that played exhibitions in Lancaster, including the Camden Black Sox and the York Colored Giants.11 The 1924 acquisition of Charleston by Harrisburg required the erection of new bleachers at Rossmere to accommodate the large crowds when the Giants headlined a series of games there.12 Owner Strothers predicted that “Charleston will bust the fence at Rossmere,” which led Lancaster Red Roses business manager Charlie Deal to retort, “Let him bust…two can play at the same game and we’ll do a little busting on our own hook.”13 Strothers’s prediction came true as Charleston homered and singled in the Giants’ 7–5 win in their second contest of the season against the Red Roses.14

Batting practice at Rossmere Park. The original newspaper caption read: “The insert at right is Lefty Murphy, pitcher, of Hilldale fame. He was one of the leading independent pitchers last season, and is expected to pitch brilliant ball this summer for the Frock aggregation.” (Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, April 10, 1920)

A SUNDAY HOME AT ROSSMERE

Charleston, one of the game’s greatest players, signed to return as the Giants player-manager in 1925. Like all professional teams in Pennsylvania, the Giants faced an issue that impacted potential weekend revenues: They were prohibited from playing on Sunday. Pennsylvania’s blue laws, which dated back to 1794, strictly prohibited “worldly employment or business whatsoever on the Lord’s Day, works of necessity and charity only excepted.”15 Such laws were rooted in the commonwealth’s Quaker founding.

The Philadelphia Athletics tried to defy them and play on Sundays starting in 1926. They lost their legal battle in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1927 and didn’t play home games on Sundays until 1934, when a new law allowed it—though only between 2:00 and 6:00PM.16

The lack of Sunday games was a significant blow to the Athletics, who estimated the lost revenue at $20,000 per game.17 This was no doubt a concern for the Giants as well. They began skirting the law in 1925 by leasing Rossmere Base Ball Park, where they could take advantage of the charity exception to the Sunday ban.18 Rossmere was owned by St. Joseph Catholic Club, a religious organization that still exists in Lancaster.19 If the religious organization leased the ballpark to the club as a way to raise funds for its charitable works, the ban wouldn’t apply. The organization, an offspring of the St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, identified Tommy Shields in 1925 as the point person coordinating baseball games at Rossmere.20 Shields, a former star high school athlete, closed a deal with Strothers in March, and the Giants would call Rossmere their Sunday home for the next three seasons.21

HISTORY OF ROSSMERE BASE BALL PARK

The origins of Rossmere Base Ball Park are not entirely clear. The first public reference to the location serving a sporting purpose is on October 4, 1897, about a football game played on the “Rossmere grounds.”22 The baseball diamond was located just outside of the northeast corner of Lancaster City, within Manheim Township. The area served as a working-class suburb of the city, anchored by several key businesses, with the name “Rossmere” chosen for the suburb in the mid-1890s in honor of George Ross, Lancaster’s sole signer of the Declaration of Independence.

The area was given a boost by the completion of the Rossmere Belt Line in 1895, providing streetcar access to the area and furthering residential and industry development.23 The area hosted a limited number of athletic events in the late 1890s, but blossomed in the 1900s. In 1904, a new ballpark was built at the corner of Frances and Juliette Avenues to host the burgeoning number of events and the local professional baseball team, the Lancaster Maroons, later renamed the Red Roses.24

The baseball diamond’s grandstand measured 17 feet high at the center and 20 feet high at either side. Bleachers measuring 14 feet high, without roofing, extended along the first- and third-base lines.25 In addition to serving as home to the Red Roses, Rossmere also hosted exhibition baseball games. Perhaps the most famous of these took place in September 1919, when Babe Ruth and the Boston Red Sox lost to the local Klein Chocolate Club, one of the Klein club’s many wins during its impressive 1919 season.26

 

1912 Sanborn Fire Insurance Rate Map.28

THE 1925 SEASON

The Giants didn’t win the Eastern Colored League pennant in 1925, but they were brimming with talent. The main draw was Charleston, the eventual Hall of Famer. While as a Black ballplayer he was often overlooked, he was an incredible talent. Hall of Famer Buck O’Neill described Charleston as “Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Tris Speaker rolled into one.”29 Historian Bill James ranked him as the fourth-greatest player of all time, following Ruth, Honus Wagner, and Willie Mays.30 Wagner himself named Charleston as the greatest player he ever saw.31 His greatness was not lost on the Lancaster press, who noted the Indianapolis native as “the greatest colored ball player in the game, known as the Babe Ruth of the Colored League…he is a player who would be in the big leagues if not for his color.”32

Rap Dixon and Fats Jenkins flanked Charleston in the outfield. Dixon is considered by many baseball historians to be worthy of Hall of Fame induction.33 In 2018, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum included Dixon on the Negro League Centennial Team; he and Buck O’Neil, were the only other non-pitchers honored who were not already in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.34 Dixon’s fine 1925 season led New York Giants manager John McGraw to remark that he would be a star in the National League if not for his race and that “he is without question, one of the greatest outfielders in the United States.”35 Jenkins was a two-sport threat who was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021. That honor shouldn’t overshadow his impressive baseball career, which stretched 19 seasons during which he compiled a 121 OPS+.36 This combination of talent led contemporaries to dub them “the million-dollar outfield,” and some baseball historians include them among the greatest outfields of all time.37

The lineup featured another eventual member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Ben Taylor. “Old Reliable” was winding down his career by the time he played first base for the Harrisburg Giants.38 Taylor was widely known for being “meticulous in his approach to hitting” and a smooth fielder.39 Shortstop Walter “Rev” Cannady was a revelation in 1925, hitting 13 home runs, third in the league behind Charleston’s 20 and the 15 hit by John Beckwith of the Baltimore Black Sox, who would soon be a teammate. Other solid offensive contributors like Dick Jackson and Mack Eggleston gave the Giants the best offense in the league. They hit 65 home runs, 27 more than the Hilldale Club, who hit the second most.40 The Giants also led the league in slugging, OPS, batting average, and runs. The team was decidedly less impressive from the pitching standpoint, ranking sixth in ERA+, which adjusts for the overall league pitching environment. Still, pitchers like Ping Gardner and Wilbert Pritchett had solid, if unspectacular, seasons for the club.

Press reports from the time clearly reflect the local excitement about the Giants and Lancaster’s eagerness to claim them as Lancaster’s home team. Noting in April 1925 that “the team will represent Lancaster on the diamond each week-end,” the Lancaster New Era noted that the “team is much stronger this season than last, and, with many of the league games being staged here, the fans should see real base ball.”41 In advance of the first official Giants practice in Lancaster, the New Era noted, “The Giants are favorites with local base ball fans and in past seasons have played to capacity audiences when pitted against the Eighth Ward and Lancaster teams. They should prove even more popular playing as a home team.”42 The press remained impressed after that initial practice: “To say they looked good in their initial workout on the local park diamond would be putting it mild,” gushed the Lancaster Daily Intelligencer.43

The Giants played their first Eastern Colored League game at Rossmere on April 26, with approximately 3,000 fans in attendance to watch them beat the Wilmington Potomacs, 8–5.44 The game was highlighted by a triple steal by the Giants and a home run by Charleston.45 The Giants returned to Rossmere on May 10 for a non-league game against the Philadelphia Quaker Cracks, a Philadelphia semipro team. The Giants won that game, 7–3. Charleston continued to impress, hitting a triple and a home run, the Daily Intelligencer noting that he’d swung at the “first pitch and sent it over the housetops bordering right field.”46

The Giants returned on May 17 for a game against the Lit Brothers, a white semipro team sponsored by a Philadelphia company.47 The Giants trounced the visitors, 25–1. Jenkins had five hits and scored four runs while Charleston homered yet again.48 The Giants’ next two games at Rossmere were rained out. They’d been scheduled to play on May 24 against Camden, not the Black Sox but a White team that in 1926 would be part of the Interstate League, a short-lived attempt at a six-team integrated circuit with three White teams and three Black ones, including Harrisburg. The Giants also had a rare Friday game at Rossmere, an ECL league game against the Cuban Stars (East), postponed due to rain. They returned on May 31 and beat the Quaker City club, 16–7.49

The Giants played two of their more consequential games in June. They were just behind Hilldale for first place in the ECL heading into their June 14 matchup at Rossmere.50 Hilldale’s formidable team included future Hall of Famers Mackey, Johnson, and Santop. The Giants led, 6–2, when the game was washed out by rain. The rain stopped, but the umpires called the game due to the state of the field, and Charleston was furious. The game was never resumed. The Giants remained in first place as late as July 16 before Hilldale overtook them and pulled away.51

A week after the suspended game against Hilldale, the Giants lost an official ECL game at Rossmere for the first time all season. The Dihigo-led Cuban Stars rallied in the ninth inning for a 15–11 victory, spoiling a two-home run effort by Charleston.52 July brought two additional ECL games. The first was a 3–2 loss on July 5 to the Wilmington Potomacs. Game recaps colorfully describe the heroics of Wilmington’s Pete Washington and sloppy play by the Giants that led to the Potomacs’ victory.53 The Giants held their fourth ECL game at Rossmere on July 12, beating the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants, 5–4, who were led by player-manager John Henry Lloyd. The future Hall of Famer was held to a single.54 The win kept Harrisburg Giants in first place of the ECL, but just a week later Hilldale would overtake them.55 Harrisburg would end the season in second place, never retaking the lead.

While their ECL games were done for the year, the Giants finished out the season by beating the local Eighth Ward team twice. The first of those was a 9–6 win on September 6 as the Eighth Warders’ starting pitcher “floundered worse than Connie Mack’s pennant hopes.”56 After a game against Columbia was canceled, the Giants closed out their season at Rossmere with an 11–1 victory over the Eighth Warders. who “were battered and hammered throughout nine innings of hectic free hitting.”57

The Giants’ first season at Rossmere was undoubtedly a success, with a large amount of support from the local fans and press. The Daily Intelligencer’s Robert D. Prince noted the positive public sentiment midway through the season: “A team of hard hitters, backed by sterling pitching, the Giants are well qualified to put up the kind of game which Lancaster wants and the faithful who enter the turnstiles are proving that that is just what they are doing.”58 Lancaster’s white press spoke of the Giants with respect and admiration. There are numerous references to the quality of the players and notes that they would be playing in the American or National Leagues if not for baseball’s color barrier.

Oscar Charleston playing at Rossmere Base Ball Park. (Lancaster New Era, April 25, 1927)

THE 1926 SEASON

The 1926 season brought the return of the Giants to Lancaster. In early April they were announced as the home team for 11 games.59 Many of the team’s mainstays—including the vaunted outfield anchored by Charleston—returned, though the team lost Taylor, who departed for the Baltimore Black Sox.60 The most noticeable addition was Jose Perez, a longtime player for both Cuban Stars teams, East and West. Also new was pitcher Sam Cooper, who was the top performer in a middling pitching rotation.61

Slugger John Beckwith joined the team partway through the season after spending time with the Baltimore Black Sox. Beckwith, nicknamed “The Black Bomber,” was an intimidating slugger known for having “230 pounds of solid home run hitting muscle,” adding to an already formidable lineup.62 The 1926 Giants didn’t live up to their second-place finish the year before. Though the offense again topped the ECL in OPS+, slugging, and isolated power, they ranked sixth out of eight in ERA and walk rate and last in strikeout rate.63

The Giants finished the year in fourth place with a record of 27–22, but continued to impress in Lancaster. On April 18, they beat a fellow Harrisburg team, the white Senators from the New York-Pennsylvania League, in an exhibition game at Rossmere. A estimated crowd of 1,500 fans attended, and while Charleston did not hit a home run, “the smiling Giant leader…kept the crowd in a good humor throughout with his one-handed catches,” reported the Lancaster New Era.64

The Giants returned to Rossmere in early May in front of what the New Era called “a record setting crowd” to dominate Chester, 23–6. Charleston led the way with four hits, including a home run.65 The Giants returned to play the Lancaster Red Roses on July 11, earning a 16–4 victory with Charleston and Beckwith homering.66 While the Giants played several games in the region in August, they did not return to Rossmere until September for a doubleheader against the white Camden team. A few days before the contest, the teams held a “dress rehearsal for their two-act classic,” in the New Era’s words, which ended in a tie, with Charleston noting, “We want to beat ’em twice before the season closes…just to show ’em it can be done.”67

Charleston got his wish when the Giants beat Camden twice in front of a reported 5,000 fans, 5–4 and 2–1, both in thrilling fashion. Camden featured players with American and National League experience, including 49-year-old Wid Conroy, a utility player who had last been with the Washington Nationals in 1911. Charleston hit a home run, which the New Era noted was his 42nd of the season.68

A final doubleheader ended the season at Rossmere for the Giants. They faced the New York PA All Stars in late September, with Lefty George slated to pitch for the All Stars. George, who had pitched briefly for the St. Louis Browns, Cleveland Naps, Cincinnati Reds and Boston Braves in the 1910s, noted his team was “confident of beating the Colored Club in a double-header.”69 That confidence was misplaced. The Giants, in front of the largest crowd of the season, beat the All Stars twice, 9–2 and 6–0.70

THE 1927 SEASON

While the Giants hadn’t played at Rossmere as much in 1926, they returned for more significant contests in 1927, their third and final year playing Sunday games there. Initially, it was unclear whether Charleston would return, as he tried to break his contract to join the Homestead Grays.71 This attempt was controversial and risky for Charleston: Any ECL player breaking a contract could be banned from playing in the league for several years. Despite protestations by Charleston, the owners didn’t budge and he returned to the Giants, but only as a player.72 Despite this preseason drama, Charleston put together an exceptional offensive season, slashing .399/.502/.694.73

The Giants’ main 1927 acquisition was Oscar “Heavy” Johnson, a slugger signed away from the Baltimore Black Sox. While he would only spend one season with the Giants, he made it count with the team’s second-best OPS+. Fats Jenkins had another solid season, though Rap Dixon’s was uncharacteristically average.74 The team was an offensive stalwart as usual, with three of the league’s top five players in OPS+. Interestingly, the 1927 team was perhaps the most balanced Giants club of the period, with a pitching staff that led the league in ERA+. This was not enough to win the league, however, as they finished second to Atlantic City.

The Giants primarily played exhibition games at Rossmere in 1927. They opened their season at Rossmere on April 17 with 1,500 fans in attendance to watch them beat Kensington, 7–0.75 While there are no surviving box scores, the team split two games against the Harrisburg Senators on April 24 and May 1.76 One highlight from that opening month is the only known photograph of Charleston playing at Rossmere Base Ball Park (reproduced at left), published in the New Era on April 25 to remark on the team falling to the Senators.77

The Giants returned to face Camden on June 5. “Little need to be said of this colored group of stars,” the Daily Intelligencer wrote, “as Lancaster fans like their brand of baseball and have alays [sic] patronized them in the past. They will all be back, including Charleston, the colored Babe Ruth, [Hen] Jordan, Williams, Cannady [sic] et. al.”78 That praise notwithstanding, the Giants lost to Camden, 6–5, despite scoring three in the ninth inning.79

The Giants played their only ECL game of 1927 at Rossmere against the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants on Independence Day. The Giants gave up three runs in the first inning but fought back in the fifth and sixth to take the lead, which they relinquished in the eighth on a wild pitch. With two outs in the ninth inning, Beckwith and Charleston singled to bring Heavy Johnson to the plate. He smacked a line drive and White, the Bacharach center fielder, knocked it down but could not make the catch. The Giants won, 5–4.80 This marked the last of five Eastern Colored League games played at Rossmere.

Harrisburg returned to Rossmere in mid-August for a scheduled game against Camden with the Daily Intelligencer highlighting the return of “Fence Bustin’ Charleston.”81 The Camden club rescheduled and were instead replaced by Corley Catholic Club; Charleston lived up to his name with a three-run homer in a 6–2 win.82 Late August was supposed to see a second ECL game between the Harrisburg Giants and the Brooklyn Royal Giants. Harrisburg would have no doubt welcomed facing the last-place team, but the game was “washed out” due to poor weather.83

Instead, the Giants were announced as returning the following week to play the local Philadelphia Elks, a game the Giants won, 12–1, on September 4.84 A poetic game summary in the Daily Intelligencer spoke to the overwhelming offensive power of the Giants:

There seems to be nothing much to a ball game when the Harrisburg Giants play. Just step up, rap out a bunch of hits, and win the old ball game. The Philadelphia Elks found, much to their sorrow, that that is just how the Giants do it. For yesterday on the Rossmere diamond the Giants gave a great exhibition of how to salt away a game, pounding out a 12 to 1 victory over the Philly outfit.85

The team topped that offensive output on September 18 in their last game of the season. The Giants came into the game against the Harrisburg Senators with each having won a game at Rossmere. The Giants dominated the season finale, beating the Senators, 16–1, in their last game of the year in Lancaster.86 The end of 1927 would mark the end of the most esteemed iteration of the Harrisburg Giants. Over three short seasons, however, their record was impeccable. The Giants went 20–5, including 3–2 in ECL games. While exact attendance records are unclear, newspaper reports regularly remarked on large crowds, topped by 5,000 attending the doubleheader against Camden in 1926.

The former site of Rossmere Base Ball Park is now the parking lot of Lancaster Catholic High School.

1928 AND BEYOND

In early 1928, the Giants dropped out of the Eastern Colored League and announced they would play an independent schedule instead. But in March, Ben Faltine, the promoter for Rossmere, announced that the Giants had disbanded and would no longer use the field. The Daily Intelligencer stated, “Colonel Strothers, of the Giants, apparently found the going too tough and has broken up his great colored aggregation of tossers.”87 Further reporting noted that Strothers disbanded the club “because he lost money last year, and that he has severed all connection with the club.”88

The team was, however, quickly revived under new management with the same name. The Giants announced they would return to Rossmere for exhibition games and over the course of the season re-signed some of their past players, including Spottswood Poles, Rap Dixon, and Hen Jordan. While stars like Charleston and Jenkins left for other ECL teams and the quality of play was lower, the Giants still outplayed their competition in Lancaster, winning eight of 10 contests at Rossmere, beating local and regional teams.89

The Giants ended their time in Lancaster unceremoniously on August 26, losing, 11–2, to the Eighth Ward team as the “highly touted attack of the Giants was absolutely helpless in the face of the Warders.”92 This was an inauspicious end to the Giants’ time at Rossmere, beaten badly by a team of local semipros. Rossmere Base Ball Park was also reaching its endpoint. In December 1928, the St. Joseph’s Catholic Club authorized the transfer of the Rossmere field to the Retired Reverend Phillip R. McDevitt, Bishop of Harrisburg, for the purpose of erecting Lancaster Catholic High School. The donation was finalized in late 1928 or early 1929, with the club’s internal record of receiving thanks for the donation from the chairman of Lancaster Catholic High School dated February 24, 1929.93

CONCLUSION

The Giants continued to play in some fashion throughout the 1930s and 1940s, but at a greatly diminished capacity. The team was reincarnated in 1952, with former player Spottswood Poles serving as manager, before shuttering for good in 1954.94 As for the one-time Sunday site of their legendary exploits, Rossmere Base Ball Park remains largely forgotten in Lancaster history. The former home to some of history’s greatest baseball players is now a parking lot at Lancaster Catholic High School, with no markers to indicate its past glory. The Giants’ time calling Lancaster home was short, encompassing Sundays only for three seasons. Yet, as the centennial of the arrival of the highest-level baseball team to ever call Lancaster home nears, there are plans being made by local baseball history enthusiasts—the author included—to at long last remember and celebrate the Harrisburg Giants’ time at Rossmere by placing a historic marker and holding a series of community events.

JEREMY RAFF is the Director of Data Analytics and Strategy at School District of Lancaster in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He is a longtime Baltimore Orioles fan, enjoying the team’s recently improved fortunes. He is currently spearheading a local effort to honor the history of the Harrisburg Giants’ time calling Lancaster their Sunday home.

Notes

1. James Overmyer, “1923–29 Winter Meetings: The Negro Leagues Come East,” in Baseball’s Business: The Winter Meetings: Volume 1, 1901–1957, eds. Steve Weingarden and Bill Nowlin (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, 2016). https://sabr.org/journal/article/1923-1929-eastern-colored-league-winter-meetings/.

2. Stanley A. Smith, “Recent Developments,” Constitutional Law-Pennsylvania Constitution-Equal Protection 24, no. 5 (1979), 992–1007.

3. Carl Gordon Moore Jr., “140 Years of Lancaster Baseball,” Historic Marker Database, October 7, 2020, https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=157459.

4. “1932–1961: The Red Roses and the Nation,” Lancaster County Historical Society, https://web.archive.org/web/20060503184459/http://www.lancasterhistory.org/collections/exhibitions/Baseball/baseballx.htm.

5. “Giants-Senators Clash Sunday,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, May 1, 1925, 9.

6. Moore Jr., “140 Years of Lancaster Baseball;” “Playing America’s Game: 140 Years of Lancaster Baseball,” Lancaster County Historical Society, https://web.archive.org/web/20041018235248/http://www.lancasterhistory.org/collections/exhibitions/Baseball/baseball1.htm.

7. Dr. Layton Revel and Richards J. Puerzer, “Early Pioneers of the Negro Leagues: Colonel William ‘C.W.’ Strothers,” Center for Negro League Baseball Research, 2017, 2, https://irp.cdn-website.com/33d0c3d0/files/uploaded/Colonel%20Strothers%202018-04.pdf.

8. Revel and Puerzer, 4.

9. Revel and Puerzer, 4; Matt Monagan, “The little-known legend of Spottswood Poles,” MLB.com, January 2022, modified December 26, 2023, https://www.mlb.com/news/the-story-of-spottswood-poles.

10. “Teams Well Matched Here This Week-End,” Lancaster News Journal, August 12, 1922, 8; “Atlantics Meet Colored Giants,” Lancaster New Era, April 20, 1923, 22; “8th Ward Trips Colored Giants,” Lancaster New Era, July 16, 1923, 10.

11. “Warders To Play Camden Black Sox,” Lancaster Intelligencer Journal, May 1, 1923, 8; “Rohrerstown In Twin Victories,” Lancaster Examiner-New Era, May 21, 1923, 10.

12. “Erecting New Bleachers,” Lancaster New Era, July 17, 1924, 6.

13. “To Decide Feud At Local Park,” Lancaster New Era, July 18, 1924, 19.

14. “Jordan Breaks Up ‘Bully’ Game,” Lancaster New Era, July 21, 1924, 9.

15. Smith, “Recent Developments.”

16. John A. Lucas, “The Unholy Experiment: Professional Baseball’s Struggle Against Pennsylvania Sunday Blue Laws 1926–1934,” Pennsylvania History 38, no. 2 (April 1971), 163–75.

17. Lucas.

18. Revel and Puerzer, “Early Pioneers.”

19. Saint Joseph Catholic Club, http://stjosephcatholicclub.com/.

20. “Giants Want Local Game,” Lancaster New Era, March 16, 1925, 8.

21. “Colored Giants Will Play Here,” Lancaster New Era, March 19, 1925, 16.

22. “A Game at Rossmere,” Daily New Era, October 4, 1897, 10.

23. Gary Hovinen, “Lancaster’s Streetcar Suburbs, 1890–1920,” Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society 82 (1978), 50–52.

24. “The New Base Ball Park,” Daily New Era, April 18, 1904, 2.

25. “Dry Docks Taking Practice Fling,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, April 10, 1920.

26. “Klein Maulers Treat Ruth Badly and Beat Boston,” Lancaster New Era, September 26, 1919; Russ Walsh, “The Klein Chocolate Company Baseball Team’s Remarkable 1919 Season,” SABR Baseball Research Journal 51, no. 2 (Fall 2022), https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-klein-chocolate-company-baseball-teams-remarkable-1919-season/.

27. “Boxing poster: Lancaster, Rossmere Ball Park, June 15. Leo Houck vs. Joe Thomas,” Lancaster History, https://collections.lancasterhistory.org/en/permalink/6f96e8af-66b8-4082-8532-775053351970.

28. “Insurance Maps of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1912,” Penn State University Libraries, https://digital.libraries.psu.edu/digital/collection/maps1/id/12871/rec/3.

29. Tim Odzer, “Oscar Charleston,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/oscar-charleston/.

30. Bill James, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (New York: Free Press, 2003), 358.

31. Jeremy Beer, Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019).

32. “Colored Giants Ready for Start,” Lancaster New Era, April 4, 1925, 8.

33. “42 for 21 Poll Results,” 42 for 21 Committee, December 15, 2021, https://www.42for21.org/results.

34. Ted Knorr and Chris Rainey, “Rap Dixon,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/rap-dixon/.

35. “M’Graw Praises Herbert Dixon, Star Outfielder,” Harrisburg Telegraph, February 2, 1926.

36. “Fats Jenkins,” Seamheads Negro Leagues Database, https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=jenki01fat.

37. “Harrisburg Giants May Lose Stars, Charleston is One,” Harrisburg Sunday Courier, January 31, 1926; Ted Knorr, “The Greatest Outfield in Baseball History,” The National Pastime 37, no. 1 (2018), https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-greatest-outfield-in-baseball-history/.

38. Tim Hagerty, “Ben Taylor,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ben-taylor-3/.

39. Isabelle Minasian, “The Taylors, Including Hall of Famer Ben Taylor, Helped Define a Generation of Baseball in the Negro Leagues,” National Baseball Hall of Fame, https://baseballhall.org/discover/family-rules-taylor-brothers-negro-leagues.

40. “1925 Harrisburg Giants,” Seamheads Negro Leagues Database, https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/team.php?yearID=1925&teamID=HBG&LGOrd=3.

41. “Shields Books Strong Teams,” Lancaster New Era, April 15, 1925, 9.

42. “Giants Open Up With Potomacs,” Lancaster New Era, April 22, 1925, 9.

43. “Giants Display Form in Workout,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, April 24, 1925, 9.

44. “Giants-Senators Clash Sunday.”

45. “Harrisburg Giants Defeat Wilmington Potomacs in Thrilling Contest,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, April 27, 1925, 8.

46. “Harrisburg Giants Defeat Philadelphia Nine, 7 to 3,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, May 11, 1925, 6.

47. Rebecca Alpert. “Passon Field (Philadelphia, PA),” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/park/passon-field/.

48. “Giants Trounce Lit Nine, 25–1,” Lancaster New Era, May 18, 1925, 8.

49. “Sunday Games Halted By Rain,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, May 25, 1925, 8; “Rain Halts Local Game,” Lancaster New Era, May 30, 1925, 8; “Giants Tumble Quakers Easily,” Lancaster New Era, June 1, 1925, 8.

50. “Rain Keeps Giants From Winning Game,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, June 15, 1925, 8.

51. Beer, Oscar Charleston.

52. “Giants Beaten By Cuban Stars,” Lancaster New Era, June 22, 1925, 8.

53. “Giants Last Rally Fails and Wilmington Wins, 3–2,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, July 6, 1925, 8.

54. “Hitting Features Rossmere Battle,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, July 13, 1925, 8.

55. “Giants Lose Lead in Colored League Race,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, July 18, 1925, 9.

56. “Giants Tumble 8th Ward, 9–6,” Lancaster New Era, September 7, 1925, 8.

57. “Columbia-Athletics Close Ball Season,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, September 23, 1925, 11; “Three Ward Hurlers Feel Sting of Giant Bludgeons,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, September 28, 1925, 8.

58. Robert D. Price, “No Cause to Kick,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, June 4, 1925, 8.

59. “Harrisburg Club of N.Y.P. Loop Play Giants This Week,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, April 13, 1926, 16.

60. “Ben Taylor,” Seamheads Negro Leagues Database, https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=taylo01ben.

61. “1926 Harrisburg Giants,” Seamheads Negro Leagues Database, https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/team.php?yearID=1926&teamID=HBG.

62. Dr. Layton Revel and Luis Munoz, “Forgotten Heroes: John Beckwith,” Center for Negro League Baseball Research, 2014, https://irp.cdn-website.com/33d0c3d0/files/uploaded/John-Beckwith.pdf.

63. “1926 Harrisburg Giants,” Seamheads Negro Leagues Database.

64. “Giants Defeat Senators Again,” Lancaster New Era, April 19, 1926, 9.

65. “Pritchett In Unusual Form,” Lancaster New Era, May 10, 1926, 8.

66. “Giants Plaster Deal’s Flowers,” Lancaster New Era, July 12, 1926, 9.

67. “Yorke Will See Action Sunday,” Lancaster New Era, September 10, 1926, 14.

68. “Camden Bows to Giants Twice,” Lancaster New Era, September 13, 1926, 9.

69. “‘Lefty’ George Will Twirl For All-Stars,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, September 17, 1926, 14.

70. “Giants Capture Pair of Games,” Lancaster New Era, September 20, 1926, 10.

71. Beer, Oscar Charleston.

72. “Charleston to Remain With Harrisburg Club,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, March 8, 1927, 14.

73. “Oscar Charleston,” Seamheads Negro Leagues Database, https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=charl01osc.

74. “Rap Dixon,” Seamheads Negro Leagues Database, https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=dixon01rap.

75. “Lancaster Black Sox Club Tumbles Frey and Weaver,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, April 18, 1927, 9.

76. “Sports,” Lancaster Sunday News, May 1, 1927. 8.

77. “Not This Time, Charleston!” Lancaster New Era, April 25, 1927, 17.

78. “Camden Club Meets Harrisburg, Sunday,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, June 2, 1927, 15.

79. “Jersey Lads Hold Four Run Lead in Last Half of Ninth,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, June 6, 1927, 8.

80. “Harrisburg Giants Defeat Bacharach’s,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, July 5, 1927, 10.

81. “Harrisburg Colored Giants to Meet Camden Nine at Camden,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, August 16, 1927, 10.

82. “Homers Decide Rossmere Game,” Lancaster New Era, August 22, 1927, 11.

83. “Inclement Weather Halts Local Games,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, August 29, 1927, 9.

84. “Harrisburg Giants Easily Triumph Over Philadelphia Elks, 12 to 1,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, September 5, 1927, 5.

85. “Harrisburg Giants Easily Triumph.”

86. “Giants Swamp Senators, 16–1,” Lancaster New Era, September 19, 1927, 15.

87. “8th Ward Not To Pace Ball Team on Field,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, March 6, 1928, 17.

88. “New H-Burg Giant Nine is Organized,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, April 6, 1928, 20.

89. “Holtwood Shut Out,” Lancaster New Era, July 25, 1928, 11; “Giants and Ward Nines to Battle,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, July 28, 1928, 12; “N. Shuman Holds Foe Until Eighth Inning,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, July 9, 1928, 10; “Close to 800 Fans See Giants Win, 8–1 Score,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, June 11, 1928, 12; “Sports Results,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, June 18, 1928, 10; “Harrisburg Ball Club Registers Four Run Spree in Second Frame,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, June 25, 1928, 12.

90. “Stoke’s Twirling Enables C-Ville To Capture Fray,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, August 6, 1928, 11.

91. “General Laundry Bows to Giants,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, August 18, 1928, 11.

92. “Saltenberger Masters Giants in Fine Style,” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, August 27, 1928, 10.

93. St. Joseph’s Catholic Club Records, obtained via email from board member Denny Kaiser.

94. Dr. Revel Layton and Luis Munoz, “Forgotten Heroes: Spottswood Poles,” Center for Negro League Baseball Research, 2013, https://irp.cdn-website.com/33d0c3d0/files/uploaded/Spottswood-Poles-Book.pdf; Scott Orris, director, “They Were Giants,” Lineage Line Films, 2016, https://vimeo.com/386357211.

Charlie Dressen. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

As soon as the last pitch of a baseball season is thrown, owners of major-league franchises and executives in front offices focus on the year ahead. Offseason decisions, even from clubs that have experienced success, occasionally surprise outside observers when prominent players are traded, sold, or released—or when managers and their clubs part ways. But developments in Brooklyn in the autumn of 1953 differed drastically from usual postseason actions, and altered the fortunes of a trio of baseball’s prominent personalities.

The plot of this impending drama had its origins in 1951, when Charlie Dressen succeeded Burt Shotton as the skipper of the Dodgers and proceeded to manage a talented roster to a first-place tie with the New York Giants in the National League’s pennant race. At the moment Bobby Thomson’s celebrated home run in the third and final game of a tense playoff series landed in the left-field stands of the Polo Grounds, emotional devastation analogous to an earthquake was felt throughout the Dodgers organization and fan base. Rebounding from severe disappointment, the Brooklyn club and its feisty manager captured pennants in 1952 (by 4½ games over the second-place Giants) and in 1953 (when 105 victories created a differential of 13 games over the second-place Milwaukee Braves).

Dressen had been criticized occasionally during the early 1950s for possessing an overbearing personality and a high opinion of himself, and for his club’s failures to beat the crosstown Yankees in the seven-game World Series of 1952 and the six-game Fall Classic of 1953. As the 1953 regular season concluded, however, he was receiving more praise than disapproval from the public and press.1

Dressen was assumed to be on the verge of signing another contract to helm Brooklyn and continue the pursuit of a world championship. Few observers, though, comprehended the degree of Dressen’s resentment that he had guided the Dodgers to two pennants (and very nearly a third) while operating under the limitation of successive one-year contracts. His wife, Ruth, shared his disgust with the lack of guaranteed employment and encouraged him to adopt a more aggressive stance during his negotiations with club president Walter O’Malley prior to the 1954 campaign.

Other managers had longer term deals. Dressen was upset that Charlie Grimm of the second-place Braves and Eddie Stanky of the fourth-place St. Louis Cardinals were working under three-year pacts, while Leo Durocher of the fifth-place Giants had a two-year contract.2 Dressen wanted a three-year deal of his own.3 He reportedly also requested an increase in compensation from $32,500 to $50,000 per year and a tax-free expense account in the amount of $10,000, although the importance of those financial aspects ranked far behind the length of the agreement from the manager’s perspective.4 (O’Malley would later state publicly that Dressen was already earning more than any executive or player in the organization.)5

Prior to the conclusion of the 1953 World Series, Ruth Dressen typed a letter to O’Malley that her husband would present when the two men met face-to-face after the Series ended.6 That letter expressed Dressen’s expectations in no uncertain terms, as well as his assessment of the situation. Judging from O’Malley’s response, it seems unlikely his reaction would have been different had the letter come earlier, but the fact that the Dodgers lost the World Series to the Yankees between preparation of the letter and its delivery could not have helped Dressen’s case.7 If the Dodgers had won the 1953 Series, Dressen’s popularity would have soared and O’Malley might have felt pressured to bend from his strict adherence to single-year managerial contracts. But O’Malley held an informal but established policy, and Dressen and his wife clearly misgauged his determination to adhere to it.

A boss usually rules when there is a disagreement in a business matter, and in this situation O’Malley was definitely the boss. Many baseball historians speculate over O’Malley’s innermost thoughts regarding Dressen, with assumptions of a clash of personalities and egos or O’Malley’s envy of publicity garnered by Dressen. Others conclude that, because O’Malley left the door open for Dressen to continue as manager under a one-year contract, resentfulness and ulterior motives were irrelevant.8 In any case, O’Malley’s public comments stated his doctrine of one-year managerial contracts and included no criticism of Dressen or his performance.

On October 14, O’Malley gathered writers, newsreel operators, and photographers in the Dodgers office on Montague Street for the surprising—even shocking—announcement of Dressen’s resignation. A few days later, after agreeing to manage the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League—a rare reduction in status for a manager of a World Series team—Dressen returned to O’Malley’s office for a conversation, during which the owner returned the letter containing Dressen’s demands. O’Malley said that he did so “to spare [Dressen] any embarrassment.” The contents of the letter were never made public.9 Dressen left without a major-league team to manage, but with enough of O’Malley’s respect that the owner would employ him again in 1958 as a Los Angeles Dodgers coach under Walter Alston.

The names of many potential successors were immediately tossed around in conversation among the Brooklyn faithful and in print. Prominent sports writer Tom Meany wrote with slight exaggeration that “every baseball man over forty (years of age) and unemployed was mentioned as a prospect.”10 The long list of supposed possibilities included Frankie Frisch, Rogers Hornsby, Joe DiMaggio, Tommy Henrich, Lefty O’Doul, Bill Terry—even the Giants’ Durocher and Dodgers vice president Fresco Thompson.

Among them all, however, the name of Harold “Pee Wee” Reese, the popular captain of the Dodgers and a natural leader, stood out.11 Less than two weeks after the managerial vacancy occurred, The Sporting News reported:

… a virtual avalanche of fan mail in support of [Reese] may bring about his early selection as manager of the Dodgers…although Walter O’Malley stated flatly after the Dressen incident that he would wait until December to make his choice….For many reasons, including the early start that the front office likes to have on season sales, Reese is likely to be named shortly. He is the only nominee who has a chance to bring more fans into the park….Also, there is little reason to doubt his ability as a manager since Reese has served as the captain, in fact as well as name, in handling players smoothly under the screamish Leo Durocher and a brusque Burt Shotton as well as Dressen.12

Although O’Malley initially seemed to be more attracted to Reese than any other candidate for the position, he also had high regard for the opinions of Buzzie Bavasi, a vice-president in Brooklyn’s baseball structure.16 Bavasi had worked alongside Alston as the two climbed their respective professional ladders in the minor leagues, and Bavasi’s advocacy for Alston was stronger than was publicly evident during the early stages of the hiring process.17 (Bavasi was supported in his maneuvering by fellow vice-president Thompson and others with minor-league connections.) O’Malley and Bavasi eventually reached an agreement that Bavasi would offer the job to Reese with a provision that if Reese declined the offer, Alston would be next in line.18

Probably because Bavasi was in Alston’s corner, the overture to Reese was so vague and lukewarm that Reese himself was apparently uncertain as to whether a job offer was actually tendered. Interviewed in 1955, he said that Bavasi had asked him whether he would accept an offer if it were made.19 He later told author Roger Kahn that Bavasi had come to him and said something similar to “‘You don’t want to manage this club, do you?’ … So you can’t say they didn’t offer me the job, but you can’t say they did offer it to me, either.”20 Reese said that he knew that he “didn’t want to manage after a proposal like that.”21 After detecting a lack of commitment from Dodgers executives and recognizing his own innate reluctance to manage, Reese telephoned Bavasi late on the evening of November 5 to withdraw from consideration.

As Alston became the front-runner in the managerial derby, he was very aware of the significant role that Bavasi had played in his ascension from the minor leagues to the majors and from relative obscurity to national fame. In his autobiography, Alston stated, “I felt sure it was on Buzzie’s recommendation to Mr. O’Malley that I was getting the job.”22

Walter Alston was able to list two outstanding assets on his personal ledger when he was being considered for promotion. The first was an impressive record while managing Dodgers Triple-A farm teams (the St. Paul Saints of the American Association and the Montreal Royals of the International League) from 1948 through 1953. His teams won three league championships and one Junior World Series Championship in those years, compiling a cumulative record (including playoff games) of 580–396.

Alston’s résumé was further strengthened by his management in the minor leagues of 17 men (including Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, Joe Black, Carl Erskine, Clem Labine, Johnny Podres, Jim Gilliam, Don Hoak, Jim Hughes, Dick Williams, and Don Zimmer) who would appear on the Dodgers roster in the spring of 1954.23 There were only two possible drawbacks regarding his familiarity with players he would inherit in the big leagues. One, Campanella and Gilliam were the only everyday starters who had previously been under his wing. Two, established players such as Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Carl Furillo, Preacher Roe, and Billy Cox were aware of Alston’s nearly nonexistent major-league playing experience, and might challenge his authority.24

Walter Alston, Dodgers manager, with Jackie Robinson. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

One additional factor likely weighed in his favor as he was evaluated by a club owner and president with a sizable ego. Unlike Dressen, Alston would not overshadow Walter O’Malley.

On November 24, 1953—41 days after the awkward announcement of Dressen’s impending departure—O’Malley proclaimed that “a career man in the Brooklyn farm system” would be the new field boss while working with “his (Alston’s) tenth one-year contract with the Dodgers.”25 The reaction on the streets of the borough and in the press was less than enthusiastic. Legendary sportswriter John Lardner wrote with a mixture of wit and sarcasm, “If Alston doesn’t win the pennant and beat the Yankees in the World Series, there’s a clause in his contract which requires him to refund his entire salary and report immediately to the nearest Federal penitentiary.”26 Many in the team’s massive fan base were caught off-guard by the selection after hoping for a well-known candidate or one with a record of big-league success.27

After being greeted initially as if he were a mysterious character rather than the man who had guided many of the Dodgers’ most promising prospects to professional success, Alston ran headlong into harsh criticism and challenging clubhouse conditions. Duke Snider later concluded that “dissension at the management level might have cost us the pennant in 1954. … It was remarkable that we won 97 [sic, 92] games that year because it was a transition year for all of us, with the players getting to know Alston and vice versa. He wasn’t really able to take full control until the next season, when everyone was comfortable with each other.”28

Roger Kahn and widely read columnist Dick Young of the New York Daily News were not nearly as reserved in their evaluation of Alston’s plight. Kahn wrote, “The Dodgers hired a drab organization man … to manage in 1954. In his first year as Dodger manager Alston took the team out of the [pennant] race. He quarreled with Jackie Robinson. He bickered with the press. His racial attitude was suspect. He provided no leadership. Few experienced players warmed to him.”29 Young piled on by writing that Alston “was used to managing in the minors where you had a roster of 17 players. He didn’t know how to function with a 25-man squad. In head-to-head contests, Durocher, who used everybody, ate Alston alive.”30 A fact-check of Young’s statement reveals that Alston held his own against Durocher in close games, and that victories by the Giants in one-sided contests with final scores of 17–6, 10–2, 11–2, 13–4, and 7–1 enabled “Leo the Lip” to achieve his four-game advantage in the 22 head-to-head clashes, 13–9.

Alston also endured the usual second-guessing of fans as well as occasional verbal jabs from his predecessor.31 Late in the 1954 season, for example, Dressen told a reporter for Newsweek, “This year [the Dodgers] have the same club, with additional pitchers and outfielders. I don’t know why they dropped so far behind. Last year at this time we were 13 games in front.”32

Alston and the Dodgers rebounded after the disappointment of 1954 by dominating the 1955 National League race and capturing Brooklyn’s first World Series championship. Alston himself would subsequently comply with O’Malley’s wishes by signing 23 consecutive one-year contracts from 1954 through 1976, and there is no reason to believe that O’Malley, Bavasi, Thompson, or anyone else involved in the hiring process ever regretted installing him as the Dodgers’ field general.

As an exercise in speculation, an interesting and unanswerable question can be asked: If Dressen had received the three-year contract from O’Malley that he thought he deserved, would the Dodgers have performed better than they did under Alston?

If the notion that Alston took a year to adjust to a major-league environment is valid, then perhaps Dressen’s experience and familiar managerial style would have enabled Brooklyn to erase the five-game gap between them and the Giants in 1954. Then, in the second and third years of his three-year contract (1955 and 1956), he might have matched Alston’s achievement of winning pennants in those years. As such, Dressen might have led the Dodgers to multiple World Series victories. Had he done so, he would have been in a very strong strategic position after the 1956 campaign to demand another contract. Having demonstrated a willingness in 1953 to move to the West Coast, he might have continued to manage the Dodgers during and after their transition to Los Angeles in 1958.

The 1958 season in the Los Angeles Coliseum was a difficult one for the transplanted club, finishing in seventh place, 21 games behind Milwaukee. However, if Dressen had survived the 1958 disappointment, he would have managed a revived club that captured the world championship in 1959, a 1961 team that finished in second place only four games behind Cincinnati, a 1962 outfit that lost to the San Francisco Giants in a three-game National League playoff, and even the Koufax-Drysdale unit of 1963 that swept the Yankees in the Fall Classic.

If this optimistic version of Dressen’s career had occurred, he would not have set foot in the dugout of the dreadful Washington Nationals/Senators from 1955 through the midseason of 1957. He would not have returned to the Dodgers as a coach in 1958 and 1959 for an annual salary of approximately $12,000—far less than the annual $30,000 he had earned as manager.33 (The coaching job on Alston’s staff came his way for a variety of reasons, chief among them strong support from Bavasi and lingering respect for his abilities from O’Malley.34) Finally, he would not have led the unexceptional Milwaukee Braves teams of 1960 and 1961 nor the middle-of-the-pack Detroit Tigers, 1963–66, tarnishing the winning average of .642 that he had registered in three years in Dodger blue. Had he remained with the Dodgers, this man who is often identified with unexceptional teams could have been conceivably inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

As for Reese, we are left to wonder what O’Malley might have done if “The Little Colonel” had responded positively to Bavasi’s tenuous proposition. Barring a trade with another team, his backup Don Zimmer or another prospect would have inherited the shortstop position, an unattractive substitution for a club with very high expectations.35 Consequently, O’Malley and many others would have presumably objected to any suggestion that the still-productive Reese put his glove and bat aside in order to manage.36

Without question, his dismissal of the “manager-only” role from consideration enhanced Reese’s chances for his eventual election to the Hall of Fame. Had he taken the position, his playing career would have been reduced by five years and he would have played in 595 fewer games.37 (Reese placed ninth in the polling for the National League’s MVP Award in 1954, ninth in 1955, and eighth in 1956.38)

What if Reese had attempted to become a player-manager? The responsibilities of management would have added anxiety for a man prone to stress in a playing capacity but, if he limited his playing time to reduce stress, his absence from the field would have adversely affected the performance of his team. The challenge of transitioning into a player-manager role during the 1954 season would have subjected him to the same criticisms Walter Alston received for his failure to adapt. If the second-place finish of 1954 had been similar under Reese’s direction, it would have created acute disappointment for—and second-guessing of—the club’s longtime captain.

Reese might also have been forced to contend with “Yogi Berra Syndrome” in the Dodgers clubhouse in 1954. Berra had been a well-respected Yankee when he became manager in 1964, but his leadership was nevertheless challenged and belittled by players on the team. Reese would likely have been standing on more solid organizational ground; many of Berra’s problems resulted from a lack of support from general manager Ralph Houk.39 Reese’s authority, by contrast, would have probably been reinforced by the Dodgers front office.

If Reese and O’Malley had agreed to Reese becoming a playing manager and if Reese had remained in the managerial job for several more seasons, he might have achieved the same degree of success previously described for Dressen. With his familiar manner and steady hands on the club’s steering wheel, the 1954 National League pennant might have flown over Ebbets Field instead of the Polo Grounds. Realistically, however, it is very unlikely that Reese would have been able to outperform Alston as skipper, and it is difficult to believe that Reese’s tenure would have lasted more than a few years.

The emotional toll that playing baseball is known to have exacted from the man who wore uniform #1 must lead to a presumption that Reese’s existence in a piloting role would not have been a happy one. Conclusive evidence of his distaste for a manager’s life can be cited from his one and only year as a coach (in 1959 with the Dodgers). As Roger Kahn wrote in The Boys of Summer, “He quit after a single season. He was rejecting the eternal pressure, the abrasive life, the suffocating responsibility and…the eventual firing that is part of a manager’s condition of employment.”40

Given Reese’s exceptional talent as a player, his leadership abilities when surrounded by peers, and his obvious preference for a life devoid of management responsibilities, it is evident that he made a wise decision when he declined Bavasi’s half-hearted overtures. Less than two years later, it would also be obvious that O’Malley and his team of executives had made a wise choice in Alston.

Charlie Dressen made a choice, and Pee Wee Reese made a decision. Walter Alston, in contrast, acted passively and let fate propel him into a limelight far from the comparative obscurity of his prior minor-league destinations of Portsmouth, Springfield, Trenton, Nashua, Pueblo, St. Paul, and Montreal. He was, at the age of 42, a man whose destiny resided in the hands of men he knew—and men who knew him.

If Dressen had remained the Dodgers skipper for several more years, or if Reese had inherited the team from Dressen, a managerial future for Alston in Brooklyn would have been effectively blocked. Whether he might have been selected to lead the team years later is questionable; it is more likely that a promising opportunity—if it materialized at all—would have come from elsewhere.

If Alston had landed a job with a major-league team other than the Dodgers, his employer would have almost certainly been a club with losing tendencies. Alston’s record in his 23-year career in Brooklyn and Los Angeles clearly indicates that he could adapt to rosters filled with power hitters or rely on speed and defense to obtain success. Could he have won consistently with players less talented than those in the Dodgers organization? The impressive rebound of the 1959 World Series champions from the doldrums of a terrible 1958 season could support a contention that Alston would have been capable of reversing the fortunes of a team lacking superstars.

The Pittsburgh Pirates could have been the team to serve as a crucible for the testing of Alston’s abilities as a major-league manager. The Bucs were in the midst of a long streak of losing seasons in the early 1950s, and they might have benefitted from Alston’s leadership. However, just as the decision that landed him in Brooklyn did not involve his direct participation, circumstances beyond Alston’s control derailed his prospects for a move to the Steel City.

Alston’s career had become linked in the early 1940s to that of Branch Rickey when the latter was the general manager of the Cardinals. Alston received his initial managerial assignment in 1940 with the Portsmouth Red Birds of the Class C Middle Atlantic League and then managed the Springfield (Ohio) Cardinals in the same circuit in 1941 and 1942. When Rickey left the Cardinals in 1942 to accept a similar role in Brooklyn, Alston followed “The Mahatma” into the Dodgers’ tent.41 Rickey realized in 1950 that his desirable contract as general manager would not be renewed, so he moved again to attack the very challenging competitive situation in Pittsburgh. By that time, Alston had been promoted to lead the Montreal Royals, putting him finally only a single step—but one huge step—away from the big time.

Rickey’s overt signs of respect for Alston indicate that—with O’Malley’s approval of a conversation between the two—the latter could have become a major-league manager (of the Pirates) one year prior to his promotion by the Dodgers. The delay of one season, however, definitely worked to Alston’s long-term advantage. Unless he had worked miracles in the Forbes Field dugout, his chances for eventual election to the Hall of Fame (as well as future consideration for a leadership role in Brooklyn) would have been diminished.

If different conditions within the upper echelon of Brooklyn’s organization had enticed Rickey to remain with the Dodgers, there are two valid reasons to believe that Alston’s path into the manager’s office in Ebbets Field after the departure of Dressen would have been relatively smooth, with Rickey serving as an influential advocate:

• After the 1952 season, Rickey requested permission from O’Malley to talk with Alston about the Pirates managerial position that had become vacant upon Billy Meyer’s resignation. (O’Malley refused to consent to such a discussion.)42
• When O’Malley announced the selection of Alston as the new Dodgers manager in 1953, Rickey told Chester L. Smith of the Pittsburgh Press, “They couldn’t have done better. Walter is top drawer any way you look at him.”43

Dressen’s unsuccessful gamble against a club owner possessing virtually unlimited leverage initiated a scenario that required Dressen, Reese, and Alston to make pivotal and critical decisions that affected their careers, futures, and legacies. Dressen, of course, voluntarily rejected an option to remain with the Dodgers by refusing another one-year contract, whereas Reese found it necessary to react within a few weeks to the unforeseen circumstance of Dressen’s departure. Alston’s fate regarding a life-changing opportunity was determined by front-office personnel who respected his past performance. O’Malley, Bavasi, and Thompson were simultaneously required to make critical judgments that would significantly affect the future of one of sports’ most prominent franchises. Many years later, after each man’s career had come to an end, some of the consequences of those individual choices were apparent:

• By insisting on a contract of more than one year, Dressen lost an opportunity to compile a competitive record that would have been equaled by few other managers.
• Reese acted prudently from a personal and professional perspective by avoiding the stress of managing and by extending his exceptional playing career without unnecessary distractions.
• Although he had very limited control over the result of the hiring process, Alston’s record of success in the minor leagues proved to be an accurate indicator of his potential in a major-league dugout. His 23 years of consistent success and four World Series titles stand as testaments to his high level of accomplishment.
• O’Malley and his subordinates in the Dodgers front office made a rational and very scrutinized decision that required resolution of a variety of individual motives.

The story of the Dodgers’ two months of turmoil that began in mid-October 1953 and concluded on November 24 featured every component that would be present in a classic stage production or movie: a setting in the nation’s largest city, noteworthy actions and controversial statements by people associated with a culturally significant organization, and a cast of well-known personalities. That combination kept the eyes of the baseball world focused on the fascinating and unique happenings in the Dodgers office at 215 Montague Street until the drama’s final act. Even today, long after the closing of the curtain, the saga in Brooklyn retains an enduring place in baseball history. 

FRANCIS KINLAW has contributed articles and poetry to SABR publications since joining SABR in 1983. He is old enough to have listened to Nat Albright’s recreations of Brooklyn Dodgers games on radio and grew familiar with Ebbets Field through the magic of black-and-white television. He resides in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Notes

1. “Charlie and Ol’Case in a Series Preview,” Life Magazine (September 14, 1953): 158.

2. “Managers Are Expendable,” Time (October 26, 1953): 92–93.

3. Varying accounts of the negotiations between Dressen and O’Malley have appeared in articles and books since October 1953, but available evidence clearly indicates that Dressen’s only request during the talks was for a three-year contract. Most significantly, Dressen himself confirmed in an article (entitled “My Side of the Story”) on page 13 of the February 1954 edition of Sport magazine that only a term of three years was discussed. Most printed sources agree with that version of the discussions, but a few have referred to a contract extension of two years rather than three. Confusion on this point may have developed from statements—some from the lips of Dressen—that he “would have settled for two years.” However, Dressen told sportswriter Roscoe McGowan that while he would have settled for two years, “the two-year angle never came up in his private conference with O’Malley on the afternoon preceding the announcement of his resignation.” (“Roscoe McGowan Dressen Cut Down Trying to Stretch Single into Three,” The Sporting News, October 21, 1953, 9.) He also told McGowan that after O’Malley held firm to a one-year policy, “there was no chance for me to back down from my request for a three-year contract to accept a contract for two years.” (Charlie Dressen as told to Milton Richman, “My Side of the Story,” Sport, February, 1954, 14.)

4. “Managers Are Expendable,” Time. Also Charlie Dressen as told to Milton Richman, “My Side of the Story,” Sport (February 1954): 96; Michael D’Antonio, Forever Blue: The True Story of Walter O’Malley, Baseball’s Most Controversial Owner, and the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009), 170; Roscoe McGowan, “Dodgers Rehiring of Dressen Starts Rumors Spinning,” The Sporting News (November 6, 1957): 6.

5. McGowan, “Dressen Cut Down.”

6. McGowan, “Dressen Cut Down.”

7. “Managers Are Expendable,” Time. Also, Editors of Sport Magazine, “No Next Year for Dressen,” Sport (January 1954): 90.

8. Bill James, The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers from 1870 to Today (New York: Scribner Publishers, 1997), 188.

9. D’Antonio, Forever Blue.

10. Tom Meany and others, The Artful Dodgers (New York: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, 1954), 21.

11. D’Antonio, Forever Blue.

12. Joe King, “Deluge of Reese Mail Floods O’Malley,” The Sporting News (October 28, 1953): 7.

13. Pee Wee Reese with Tim Cohane, “14 Years a Bum,” Look Magazine (March 9, 1954): 60, 63. Also Roscoe McGowan, “Phone Call Spurred Reese’s ‘No’ as Pilot,” The Sporting News, November 18, 1953, 7.

14. Tom Meany and others, The Artful Dodgers, 120–21.

15. Roger Kahn, The Boys of Summer (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1972), 313.

16. Andy McCue, Mover & Shaker: Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers, & Baseball’s Westward Expansion (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2014), 111.

17. McCue, Mover & Shaker, 111.

18. Bill Madden, 1954: The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Major League Baseball Forever (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2014), 63. Also D’Antonio, Forever Blue. Also Peter Golenbock, Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1984), 369.

19. Frank Graham, “The Little Colonel Is a Born Leader,” Sport, July 1955, 42, 44.

20. Roger Kahn, The Era, 1947–1957: When the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers Ruled the World (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1993), 317.

21. Kahn, The Era, 1947–1957.

22. Walter Alston and Si Burick, Alston and the Dodgers: The Autobiography of One of Baseball’s Greatest Managers (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1966), 16–17.

23. Leonard Koppett, The Man in the Dugout: Baseball’s Top Managers and How They Got That Way (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1993), 227–228.

24. Glenn Stout and Richard A. Johnson, The Dodgers: 120 Years of Dodgers Baseball (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004), 196. Also Leonard Koppett, The Man in the Dugout: Baseball’s Top Managers and How They Got That Way (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1993), 227–28.

25. Madden, 1954.

26. Bill James, The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers from 1870 to Today (New York: Scribner Publishers, 1997), 224.

27. Madden, 1954.

28. Duke Snider with Bill Gilbert, The Duke of Flatbush (New York: Zebra Books, 1988), 143–44.

29. Kahn, The Era, 317–18.

30. Kahn, The Era, 317–18.

31. “The Gentleman,” Time, May 23, 1955, 74–75.

32. “Dressen on Dodgers: ‘A D—n Good Team,’” Newsweek (September 20, 1954): 90.

33. Dick Young, “The Shadow: Chuck Behind Walt Alston,” The Sporting News (November 13, 1957): 10.

34. Roscoe McGowan, “Dodgers Rehiring of Dressen Starts Rumors Spinning,” The Sporting News (November 6, 1957): 6.

35. Roscoe McGowan, “New Ripple from Chuck’s Rock … Don Zimmer at SS?” The Sporting News (November 4, 1953): 9.

36. Peter Golenbock, Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1984), 369.

37. Retrosheet, https://www.retrosheet.org. Date accessed: July 11, 2024.

38. Bill Deane, Award Voting (Kansas City, MO: Society for American Baseball Research, 1988), 37-39.

39. Peter Golenbock, Dynasty: The New York Yankees 1949–1964 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1975), 276–77.

40. Kahn, The Boys of Summer, 313.

41. Stewart Wolpin, Bums No More! The Championship Season of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 22.

42. McCue, Mover & Shaker, 111. Also Les Biederman, “Haney Still in Lead for Buc Post, But Line Gets Longer,” The Sporting News, October 15, 1952, 25.

43. Harold Sheldon, “Alston’s Added Rooters,” Baseball Digest (March 1954): 44.

In this article, I assess the accuracy of both the inside and outside aggregation methods for four Runs Created measures: Basic Runs Created (BRC), Stolen Bases Runs Created (SBRC), the First Version of Technical Runs Created (TechRC), and the Second Version of Technical Runs Created, which accounts for strikeouts (TechKRC).2 For all four RC measures, I find that inside aggregation is always more accurate than outside aggregation. This is probably not surprising for two reasons in particular. First, each batter’s productivity depends on the performance of the batters who come before and after him. As Bill James wrote, “players’ individual totals do not occur in an individual context.”3 Second, players who don’t play much may have to be neglected from outside aggregation because their stand-alone RC cannot be defined. For example, a player whose only plate appearance produced an RBI on a sacrifice fly earned neither an at-bat nor a walk. This players’ stand-alone BRC/SBRC is not calculable because the denominator is zero. Thus, his batting stats cannot be incorporated into his team’s seasonal outside-aggregated Runs Created, but it can be incorporated into inside-aggregated Runs Created.

Additionally, this study finds that, for a given aggregation method, the BRC formula is the most accurate while the TechRC formula is the least accurate. Thus, of the eight aggregated RC formulas assessed (two for each aggregation method), the inside-aggregated BRC is the most accurate while the outside-aggregated TechRC is the least accurate. This is a curious finding, since it suggests that RC formulas with more inputs are not necessarily more accurate. However, including strikeouts does seem to improve accuracy—since the strikeout version of technical runs created, or TechKRC, is more accurate than the first TechRC—although TechKRC is still less accurate than BRC and SBRC.

WHAT IS RUNS CREATED?

a. Runs Created Versus Runs Produced

At its core, Runs Created is a formula that measures how many runs a given batter’s offensive performance contributed to his team’s run total.4 Specifically, it tells us how many scored runs can be attributed to a specific batter. The best way to explain Runs Created is to compare it to its predecessor, Runs Produced. Runs Produced was first developed by Bob Creamer and came to public attention in Sports Illustrated.5 Runs Produced (or RP) is a simple formula that adds a batter’s RBIs to his Runs Scored (RS) and subtracts his Home Runs (HR).

RP=RBI+RS–HR

Home runs are subtracted to prevent double counting, since a home run necessarily gives a batter both an RBI and a run scored. However, this measure can greatly underestimate or overestimate the contribution of a batter because it fails to recognize that runs are often the product of multiple contributors. For instance, consider Jorge Mateo’s 2022 season, shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Jorge Mateo’s 2022 Batting Line

Mateo scored 63 runs and drove in 50, 13 of them on home runs, so he produced 100 runs.

RP=50+63–13 = 100

Because Mateo only hit 13 home runs, a later batter’s performance contributed towards 50 of the runs he scored, and an earlier batter’s performance contributed towards 37 of the RBIs he earned. Runs Created overcomes this misattribution issue by considering only those batting stats that a given batter can control. Bill James’s original Runs Created formula was:

This formulation is often called Basic Runs Created, or BRC, where (H + BB) is the “on-base factor,” TB is known as the “base-advancement factor,” and (AB + BB) is the “opportunities factor.” Thus, Mateo had 494 + 27 = 521 opportunities, out of which he got on base 109 + 27 = 136 times. Additionally, Mateo advanced to 187 total bases.

Thus, Mateo may have “produced” 100 runs in 2022, but he only “created” approximately 49 runs.

B. Why Is Runs Created Better Than Runs Produced?

While Runs Produced may be an immediately intuitive measure of a batter’s contribution, it fails to acknowledge the contributions of other batters. As Bill James argues, Runs Produced does NOT give any credit to a batter whose plate appearance does not result in a run or an RBI but nonetheless facilitates the base advancement necessary for another batter to score.6 A hypothetical can better illustrate this point. It’s the start of a new inning for the Orioles. Austin Hays is first up to bat and Mateo is on deck.

The Hypothetical Inning

1. Hays bats first and strikes out. There’s one out and nobody on base.
2. Mateo walks. There’s one out and a runner on first. See Sub-figure A in Figure 1.
3. Ramón Urías doubles, advancing Mateo to third base. There’s one out with runners on second and third. See sub-figure B.
4. Anthony Santander flies out and both runners tag up. Mateo scores and Urías advances to third. There are two outs and a runner on third. See Sub-figure C.
5. Adley Rutschman strikes out. The inning ends with a runner stranded at third. See Sub-figure D.

 

Figure 1. Diamond Positions for Hypothetical Orioles Inning

Mateo earns a run for scoring, while Santander gets an RBI for driving in the run with his sacrifice fly ball, but what about Urías? Does he receive any credit for this run? According to the Runs Produced formula, Urías does NOT, even though it was his double that advanced Mateo from first to third. What’s more, we can see that although only one run actually scored, two runs were “produced,” one for Mateo and one for Santander. Despite the home run correction, Runs Produced continues to double count while underestimating some contributions, because every time a batter scores a run, one of his teammates must earn an RBI (except in the case of an error or double play). Runs Created overcomes this issue by using only stats that are uninfluenced by other batters.

C. Runs Created Conceptually

Bill James eventually generalized Runs Created to include other batting stats, such as stolen bases (SB), caught stealing (CS), and hit-by-pitches (HBP). All formulations of Runs Created have the general structure shown in Equation (1) below.

“A” is the on-base factor, “B” is the base-advancement factor, and “C” is the opportunities factor. For Basic Runs Created, the ABC factors are defined below.

A later iteration included the effects of stolen bases and caught stealing. This Stolen Bases Runs Created version (or SBRC) has the following ABC factors.

Notice that a batter’s on-base factor is reduced by one each time he gets caught stealing, while his base-advancement factor increases by 0.55 for each base successfully stolen.

More “technical” versions of RC were later developed. The first of these, denoted as TechRC, accounts for sacrifice flies (SF), bunts (SH), double plays (GIDP), hit-by-pitches (HBP), and intentional walks (IBB). The TechRC version has the following factors.

A subsequent technical version of Runs Created accounts for strikeouts (K). This version is called TechKRC and is calculated using the same on-base and opportunities factors as TechRC, but a different base-advancement factor that is calculated as follows.

Using the data in Table 1 and the fact that Mateo struck out 147 times in 2022, Table 2 displays four measures of his Runs Created during the 2022 MLB season. Mateo created between 49 and 50 runs, depending on the measure used. Regardless, his Runs Created were roughly half of his Runs Produced.

 

Table 2. Runs Created by Jorge Mateo in 2022

D. What Basis Is There for Runs Created?

The crucial argument of Runs Created is that scoring is the result of two interacting effects: an on-base effect and a base-advancement effect. As Eric Walker writes, there is a mathematical identity within a team’s total plate appearances in a season, a game, or even just an inning.7 This identity states that in any timeframe as broad or broader than an inning, total plate appearances must always equal the sum of outs, stranded runners, and runs. This is shown in Equation (2) below.

Recall the hypothetical Orioles inning in which there were three outs, one runner left on base, and one run scored. According to Equation (2), this must mean there were 5 = 3+1+1 PAs, which is indeed true. Equation 2 can be solved to isolate R by itself as Equation (2’) shows.

The first term on the right-hand side of Equation (2’) is the difference between plate appearances and outs, which might be called “excess plate appearances,” since there must always be at least as many plate appearances as outs. Equation (2’) essentially says that a team scores runs by earning more excess plate appearances and stranding fewer runners.

Excess plate appearances are directly related to reaching base, since a team earns one additional plate appearance every time a batter gets on base. Recall the hypothetical inning where Mateo and Urías reached base, creating two excess plate appearances. The second term on the right-side of (2’), runners left on base, is inversely related to base advancement because base advancement necessarily reduces the number of men left stranded on base at the conclusion of an inning. A team that reaches base more often will earn more PAs, and when base advancement prevents fewer of those runners from being left on base, the team must necessarily score more runs. Although Equation (2’) does not specify how the batters reach base or advance, it nonetheless shows that those two actions combine to create runs. As a result, it validates the crucial argument of Runs Created.

AGGREGATING RUNS CREATED AT THE TEAM LEVEL

A. Outside Aggregation Versus Inside Aggregation

Runs Created can be aggregated from the individual level to the team level through two different methods: outside aggregation and inside aggregation. To provide the clearest explanation possible, it is best to first differentiate between Stand-Alone RC and Team-Season RC. Stand-alone RC pertains to the runs created by a particular batter. For instance, consider Table 3, which lists the batting stats for the Atlanta Braves during the 2022 season.

 

Table 3. Atlanta Braves 2022 Batting Statistics8

Using the BRC version, Dansby Swanson created 93.81 runs.

Swanson’s on-base factor was 226, since he earned 177 hits and 49 walks from balls. His base-advancement factor was 286, and his opportunities factor was 689.

The right-hand column of Table 3 shows the stand-alone BRC for each batter. The outside aggregation method simply adds all the stand-alone RCs of all the batters. Notice that the outside aggregated BRC, or BRCOut, is 771.44, off by approximately 18 runs from the Braves’ actual run total of 789.

The inside aggregation method, on the other hand, adds the individual RC factors first, and then calculates Runs Created using Equation (1). For instance, finding the team-season BRC for the Braves in 2022 requires one to first add all the A factors for each batter to get the team on-base factor, or A_team, as shown below.

As a team, the Braves got on base 1,864 times during the 2022 season. The same must be done for the B and C factors to find the team base-advancement factor, or B_team, and the team opportunities factor, or C_team. The Braves advanced through 2,443 bases, and they had a total of 5,979 opportunities. The inside aggregation method simply applies Equation (1) using the factors A_team, B_team and C_team.9 Thus, the Braves inside-aggregated Basic Runs Created, or BRCIn was 761.62.

The crucial difference between outside aggregation and inside aggregation lies in the sequence of calculations. Outside aggregation applies Equation (1) first then takes the sum, whereas inside aggregation takes the sum of individual factors first then applies Equation (1).

B. Marginal Runs Created

The inside aggregation method allows for an alternative measure of individual batter runs contributions. Recall that Swanson had a stand-alone BRC of 93.81 runs in his 2022 season with the Braves. If Swanson had the same hitting stats in 2022 but had instead played for the Cubs (his current team), his stand-alone BRC would still be 93.81, but the marginal runs created due to his batting would be different. In other words, a batter’s performance as measured by stand-alone RC potentially implies different inside-aggregated Runs Created for different teams. This leads to an alternative measure called Marginal Runs Created, or MRC. An individual batter’s MRC for a particular season essentially imagines what his team’s inside-aggregated Runs Created would be if the batter did not play that season. The difference between his team’s actual inside-aggregated RC and the inside-aggregated RC without his batting performance is the marginal runs contributed by the batter to his team in that season.

For instance, let’s consider what would have happened to the Braves’ 2022 total inside-aggregated Basic Runs Created if Swanson had not batted at all. Their on-base factor would fall to 1,638, since the Braves got on base 1,864 times, while Swanson himself got on base 226 times. Additionally, the Braves would have advanced 2,157 bases and would have had only 5,290 opportunities. Thus, their inside-aggregated BRC would fall from 761.62 to 667.90. meaning Swanson’s Marginal Basic Runs Created was 93.72.

In other words, the Braves would have 93.72 fewer BRC without Swanson’s batting performance. Swanson’s Marginal BRC is within a tenth of a run of his stand-alone BRC. However, as section five will show, on rare occasions, the MRC and stand-alone RC can differ by as much as 27 runs.10

ASSESSING THE ACCURACY OF RUNS CREATED

A. Data and Procedures

Two sets of batting data were downloaded from FanGraphs, covering 30 franchises over the 21-season period from 1999 to 2019.11 Let j denote a given team-season. The first data set consisted of franchise-level stats, while the second consisted of player-level stats. To ensure that all measures would be calculable (that is, no zero in the denominator), player-team-seasons with zero opportunities (i.e., the C factor) were eliminated. Using these refined data sets, the four RC measures (BRC, SBRC, TechRC, TechKRC) were then calculated for each player-team-season. Afterwards, the outside-aggregated values of BRC, SBRC, TechRC, and TechKRC were calculated for each of the 630 team-seasons by summing all the relevant stand-alone RCs. Players who changed franchises in the midst of a regular season had their RCs split among their respective franchises.

B. Accuracy Assessment Methodology and Results

I calibrated the data to assess the accuracy of the inside and outside Runs Created measures.12 Intuitively, a given RC’s accuracy is judged by how well a scatter plot of runs created versus runs scored fits around the 45-degree line. An accurate RC metric will have a scatter plot that aligns evenly around the 45-degree line, with a tighter scatter indicating greater precision. This means that a simple regression between a given RC measure and actual runs scored (or R for short), should have a slope coefficient equal to one and an intercept equal to zero.

Consider the unrestricted regression shown in Equation (3), where ê_ju is the regression’s residual. The chosen RC measure of RC_j would be considered an accurate measure of runs scored R_j if the estimated slope coefficient is indistinguishable from one and the estimated intercept coefficient β is indistinguishable from zero. Consider Figure 2, which shows a scatterplot of actual runs scored for a given team-season on the vertical axis and the inside-aggregated stolen-bases form of RC, or SBRC, on the horizontal axis.

Figure 2. Inside Aggregated SBRC and Actual Runs Scored

The dots are fairly evenly distributed around the dashed 45-degree line, indicating that the inside-aggregated SBRC is fairly accurate. However, notice that the regression line, denoted by the solid line, begins to lie slightly below the 45-degree line for team-season observations where 700 or more runs are scored or created. For team-seasons below 700, the regression line largely overlaps with the 45-degree line. The estimated regression equation for the solid regression line in Figure 2 is:

R_j=21.3783+0.96113 • SBRC_j + ê_ju

SBRC_j is the inside-aggregated SBRC for the jth team-season. As the regression line and regression equation both confirm, the inside-aggregated SBRC measure is accurate, but it slightly over-predicts the actual runs scored in seasons when more than 700 runs are score.

It turns out that Basic Runs Created, or BRC, is the most accurate of the Runs Created measures. Figure 3 shows the scatter plots of aggregated BRC against actual runs scored. The scatterplot at the top uses the inside-aggregation method while the scatterplot at the bottom uses the outside-aggregation method. The solid regression line for the inside-aggregated BRC measure overlaps with the 45-degree line entirely until around 800 runs. The outside-aggregated BRC is clearly less accurate. Its regression line never overlaps with the 45-degree line, consistently overpredicting the actual runs scored.

Figure 3. Basic Runs Created Calibration

The technical version of Runs Created, or TechRC, is the least accurate. Figure 4 shows the calibration scatterplots, in which neither regression line ever overlaps with the 45-degree line. Similar to BRC, inside aggregation is more accurate than outside aggregation.

Figure 4. Technical Runs Created Calibration

Regardless of the RC measure under examination, the outside-aggregation method is always less accurate. Figure 5 shows the regression lines for all eight aggregated measures of Runs Created.13 The left-hand side shows the inside-aggregated measures and the right-hand side shows their outside-aggregated counterparts. Notice that the regression lines for the inside-aggregated measures are always much closer to the 45-degree line. None of the regression lines for the outside-aggregated RCs overlap with the 45-degree line, while three (BRC, SBRC, and TechKRC) of the inside-aggregated RCs do overlap with the 45-degree line at some point.

Figure 5. Regression Line of Runs Created Measures

Figure 5 clearly shows that the inside-aggregation method of Runs Created is always more accurate than the outside-aggregation method of Runs Created. This makes intuitive sense because the inside-aggregation method still allows for each batter’s performance to interact with his teammates’ batting performance. However, any Runs Created measure is more accurate than a Runs Produced measure. Even after adjusting for the inherent double-counting, the aggregated Runs Produced always underpredicts actual runs scored. Runs Created tends to slightly overpredict actual runs scored regardless of aggregation method, but one-half Runs Produced tends to greatly underpredict the actual runs scored, while the full Runs Produced overpredicts. This inaccuracy is presumably due to the definition of an RBI, which excludes runs scored thanks to an error. If errors never occurred, then a team’s RBIs would nearly always equal its runs scored (after accounting for double plays). Excluding errors creates a lot of noise because there is always human judgment involved in determining errors.

Comparing the regression lines for the inside-aggregated BRC and SBRC measures, it is difficult to immediately determine which measure is closest to the 45-degree line, and therefore more accurate. A more quantitative criterion for accuracy is needed. We can do this by comparing each RC measure’s respective unrestricted regression equation, like that in Equation (3), to a restricted regression equation that describes the 45-degree line where ê_jr is the residual of the restricted regression equation:

Notice that Equation (4) restricts the coefficients of Equation (3) so that ß = 1 and α = 0. Let MSE_u be the mean squared error of the unrestricted regression.

And let MSE_r be the mean squared error of the restricted regression.

Generally, the restricted MSE, or MSE_r, can assess the accuracy of a given metric, but if the more accurate metric is also much less precise, then the simple restricted MSE may not properly discern which metric is more accurate. For this reason, MSE_u will be compared to MSE_r to make a final determination of accuracy. Specifically, a certain RC measure is deemed more accurate if its MSE increases by a smaller percentage as a result of restricting its regression to the 45-degree line. Let %ΔMSE denote this percentage.

Thus, a smaller value for %ΔMSE indicates greater accuracy, so one might think of %ΔMSE as a measure of inaccuracy.

Consider the inside-aggregated SBRC as analyzed in Figure 2. The MSE for the unrestricted regression is MSE_u = 573.9972, while the MSE for the restricted regression is MSE_r = 646.7579. Thus, restricting the inside-aggregated SBRC regression equation to the 45-degree line raises the MSE by 12.68%.

Now consider the inside-aggregated BRC analyzed at the top of the graph of Figure 3. With an MSE_u of 590.1641 and an MSE_r of 632.8687, restricting the inside-aggregated BRC regression to the 45-degree line raises the MSE by 7.24%.

The inside-aggregated measure of BRC is more accurate than the inside-aggregated measure of SBRC because its regression has a lower percentage-deviation from the 45-degree line. Note that this is in spite of the fact that the SBRC regression has a slightly larger R-squared value (92%) than that of BRC regression (91.78%).13

Figure 6 shows a bar chart of the percent increase in MSE for each of the eight aggregated Runs Created measures under consideration. Inside-aggregated RCs are represented by a lighter bar while outside aggregated RCs are represented by a darker bar. Two general insights can be immediately gleaned from Figure 6.

First, the less complex measures of Runs Created are more accurate, regardless of the aggregation method used. For a given aggregation method, the BRC and SBRC formulas are always more accurate than the TechRC and TechKRC formulas. Second, the inside-aggregation method is always more accurate than the outside-aggregation method, regardless of the RC formula examined. The inaccuracy of the outside-aggregation method is anywhere from three to 10 times greater than that of the inside-aggregation method. Overall, the inside-aggregated measure of BRC is the most accurate, while the outside-aggregated measure of TechRC is the least accurate.

The accuracy statistic %ΔMSE is essentially the F-statistic for testing the hypothesis of whether the unrestricted regression in Equation (3) is statistically different from the 45-degree line regression in Equation (4), but without accounting for the degrees of freedom ratio

Because the regression in Equation (3) has two estimated coefficients, α and ß and the regression in Equation (4) has two restrictions, α = 0 and ß = 1, the degrees of freedom are df₂ = 628 and df₁ = 2. Thus, the degrees of freedom ratio is

Multiplying each %ΔMSE by this ratio will give the F-statistic for testing whether the regression Equation (3) is statistically different from the 45-degree line, such that:

The F-statistic for the inside-aggregated BRC is 22.734, while the F-statistic for the inside-aggregated SBRC is 39.815. For either of these RC measures, the probability of finding such a large F value under the assumption that the regression equals the 45-degree line is effectively zero. This means the regression equations for the inside-aggregated BRC and SBRC are statistically different from the 45-degree line under any usual significant level (i.e., 10%, 5%, 1%, and so on). The same is true for the two other inside-aggregated RCs, as well as all the outside-aggregated RCs. Thus, while the Runs Created measure is significantly more accurate than Runs Produced, Runs Created is still inaccurate in terms of statistical significance. Nonetheless, Runs Created, especially inside-aggregated BRC, is still an accurate runs contribution measure for most practical purposes.

PLAYER-LEVEL RUNS CREATED: MARGINAL VERSUS STAND-ALONE

Stand-alone Runs Created is generally larger than Marginal Runs Created. Figure 7 compares the average player-level MRC to the average player-level stand-alone RC. The left-hand side of Figure 7 shows the median player-level runs created. Notice that the median major-league batter created 4.7 marginal runs and 5.3 stand-alone runs. On the other hand, mean player-level Runs Created is approximately four times larger than the median player-level Runs Created. As the right-hand side of Figure 7 shows, the average batter earned around 22 marginal Runs Created and around 23 stand-alone Runs Created. Figure 7 thus demonstrates that the average stand-alone RC is larger than the average MRC regardless of the RC formula or the type of average.

 

Figure 7. Average Runs Created, Marginal and-Stand-Alone

Because inside aggregation is more accurate than the corresponding outside aggregation, it stands to reason that marginal Runs Created (MRC) is a more accurate measure of a given batter’s runs contribution than stand-alone RC. That said, stand-alone RC does not deviate substantially from marginal RC. To assess how MRC differs from stand-alone RC, statistical estimates were evaluated for the absolute deviation between MRC and Stand-Alone RC, which will be simply called the Absolute Deviation, or AD for short. The Absolute Deviation for a given player-team-season p, or AD_p, is thus defined as:

MRCp is the marginal runs created for player-team-season p and saRCp is the stand-alone Runs Created measure for player-team-season p. Figure 8 below shows the 90th percentile, the 75th percentile, mean, and median absolute deviations of the player-team-seasons using the BRC and TechRC formulations.

Figure 8. Absolute Deviation Between Marginal and Stand-Alone Runs Created

The median absolute deviation is about 0.3 runs, while the mean absolute deviation is about 0.67. According to the 75th percentile, the absolute deviation between MRC and saRC differs by less than one run 75% of the time. Likewise, the 90th percentile shows that the absolute deviation between MRC and saRC differs by less than two runs 90% of the time.

That said, there are some outlier players whose stand-alone BRC exceeds their marginal BRC by more than 13 runs. The left-hand side of Table 4 shows the top 10 player-team-seasons for which stand-alone BRC exceeded Marginal BRC. Notice that the table consists of well-known sluggers like Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Albert Pujols, and Bryce Harper. Bonds in particular is on the table for four different seasons and holds the top three spots. In 2001, his stand-alone RC exceeded his MRC by nearly 27 runs. For all the sluggers listed, stand-alone BRC exceeds Marginal BRC by at least 13 runs.

Table 4. Top Differentials Between Stand-Alone BRC and Marginal BRC

The right-hand side of Table 4 shows the top ten player-team-seasons for which stand-alone BRC falls short of Marginal BRC. Notice that the overall runs created for these players are generally less than those for the players on the left-hand side. What’s more, the deviations between stand-alone and marginal BRC are not nearly as substantial. Although all the deviations on the right-hand side of Table 4 exceed two runs, none of them exceeds three. The greatest deviation came from Alfonso Soriano’s 2002 season with the Yankees, when his marginal BRC exceeded his stand-alone BRC by 2.63 runs.

Finally, notice that the player-team-seasons on each side of Table 4 are creating far more runs than average, but those batters on the left-hand side of Table 4 have a substantially larger slugging percentage (.726) than those on the right-hand side (.426). This suggests that stand-alone RC tends to overestimate the runs contribution of big sluggers, since marginal Runs Created is likely the more accurate measure of individual batter runs contribution. Since the inter-quartile range of teams actually score 98 runs in a given regular season, an inaccuracy of 27 runs could potentially impact a team’s seasonal winning percentage.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS AND ISSUES

A. Benefits and Drawbacks: MRC Versus Stand-Alone RC

Compared to stand-alone Runs Created, marginal Runs Created provides a more accurate measure of a batter’s contribution to their team in a given season, but this is conditional on the performance of the batter’s teammates. Suppose Swanson’s individual BRC factors remain the same, but rather than playing for the Braves (his 2022 team), he plays for the Cubs (his 2023 team). His marginal BRC might very well be different due to differences in aggregate teammate batting performance. In the 2022 season, the Cubs had an on-base factor of 1,800, a base-advancement factor of 2,097, and an opportunities factor of 5,932. All three factors were lower than Atlanta’s, which means the Cubs generated a lower inside-aggregated Runs Created.

If Swanson had played for the Cubs, his 2022 batting performance would have created 92.63 runs, or about 1.1 fewer runs than it created for the Braves.

However, regardless of which team Swanson plays for, his stand-alone BRC would be 93.81. Thus, both marginal Runs Created and stand-alone Runs Created have their own drawbacks and benefits. Because outside-aggregated Runs Created is less accurate than inside-aggregated Runs Created, it stands to reason that stand-alone Runs Created will generally be less accurate than marginal Runs Created, since marginal Runs Created is a result of inside-aggregated RC. However, given an individual batter’s performance in a particular season, his MRC is sensitive to the team he is playing for, which is not true of stand-alone RC. As a result, stand-alone Runs Created could be better described as a measure of an individual batter’s capacity for run creation, which is independent of the team he plays for, while marginal Runs Created is a measure of the actual runs an individual batter created for his team in the given season.

Thus, Dansby Swanson’s 2022 batting performance had the capacity of creating 93.81 runs for a given ball club. It actually created 93.72 runs for the Atlanta Braves, and it would have created 92.63 runs for the Chicago Cubs.

B. Implications for Non-Pitcher Trades

The difference between an individual batter’s stand-alone Runs Created and his marginal Runs Created nonetheless provides insights for non-pitcher trades between MLB teams. It is rare for two MLB teams to trade one player for another player based on offensive abilities alone. A fundamental concept of economics holds that no trade between two rational, well-informed parties would occur if it were not mutually beneficial. It would thus seem that most MLB teams do not often find purely offensive trades, or batter-for-batter transactions, to be mutually beneficial.

This is not surprising if one considers outside-aggregated Runs Created as the only measure of a team’s runs scoring. Were two teams to trade one batter for another batter based on batting characteristics alone, the trade would not benefit both teams without other considerations, such as cash, a pitcher, a draft pick, or significant differences in the players’ defensive capabilities. If there were such a trade based purely on the player’s offensive contribution, the best-case scenario would be a wash. More likely than not, one team’s Runs Created would benefit while the other team’s Runs Created would suffer. Of course, this is true only if one assumes outside aggregation to be the only team-season Runs Created measure, which it’s not.

For instance, consider a hypothetical trade that occurs right before the beginning of the 2025 season. Suppose the Royals trade their current shortstop, Bobby Witt Jr,. in exchange for Giants shortstop Willy Adames. Assume a straight trade with no cash, with defense not taken into consideration.

Table 6 shows the hypothetical 2025 batting performance of both Witt and Adames, as well as the hypothetical overall batting performance of the Giants and Royals.

Table 6. Hypothetical Season

Witt has a stand-alone RC of 152.83 while Adames has a stand-alone RC of 165.31. This means the Giants are effectively hurt by the trade because they are trading 165.31 stand-alone Runs Created to the Royals but receiving only 152.83 stand-alone RC in return, reducing their outside-aggregated Runs Created by 12.48 runs (and increasing Kansas City’s by the same amount). If outside-aggregated Runs Created is the only accurate team-season RC measure and both parties are rational, the trade would never go through, since it would hurt the Giants.

Yet, as section 4 demonstrates, inside-aggregated RC is more than twice as accurate as outside-aggregated RC. So, one cannot definitively say the trade is not mutually beneficial without also seeing how the trade affects both teams’ inside-aggregated Runs Created. If the Giants had kept Adames, their inside-aggregated Runs Created would have been 669.86:

That is lower than the 672.91 inside-aggregated runs the Giants created as a result of the trade:

Thus, unlike with outside-aggregated RC, the Giants do benefit from the trade through an increase in their inside-aggregated RC. What’s more, if the trade had not occurred, then the Royals would have had an inside-aggregated RC of 615.70:

That is lower than the 622.65 inside-aggregated RC earned with the trade:

Thus, using the inside-aggregation method, the trade is actually mutually beneficial to both teams. As a result, the Giants increase their inside-aggregated BRC by 672.91 – 669.86 = 3.05 runs while the Royals increase their inside-aggregated BRC by 622.65–615.70 = 6.95 runs. In the language of economics, the Giants had an absolute advantage in base advancement prior to the Adames-Witt trade; 2,319, compared to the Royals’ 1,773. On the other hand, the Royals had an absolute advantage in getting on base; 2,152, compared to the Giants’ 1,719. The Giants struggle to get on base, so they benefit from the trade because of Witt’s superior 257 on-base factor. The Royals benefit because the 314 base-advancement factor Adames provides meets their needs.

CONCLUSION

This study shows that the inside aggregation of Runs Created is a more accurate measure of the team’s actual runs scored than the outside aggregation of Runs Created. This is true regardless of whether one uses the basic Runs Created formula (BRC), the stolen bases Runs Created formula (SBRC), the first version of technical Runs Created (TechRC), or the second version of technical Runs Created that accounts for strikeouts (TechKRC). However, the inside aggregation of a team-season’s Runs Created is still inaccurate to the extent that it overpredicts actual runs scored.

For a given aggregation method, the basic Runs Created formula is the most accurate measure of a team-season’s actual runs scored. Of all eight aggregated RC formulas assessed in the study, the inside-aggregated basic Runs Created formula is the most accurate, while the first technical Runs Created formula using the outside-aggregation method is the least accurate. Additional batting statistics do not always improve an RC formula’s accuracy.

Finally, it stands to reason that the marginal Runs Created measure (MRC) more accurately reflects a batter’s runs contribution to his team-season than the stand-alone measure does. This is because MRC is based on the more accurate inside-aggregated RC whereas the stand-alone measure is based on the less accurate outside-aggregated RC. That said, the deviation between the two measures of individual batter runs contribution is minimal; over 90 percent of the time, the deviation is less than just two runs. 

JOEY de SOUZA WHITE is currently an adjunct instructional assistant professor of economics at the University of Mississippi. Previously, he taught business and economics at Bethel University for five years. A Cubs fan since childhood, his 2016 pride was rivaled in 2022 when Ole Miss won the College World Series.

Notes

1. Bill James, The New Bill James Historical Abstract (New York: Free Press, 2003), 329–31.

2. Gabriel B. Costa, Michael R. Huber, and John T. Saccoman, Understanding Sabermetrics: An Introduction to the Science of Baseball Statistics (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2008).

3. Jim Furtado with G. Jay Walker and Don Malcolm, “Deciphering the New Runs Created,” Baseball Think Factory, https://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/btf/scholars/furtado/articles/NewRC.html.

4. Frank M. Chimkin, “Another Look at Runs Created,” SABR Baseball Research Journal 32 (2003).

5. Herm Krabbenhoft, “Who Invented Runs Produced?” SABR Baseball Research Journal 38, no. 1 (Summer 2009), 135–138.

6. “Runs produced,” Baseball Reference, https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Runs_produced.

7. Eric Walker, “Common Run-Production Formulae Evaluated,” Baseball Analysts, November 23, 2009, https://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2009/11/common_runprodu.php.

8. “2022 Atlanta Braves Statistics,” Baseball-Reference, https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/ATL/2022.shtml.

9. Given batter p playing for team t, inside-aggregated Runs Created can be formally defined as:

10. The marginal Runs Created that player p created for his team is formally defined as:

11. Major League Leaders,” FanGraphs, https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=0&month=0&ind=1&rost=&age=&filter=&players=0&startdate=&enddate=&season1=1999&season=2019&team=0%2Cto.

12. Nate Silver describes the idea behind these calibrations. Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise (New York: Penguin Books, 2020), 128–41. Nate Silver, “When We Say 70 Percent, It Really Means 70 Percent,” FiveThirtyEight, April 4, 2019, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/when-we-say-70-percent-it-really-means-70-percent/.

13. The table below shows the regression output for all the regression line in Figure 5.

In recent years, statistics have been developed to facilitate comparisons of player performances across seasons and across generations. One such statistic, OPS+, places a players’ OPS (on-base plus slugging) into the context of the league’s OPS, adjusted by a park factor. An .800 OPS in a pitcher’s year such as 1968 results in a higher OPS+ than an .800 OPS in a hitter’s year such as 1930. Unfortunately, OPS+ underplays the true measure of the outstanding achievement of exceptional events. For instance, Barry Bonds’ OPS+ of 268 in 2002 is the all-time record (excepting the Negro League statistics).1 He broke his own record of 259, set in 2001, which broke Fred Dunlap’s record of 256, set in 1884 with the St. Louis Maroons of the Union Association. However, this paper will demonstrate that Bonds’ OPS+ in 2002 was not incrementally better than Ruth’s career-best 255 OPS+ in 1920; it reached a whole new level of performance.2 In addition, Dunlap’s OPS+ does not reflect the weakness of the UA.

Raw statistics also suffer from a lack of context. Babe Ruth’s 54 home runs in 1920 were almost 15% of the home runs hit by the entire AL. But on the all-time record charts, it sits astride Jose Bautista’s 54 home runs in 2010, which were but 2.4% of the AL’s total that season. Fortunately, there is a basic statistic that puts these and other accomplishments into other proper perspective: the z-score.

USING Z-SCORES TO ASSESS HITTERS’ PERFORMANCES

Z-scores derive from standard deviations (SDs), which measure the variation of values from the mean of a dataset. Also known as “standard scores,” z-scores measure the number of SDs by which data points deviate from the mean. The lower the SD, the more data in a dataset cluster near the mean.

To illustrate the concept, below are two sets of hitters. Each set has a mean batting average of .270, and a hitter, Hitter A, who batted .310. The data in Set 2 are clustered closer together and therefore their .022 SD is smaller than .032 of Set 1. In Set 1, Hitter A’s batting average z-score is 1.25, which was calculated as follows:

(.310 – .270) / .032 = 1.25

In Set 2, Hitter A’s batting average z-score is 1.82, which was calculated as follows:

(.310 – .270) / .022 = 1.82

Hitter A in Set 2 had the more impressive season than Hitter A in Set 1 because his .310 average was much better than the other hitters, which can be deduced intuitively and is quantified by his higher z-score.

Table 1 shows the expected spread of data in a normal distribution. Most data will fall within one SD of the mean. The vast majority of datapoints fall within three SDs of the mean. To fall four or more SDs from the mean is extraordinary in a normal distribution. SDs at or beyond five SDs should be next to impossible in datasets such as the ones analyzed in this paper.

 

Table 1. Expected Distribution of Data Points Within a Normally-Distributed Dataset

In this study, z-scores were calculated and analyzed for nine statistics:

• Batting Average (BA)
• On-Base Average (OBA)
• Slugging Average (SLG)
• OBA + SLG (OPS)
• Home Runs
• Runs Batted In (RBIs)
• Earned Run Average (ERA)
• Total Strikeouts (SO)
• Strikeouts per Nine Innings Pitched (SO/9)

PRIOR STUDIES USING Z-SCORES

Many researchers have applied z-scores to baseball statistics. Cottone & Wirchin (2015) used similar methodologies employed in this paper.3 However, their study was more narrowly focused and therefore missed certain significant data. For instance, in the Deadball Era, which they defined as 1901 to 1919, they only evaluated the home run z-scores for Gavy Cravath in 1915 and Babe Ruth in 1919.

Several other studies focused on one or a few particular statistics. Taylor and Krevisky (2006) calculated z-scores for home runs and slugging average to select the greatest sluggers of all time.4 James (2013) calculated OPS z-scores throughout baseball history.5 Colston (2011) calculated z-scores for batting average, home runs, and RBIs of selected player-seasons to determine which hitter had “the best season ever.”6 Schulman (2022) compared the z-scores for the record-breaking home run seasons of Babe Ruth in 1919 and Barry Bonds in 2001.7 Szymborski (2020) used z-scores to demonstrate the difficulty in batting .400.8 Cohen (2020) used z-scores from 2019 to predict players’ performances in the upcoming 2020 season.9 Kelly (2021) conducted a similar study to predict player performances in the upcoming 2022 season.10

METHODOLOGY

To calculate z-scores, a dataset’s mean and SD must be known. Each league’s average BA, OBA, SLG, and OPS for a given season are readily available, but SDs must be calculated. The SD of a dataset varies based on what is included in the dataset. A cutoff must be drawn to avoid including players with just a few at-bats, who would overwhelm the database and render the results useless.

Using only hitters who qualified for the batting title was rejected as an option because the criterion to qualify for batting titles has changed over time. The current criterion has been in place since 1957. Several different rules prevailed before 1957, and the NL and AL had different criteria from 1936 to 1949. Inconsistency in the datasets would impact the ability to compare the results across seasons. Taylor and Krevisky used 200 at-bats or 250 plate appearances, adding 5% to these numbers in the Expansion Era. James used 300 PAs as a cut-off. Cottone & Wirchin appear to have used the current batting title criterion of 3.1 plate appearances per team game played. Gould and Szymborski (2020) do not indicate their cut-offs.11

This study uses the current criteria defining the minimum number of plate appearances for a hitter to qualify for the batting title (3.1 plate appearances per game) and the minimum number of innings pitched by a pitcher (1 inning per team game) to qualify for the ERA title. Doing so excludes part-time players and pitchers from hitting datasets, so the focus is on the “regular” batters and pitchers. Although these criteria have changed over the decades, using consistent criteria allows for apples-to-apples comparisons between league-seasons. This is especially important for the shorter seasons in baseball history. For example, Negro League seasons were much shorter than contemporaneous AL/NL seasons, and the numbers of games played by teams within a given league often varied widely. An arbitrary cutoff of 100 plate appearances was applied to Negro League hitting data.

There are 17,569 hitter-seasons and 11,189 pitcher-seasons that meet these thresholds in the 538 league-seasons evaluated. SDs were calculated for each league-season for the nine statistics evaluated from which. Z-scores were derived for each player.

What does a typical dataset look like? Whereas a classical normal distribution is centered at the mean, the datasets analyzed for this study are skewed above the mean. For instance, Figure 1 shows the distribution of z-scores for batting averages from the National League in 1987. The result is a classic-looking bell curve, but one that is shifted to the right of the mean. The uptick at the far right of the curve is Tony Gwynn, whose all-time great season is discussed later in the paper.

Figure 1. Distribution of NL Batting Average Z-Scores in 1987

This shift to the right is fully expected, and is present for all the databases analyzed in this study. Regulars are regulars because they are the best available players at their position. Lesser players and pitchers pull down the league average. The 56 regulars in the 1987 NL database batted a combined .284, well above the NL batting average of .261, and 0.94 SDs above the mean.

With the normal distribution shifted to the right, one could expect the probabilities of events to shift as well. In fact, it is much more common for data derived in this study to be 2 SDs and 3 SDs above the mean than the probabilities shown in Table 1 suggest. Data 4 SDs above the mean still are special, and data 5 SDs or more above the mean signify extraordinary events. This study uses 4 SDs as an arbitrary benchmark to signify an extraordinary achievement. The top 10 results are highlighted and discussed for databases with fewer than 10 datapoints at or above 4 SDs.

The next sections analyze the z-scores for the four hitting averages, starting with batting average (the metric covered most extensively in previous studies), followed by z-scores for home runs and RBIs.

BATTING AVERAGES

Table 2 lists the players with BA z-scores at or above 4.00. Surprises on the list include Harry Walker, whose .363 batting average in 1947 was a whopping 99 points above the NL average, and Ralph Garr, whose .353 batting average in 1974 was 98 points above the NL average.

Table 2. Hitters with Batting Average Z-Scores at or Above 4.00

Nap Lajoie (1901) and Tip O’Neill (1887) are the only .400 hitters on the list. Between 1902 and 1948, when most of the .400 averages were recorded, no hitters attained z-scores at or above 4.00. Ty Cobb had a 3.45 batting average z-score in 1911, when he batted .419. Rogers Hornsby’s .424 average in 1924 yielded a z-score of 3.75, while Ted Williams’ .406 average in 1941 yielded a z-score of 3.76. Due to the league’s lower batting average and SD, his .356 batting average in 1942 was a greater accomplishment, with a z-score of 3.90.

The early- to mid-1960s had overall low batting averages, but few individual hitters were able to post high batting averages during this period, with the notable exception of Norm Cash in 1961. In the 50 ensuing years, many players have attained high batting average z-scores due to relatively low batting averages and low SDs.

Tip O’Neill’s batting average z-score from 1887 is one of only three z-scores from the nineteenth century at or above 4.00 for the four averages evaluated in this paper. The others are O’Neill’s SLG z-score from the same season (see Table 4) and John McGraw’s OBA z-score in 1899 (see Table 3). Hitting datasets from the nineteenth century have much higher SDs than post-1900 datasets (other than datasets from the Negro Leagues, see below). Because of the higher SDs, it is much rarer for a hitting average datum from the nineteenth century to obtain a very high z-score.

A .400 batting average? Almost impossible in today’s game. Luis Arraez’s .354 batting average in 2023 yielded a z-score of 3.86. He would have needed a z-score of 5.08 to bat .400 that season. For hitters to have a reasonable chance to reach that lofty peak again, the tide would have to lift all boats. That is, league batting averages would have to be much higher, perhaps .280 or better.

The lowest batting average z-score is –2.74 by Jim West in 1931, who batted .133 for the Cleveland Cubs of the Negro National League (NNL) when the league average was .266. The lowest in modern times outside of the Negro Leagues is Chris Davis’s –2.59 in 2018, when he batted just .168 for the Baltimore Orioles.

ON-BASE AVERAGE

Barry Bonds occupies the top three slots on Table 3, which lists all OBA z-scores at or above 4.00. In 2004, his .609 on-base average set the all-time record as well as the all-time record for a z-score of any statistic evaluated in this study. More than six SDs from the mean, it is baseball’s equivalent of a unicorn, an event so extraordinary that it is unlikely to ever happen again. Even Bonds’ incredible OBA z-score of 5.31 in 2002 pales in comparison.

 

Table 3. Hitters with OBA Z-Scores at or Above 4.00

The other player dominating this list is Ted Williams, who has 5 of the 15 listings. Arky Vaughan is the only other player on the list between 1899 and 1961, a period of high average OBA SDs. Low OBAs in the 1960s opened the door for Norm Cash and Mickey Mantle, and an overall decrease in OBA SDs, especially since 2007, resulted in a high OBA z-scores for Juan Soto and Aaron Judge. Judge’s epic 2024 season also places him on the all-time lists for SLG and OPS (Table 4).

Missing from Table 3 are Billy Hamilton, Rogers Hornsby, Joe Kelley, Hugh Duffy, and Ed Delahanty, who posted OBAs above .500, but did so in years with high average league OBAs. The lowest OBA z-score is Germany Smith’s –2.54 in 1897, who ran a paltry .233 OB for the Brooklyn Grooms.

SLUGGING AVERAGE

Table 4, which lists all SLG z-scores at or above 4.00, features many familiar names. Hitters from every era are on this list. Babe Ruth appears five times, with four seasons each for Ted Williams and Barry Bonds. Honus Wagner, Rogers Hornsby, and Aaron Judge are on the list twice. Shohei Ohtani’s spectacular 2024 campaign places him fourth on this list and sixth on the OPS list (see Table 5).

 

Table 4. Hitters with SLG Z-Scores at or Above 4.00

Ironically, Ruth’s most famous season, 1927, does not appear on the list. Ruth and Lou Gehrig both ran top-10 all-time slugging averages, but their tandem exceptional seasons raised the SD for the AL, resulting in respective SLG z-scores of 3.85 and 3.78. Nick Punto’s .291 SLG for the Twins in 2007 netted him the lowest SLG z-score (-2.36) in baseball history.

Table 4 has two entries from the Negro Leagues: Josh Gibson in 1943, and Oscar Charleston in 1924. Both players also appear on the home run list (see Table 6, below). As with nineteenth century data, Negro League hitting datasets have much higher SDs than other contemporary major league datasets. Because of the higher SDs, it is much rarer for a hitting datapoint to obtain a very high z-score, making the achievements of Gibson and Charleston all the more extraordinary.

Table 5. Hitters with OPS Z-Scores at or Above 4.00

OPS

As with slugging average, the list of top OPS z-scores features the usual suspects in Bonds, Ruth, and Williams, who together occupy 18 of the 32 slots (see Table 5). Honus Wagner and Aaron Judge are the only other players who appear more than once.

Each player’s OPS+ is included for comparison. Since 1893, 51 hitters have attained an OPS+ of 200 or higher (not including the Negro Leagues). Most of the hitters on Table 5 have OPS+ scores above 200 and only 2 have OPS+ scores below 190, a good correlation. But the top OPS+ scores differ from the top OPS z-scores, as noted in the introduction. Not only is Bonds’ OPS z-score in 2004 the highest in history, it is in a class by itself. He owns all three z-scores calculated for the four averages (batting, on-base, slugging, and OPS) that exceed 5.00.

It is worth noting that Fred Dunlap, owner of the third highest OPS+ in baseball history, is not close to making this list. His OPS z-score of 3.59 in 1884 is due to the Union Association’s high OPS SD.

The lack of a park factor is the cause of some of the differences between the above OPS z-score list and the OPS+ list. For instance, Larry Walker’s dominant 1997 put him on the SLG list, but the large park factor adjustment applied to Colorado Rockies players lowered his OPS+ to a very good but not extraordinary 178 OPS+.

In 1932, Fermin Valdés of the Pollock’s Cuban Stars in the East-West League (EWL) posted an anemic .452 OPS, leading to an all-time low OPS z-score of -2.34. The lowest OPS z-score post-1893 and outside of the Negro Leagues is Tim Johnson’s -2.30 with the Milwaukee Brewers in 1973.

HOME RUNS

Unsurprisingly, Babe Ruth dominates the list of home run z-scores in Table 6. He accounts for nine of the 20 listings. His run of superior z-scores began in 1919 and continued into the late 1920s, indicating that it took the rest of the American League a decade to even begin catching up to the Bambino.

 

Table 6. Hitters with Home Run Z-Scores of 4.00 or Higher, (Post-1893)

There are five home run z-scores above 5.00, more than the other eight statistics combined. A slugger before slugging became a valid strategy for winning ballgames, the all-but-forgotten Buck Freeman joins Bonds and Ruth as the only hitters to exceed 5.00. Freeman’s 25 home runs in 1899 more than doubled the production of the runner-up in that category and exceeded the totals of four teams. Pre-1920 sluggers Gavy Cravath, Tim Jordan, Jimmy Collins, Wally Pipp, and Harry Davis also posted double-digit home runs totals before such achievements became common.

Ned Williamson, who held baseball’s home run record for 35 years, is not on this list. His 27 home runs in 1884 yield a z-score of 3.64. Aided by short fences in his home ballpark, he and five of his teammates reached double digits that season, raising the league average and SD and lowering their z-scores. Also coming short are Roger Maris in 1961 (3.00), Mark McGwire in 1998 (3.64), and Barry Bonds in 2001 (3.42), due to the high level of home run production in their leagues.

Aaron Judge’s home run z-score for 2022 is the only entry on this list from the last 90 years. Even though plenty of home runs were hit in the AL that season, Judge’s production greatly exceeded the other players.

The lowest HR z-score (-2.37) is owned by Yolmer Sanchez, who hit but two home runs in 555 plate appearances for the White Sox in 2019. It stands in sharp contrast to the high average number of home runs (25.7) hit by regular AL players that season.

RUNS BATTED IN

Table 7 lists the top RBI z-scores since 1893. No hitter has achieved an RBI z-score at or above 4. Driving in runs did not undergo the same revolution as did home runs, nor have there been stand-outs through the ages as there were for the four averages analyzed for this study.

 

Table 7. Ten Highest RBI Z-Scores (Post-1893)

All 10 seasons came before 1938, indicating that it has become increasingly difficult to stand out. Cap Anson posted RBI z-scores above 3.50 four times, all before 1893. By the late 1930s, each league had many run producers. Cecil Fielder’s 132 RBIs in 1990 yielded an RBI z-score of 3.26, the highest mark in the AL since 1935. Mike Schmidt’s 91 RBIs in the strike-shortened 1981 season yielded an RBI z-score of 3.20, the highest in the NL since 1937. Hack Wilson’s record 191 ribbies in 1930? A very high but unextraordinary z-score of 2.93 due to the offense-saturated season when it occurred.

The lowest RBI z-score after 1893 belongs to Jemile Weeks, whose 20 RBIs in 511 PAs for the Oakland Athletics in 2012 resulted in a z-score of –2.49.

USING Z-SCORES TO ASSESS PITCHING PERFORMANCES

Similar analyses were performed on the two basic pitching statistics, ERA and strikeouts, and one less common statistic, strikeouts per nine innings.

EARNED RUN AVERAGE

Table 8 contains the 10 lowest ERA z-scores in baseball history (negative ERA z-scores are better because lower ERAs are better.) Just one pitcher has an ERA z-score four SDs from the mean: Pedro Martinez in 2000. Martinez’s record 291 ERA+ merely hints at his dominance in 2000, when he posted a 1.74 ERA, barely more than a third of the AL’s 4.91 ERA. His ERA z-score is more than 1 SD above all but two ERA z-scores, those of Zack Greinke in 2009 and Martinez himself in 1999.

 

Table 8. The Lowest ERA Z-Scores in Major League History

 

Among the pitching achievements that just miss this list are Greg Maddux’s 1995 season (-3.11), Dwight Gooden’s 1985 season (-3.10), Bob Gibson’s 1968 season (-2.97), and Ron Guidry’s 1978 season (-2.96). As the number of pitchers qualifying for the ERA title has trended down, it has become easier for pitchers like Hyun Jin Ryu in 2019 and Blake Snell in 2023 to record impressive ERA z-scores.

Unique among the nine performance statistics analyzed in this paper, there are seven ERA z-scores that are more than three SDs below the mean. The highest (i.e., worst) is 3.56 by Bill Rotes of the Louisville Colonels in 1893. The highest ERA z-score in modern times outside of the Negro Leagues is 3.20, set by Jose Lima in 2005 when he posted a 6.99 ERA.

STRIKEOUTS

In contrast to the ERA z-scores, Table 9 shows the 11 strikeout z-scores above 4.00. Randy Johnson has three of the listings, but it is Dazzy Vance who really stands out. In 1924, he recorded 262 punchouts when just one other NL pitcher recorded more than 86 (teammate Burleigh Grimes, with 135). His strikeout total was quadruple that of the average qualifying pitcher, and his SO z-score of 5.13 is arguably the greatest season pitching achievement in baseball history.

 

Table 9. Pitchers With Strikeout Z-Scores at or Above 4.00

While Jim LaMarque of the Kansas City Monarchs had a strikeout z-score above 4.00 in 1947, this achievement is qualified, because his record contains 50% more innings than any other pitcher in the Negro American League (NAL) that season. His strikeout rate that season didn’t even lead the league, so LaMarque’s z-score is more a reflection on the number of innings he threw than his ability to punch out hitters.

Ty Blach’s strikeout z-score of -2.41 in 2017 is the worst in baseball history. He struck out 73 hitters for the San Francisco Giants (which would have been an above-average haul in 1924).

STRIKEOUTS PER NINE INNINGS

Earlier in baseball history, when three- and four-man rotations were common, it was not unusual for pitchers to throw double the innings needed to qualify for the ERA title. Because such large variations can play a major part in the strikeout totals for a pitcher, it is more illuminating to evaluate their rate of strikeouts as opposed to their total strikeouts. Table 10 lists the pitchers with the highest z-scores based on strikeouts per nine innings pitched.

 

Table 10. The 10 Highest SO/9 Z-Scores

Using this metric, Dazzy Vance’s accomplishments stand out even more. Although he is the only pitcher in this table who never struck out 300 hitters in a season, he owns the two highest z-scores, and a whopping four positions among the top six. His 1924 campaign again easily tops the list. While not nearly as heralded as the others on this list, these data make a case for Vance being the greatest strikeout artist in the history of the game.

CONCLUSIONS

Z-scores provide a statistically rigorous, yet simple way to compare the performances of players throughout the history of baseball. They can be calculated for any hitting or pitching statistic, be it a raw statistic, an average, or even a sabermetric statistic such as WAR. Even though this analysis focused on players who qualified for their league’s batting or ERA titles, z-scores can be calculated for any player, even if they played in just one game. Career z-scores can be calculated by adding the weighted averages of the z-scores from each of their seasons.

Z-scores can be calculated for any other sport, or any other database amenable to statistics, such as economic and demographic data, as demonstrated in Cottone and Wirchin. Who was greater in their respective sport, the Bambino or the Great Gretzky? Was it more likely that Dazzy Vance would punch-out 262 hitters in 1924, or that you will live to the age of 110? Z-scores can provide the answers. 

BENJAMIN ALTER has been a member of SABR’s Elysian Fields Chapter since 2019. Prior to retiring in 2021, he was a principal and shareholder at an environmental engineering firm. When not indulging his passion for baseball, Ben may be found singing and/or playing the piano, working out at the gym, or writing articles for charitable organizations.

Sources

Schall, Edward M. and Smith, Gary, “Do Baseball Players Regress to the Mean?” The American Statistician, 54, no. 4 (2000), 231–35.

Zimmerman, Jeff and Bell, Tanner, The Process (Self-published, 2004).

Notes

1. Baseball-Reference.com, last accessed January 23, 2025.

2. This paper uses statistics from the so-called PED Era at face value, without making any subjective evaluation regarding their validity.

3. John G. Cottone and Jason Wirchin, Z-Score: How a Statistic Used in Psychology Will Revolutionize Baseball (Story Bridge Books, 2016).

4. Randy Taylor, and Steve Krevisky, “Using Mathematics and Statistics to Analyze Who are the Great Sluggers in Baseball,” Seventh International Conference on Teaching Statistics Proceedings, 2006, https://iase-web.org/documents/papers/icots7/C432.pdf?1402524967.

5. Bill James, “Deviants At Work,” Bill James Online, June 11, 2013.

6. Gregory A. Colston Jr., “The Best Baseball Season Ever? A Triple Crown Perspective,” 2011, https://docslib.org/download/7954955/the-best-baseball-season-ever-a-triple-crown-perspective-gregory-a.

7. Kevin Schulman, “Data Analysis 101: The Z-Score is Your Friend,” The Agitator, August 10, 2022, https://agitator.thedonorvoice.com/data-analysis-101-the-z-score-is-your-friend/.

8. Dan Szymborski, “Toppling Ted: The 60-Game Season and the .400 Batting Average,” FanGraphs, July 21, 2020. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/toppling-ted-the-60-game-season-and-the-400-batting-average/.

9. Ariel Cohen, “Attacking Offensive Categories with Z-Scores,” RotoBaller, 2020, https://www.rotoballer.com/fantasy-baseball-adp-values-using-z-scores/753041.

10. Lucas Kelly, “Creating Your Rankings? Start with Z-Scores,” RotoGraphs, December 31, 2021, https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/creating-your-rankings-start-with-z-scores/.

11. Stephen Jay Gould, “Why No One Hits .400 Any More,” Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003), 151–72.

12. Negro League statistics are incomplete, especially for the NAL. Therefore, raw quantities often do not accurately reflect the performances of the players.

Bobby Witt Jr. of the Kansas City Royals (Trading Card Database)

Tom Verducci wrote the following in 2023: “From 2015 to 2022, the (infield) shift helped take 2,065 groundball hits out of the game. … Batters saw hit probability on grounders reduced by the shift, so they tried to hit over defensive alignments.”1 Some of the game’s foremost hitters evangelized for that approach, including Josh Donaldson, who said, “If you are 10 years old and your coach says to get on top of the ball, tell them no. Because in the big leagues, these things that they call ground balls are outs. They don’t pay you for ground balls. They pay you for doubles. They pay you for homers.”2 

But with infield shift restrictions that began in 2023, does the focus away from groundballs still make sense? Nick Krall, president of baseball operations for the Cincinnati Reds, recently expressed a more traditional mindset, telling reporters, “We want hitters (to take) an approach of using the whole field, hit line drives, and take good at-bats.”3 Pitchers dislike facing hitters who use this approach. “I never liked the guy that was going to use the entire field,” said 21-year veteran LaTroy Hawkins in 2024. “It was tougher when I knew [the batter] had a plan to hit the ball where it was thrown.”4

Many researchers have studied the effect of defensive positioning on hit probability. Jim Albert established a novel iterative approach to determine hit probabilities based on spray angle and launch speeds for the 2017 season.5 Russell Carleton broke down the effect of infield alignment on several offensive statistics during the 2021 season.6 In 2024, Charlie Pavitt studied performance based on batted ball type.7 And this author established a hit model for balls hit to the infield from the 2023 season based on spray angles and launch speed.8 However, none of this research established a comprehensive model for hit probability that assessed balls hit to the outfield and took into account launch angle, exit velocity, and spray angle.

This article describes research to develop hit probabilities for infield and outfield balls in play. Players are not machines, and this is a highly non-linear problem. However, an approach was developed that used hit probabilities to predict hits from spray angles, launch speeds, and launch angles. Simulations were also generated to determine the quantitative benefits of improved launch speed, launch angles, spray angles, and batted ball types. The “model” in this work was the probability functions used to predict hits and quantify good at-bats. This model was used to analyze outcomes of the Cincinnati Reds players, and to compare them to elite left-handed hitter Luis Arráez and elite right-handed hitter Bobby Witt Jr.

INPUT DATA AND DEFINITIONS

This research used Baseball Savant data from the 2023 and 2024 seasons. Note there are some liners below 0 degree launch angles. These should be characterized as ground balls. Balls in-play with incorrect hit types or missing launch angle/speed parameters were rare in the database and therefore will not significantly impact model results. Figure 1 shows hits and outs for different hit types as a function of launch speed and angle.

Figure 1. Hits and Outs by Launch Speed and Angle (2023)

Defensive alignment affects hit probability. Major League Baseball outlawed dramatic infield shifts in 2022, but shade alignments, where a middle infielder is positioned near second base and corner infielders are shifted, are still allowed. The spray angle is the horizontal direction of the ball put in play, with 0 degrees directly toward second base, 45 degrees down the third-base line, and –45 degrees down the first-base line. As in Part 1, the adjusted spray angle is defined as a positive value for pulled balls for both left-handed and right-handed hitters. Upcoming plots will use adjusted spray angles.

Figure 2 shows spray charts for Luis Arráez, courtesy of Baseball Savant.9 His hits were distributed across different spray angle zones, but his outs tended toward groundballs to the pull side and fly balls hit to the opposite field. Adjusted spray angle and infield alignment tags were key parameters in the hit model.

 

Figure 2. Luis Arráez 2023 Spray Charts

 

However, not all line drives are impacted equally by infielders or outfielders. Infield line drives are defined from the fit line in Figure 3, which breaks down line drive outs by whether they were caught by an infielder or outfielder. A detailed summary of at-bats and hits for hit types and batter stance is provided in Table 1.

 

Figure 3. 2023 MLB Line Drive Outs

 

Table 1. 2023 Outcomes by Batter Handedness

HIT PROBABILITIES WITH LAUNCH SPEED

Equation 1 shows the hit probability model for popups, groundballs and infield line drives. Equation 2 shows the slightly different model for outfield line drives and fly balls.

Equation 1. Model Hit Probability for Popups, Groundballs, and Infield Line Drives

Equation 2. Model Hit Probability for Outfield Line Drives and Fly Balls

The reference speed is the median launch speed for each hit type, reference probability is the hit probability at the reference speed, and m is an optimization parameter. Reference launch speeds for each hit type excluding home runs are provided in Figure 4. Figures 5 and 6 show hit probabilities as a function of adjusted spray angle for left-handed and right-handed hitters, as well as shaded and non-shaded infield alignments. Hit probabilities at reference launch speeds and +/–10 mph from reference launch speeds are plotted to highlight trends. Infield liners and grounders have local hit probability minimums at specific spray angles consistent with infield positions schematically shown with black symbols. Launch speed did not impact popup hit probabilities (m=0). Unique values for m were identified for each hit type in each spray angle zone. Adjusted spray angle zones between –30 and –45 degrees were best for left-handed hitters, with a hit probability of .729 thanks to a lightly defended left side of the infield and the long throw to first. The best spray angles for righties were –20 to –40 degrees, with a hit probability of .383, much lower than those of left-handed hitters.

Figure 4. 2023 Reference Hit Probabilities by Hit Type

 

Figure 5. Hit Probabilities for Reference and +/–10 MPH Launch Speeds for Left-Handed Hitters

 

Figure 6. Hit Probabilities for Reference and +/–10 MPH Launch Speeds for Right-Handed Hitters

 

Figure 7 shows hit probabilities for outfield line drives and fly balls. Local minimums were represented by the three outfield positions shown schematically with black symbols. Because handedness had less effect on hit probabilities, the two groups of hitters are not presented separately. As noted earlier, hit probabilities for outfield balls in play were best characterized by Equation 2. Equation 2 was best for low hit probabilities typical of fly balls, and captured large observed adjustments to hit probabilities with launch speed for outfield liners.

 

Figure 7. Hit Probabilities for Reference and +/–10 MPH Launch Speeds for Outfield Hits

 

HIT PROBABILITIES WITH LAUNCH ANGLE

Figure 1 showed the combined effect of launch speeds versus launch angles for each hit type. Launch angles for line drives varied within +/–15 degrees for any given launch speed. Launch angles varied for popups from 20 to 90 degrees. Grounders varied from –90 to above 25 degrees. Fly balls varied from 30 to 70 degrees. In order to calculate the best approach to launch angle, the author assessed different models of increasing complexity, including fully non-linear interactions between spray angles, launch speeds, and launch angles. A non-linear interaction model was developed but required complicated fit terms without obvious physical meaning. A relatively simple launch angle model was eventually established as described in Equation 3.

 

Equation 3. Launch Angle Adjustment

 

Hit prob* is an adjustment to the hit probabilities from Equations 1 and 2. The launch angle factor was established from observed and predicted hits at different launch angles for popups, infield line drives, and ground balls as provided in Figures 8, 9, and 10. The launch angle factor is represented with solid lines (main y-axis). The number of observed hits in each launch angle zone is shown with the dashed line (secondary y-axis).

 

Figure 8. Popup Launch Angle Factor

 

Figure 9. Infield Line Drive Launch Angle Factor

 

Figure 10. Groundball Launch Angle Factor

 

Popup launch angle factors increased significantly for launch angles below 55 degrees, as popups transitioned to line drives. The infield line drive launch angle factor was less than or equal to 1.0 for launch angles below 5 degrees, where liners intermixed with ground balls. It increased as the launch angles approached the optimal level of 25 degrees, then decreased at launch angles above 30 degrees as infield line drives intermixed with popups. The groundball launch angle factor was more complicated. The factor was lowest at a launch angle of –35 degrees, but increased at even lower launch angles, as groundballs turned into high choppers. The factor also increased as launch angle grew closer the maximum near 10 degrees, as grounders intermixed with infield line drives. Grounder launch angle factors slightly decreased below –60 degrees, the few at-bats where batted balls go straight down and catchers make the play, as well as the few grounders above 20 degrees. Baseball Savant categorized some balls with a launch angle above 20 degrees at launch speeds below 60 mph as grounders. These were softly hit balls to an infielder playing back. This rare batted ball type was observed only 189 times.

 

The launch angle factor was more complicated for outfield liners. These launch angle factors were influenced by launch angle/launch speed interactions. Many different functional forms with varying degrees of complexity were evaluated. Figure 11 shows the best functional form for outfield line drives.

 

Figure 11. Outfield Line Drive Launch Angle Factor and the Minimum Launch Angle Factor

 

Separate launch angle factors were required above 100 mph and below 85 mph. Home runs were not included when establishing model constants in this work, as it focused on balls in the field of play. Home runs were added into the hit predictions with a hit probability of 1.0 to predict accurate batting averages and hit totals. There was a minimum launch angle factor where reduced conditions did not reduce hit probabilities, (see Figure 11). Launch angle factors for all hit types and launch speed model constants are provided as an online appendix at SABR.org.

Fly balls were equally complex. The launch angle factor for fly balls is summarized in Figures 12 and 13. The launch angle factors in Figure 12 have a slope provided in Figure 13 used with Equation 5. No Launch angle is permitted to fall below the minimum launch angle factor also provided in Figure 13.

 

Figure 12. Fly Ball Launch Angle Factor for Low and High Launch Angle Speeds

 

Figure 13. Fly Ball Launch Angle Slope and Minimum Launch Angle Factor

 

PREDICTED HITS AND MODEL CHECKS

Hit probabilities were next used to calculate hits from summed hit probabilities with Equation 4.

 

Equation 4. Total Predicted Hits

 

In Equation 4, (hit prob) and (hit prob*) were constrained between 0.00 and 1.00 for all at-bats. Home runs are added to predicted hits for proper hit totals. Hit probabilities were summed for all at-bats across different launch speeds, launch angles, players, teams, and seasons. It is worth noting that Equations 1–5 and trends from Figures 4 to 13 are reasonable, but most early attempts to predict hit totals failed spectacularly. Players are not machines, and this is a highly non-linear problem. Early models that did not represent subtle impacts of launch speed, launch angle, and spray angle under-predicted and over-predicted hits in different subgroups by a factor of five.

 

Equation 5. Launch Angle Factor for Fly Balls

 

After many model iterations, predicted hits for each hit type from the current model are provided in Figures 14 and 15. Solid lines represent observed hits and the symbols represent predicted hits. Hit predictions for each hit type are well characterized for all launch speed and launch angle regimes. Hit totals for each hit type in each spray angle zone are provided in Figure 16. All data scatter uniformly around the perfect fit 1:1 line. The model accurately represents hit totals for all hit types for different spray angles, launch speeds, and launch angles.

 

Figure 14. Predicted and Observed Hits With Launch Speed

 

Figure 15. Predicted and Observed Hits With Launch Angle

 

Figure 16. Predicted and Observed Hits in Spray Angle Zones

 

MODEL HIT PREDICTIONS AND SENSITIVITY STUDIES

The model was now ready to predict hits for players and teams. Figure 17 shows observed and predicted hits for MLB players during the 2023 and 2024 seasons. No model adjustments were considered or required to predict hits in the 2024 season. Luis Arráez is highlighted as the top left-handed hitter, with a batting average of .354 in 2023 and .314 in 2024. Bobby Witt Jr. is highlighted as the top right-handed hitter, with a .332 batting average in 2024.

 

Figure 17. Player Hit Predictions for 2023 and 2024 MLB Seasons

 

The model provided a quantitative path to assess how individual factors increased hit probabilities. The sensitivity study assessed favorable conditions of a) +10 mph for launch speed; b) +10 degrees of launch angle for grounders; c) –10 degrees of launch angle for popups and fly balls; d) +10 degrees launch angle for infield line drives and –10 degrees of launch angle for outfield liners; e) grounders hit into favorable spray angle zones; and f) different hit types. It was unrealistic for all hits to change to any new condition, so the sensitivity studies assumed that 20% of at-bats were converted to the hitter-favorable condition. Hit probabilities to typical favorable hit types were determined from baseline averages in Table 1. Improved launch angles and launch speeds were determined based on model assessments of each at-bat. The predicted impact of individual favorable conditions toward extra hits and batting average for left-handed hitters and right-handed hitters are given in Tables 2 and 3. The calculations are performed for all at-bats from the 2023 MLB season, then scaled to a hitter with 500 at-bats.

 

Table 2. Hit Sensitivity Studies for Left-Handed Hitters, 20% Adjustment for Individual Favorable Conditions, 2023

 

Table 3. Hit Sensitivity Studies for Right-Handed Hitters, 20% Adjustment for Individual Favorable Conditions, 2023

 

The benefit of improved launch angle or launch speed only was generally low, on the order of zero to six points of batting average. Converting popups to typical grounders also had a small impact, thanks to the low overall rate of popups. There was a more significant benefit of 10 to 15 points in batting average with improved launch speed and launch angle, improved liner launch angles, converting strikeouts to typical grounders, and converting fly balls to typical outfield liners. There was a great benefit of 30 points for lefties with grounders hit into favorable spray angle zones and grounders converted to infield line drives. None of these results is surprising, but this approach offers a unique glimpse into how individual items improved total hits and batting averages.

A hitter does not work to improve only one aspect of their game. Instead, a myriad of factors contributes to boosting batting averages. The cumulative benefits of quality at-bats from reduced strikeouts, hitting grounders at more desirable spray angles, and converting groundballs to infield line drives are provided in Table 4. Improvements in 20% of these at-bats in these three areas can boost batting averages by 52 to 74 points, enough to turn an average hitter into a team leader. Table 5 shows the cumulative benefits of additional quality at-bats. Changing 20% of at-bats to favorable conditions in these areas can boost batting averages by 80 to 100 points, enough to turn an average hitter into a batting champion. Individual players or teams will have unique quantities of balls in play and hits, but predicted trends are consistent for specific players and teams for 2023 and 2024.

 

Table 4. Hit Sensitivity Study, 20% Adjustment for Cumulative Favorable Conditions, Per 500 Team At-Bats

 

Table 5. Hit Sensitivity Study, 20% Adjustment for Cumulative Favorable Conditions, Per 500 Team At-Bats

 

CINCINNATI REDS HITTER TRENDS

Sensitivity studies of increased quality at-bats can also be performed at the team level, for example, comparing Cincinnati Reds players to top hitters Arráez and Witt. How do the Reds compare on balls in play with generally good outcomes, such as line drives and grounders to favorable spray angle zones? And how do they compare on balls in play with poor outcomes, such as grounders to unfavorable spray angle zones? All comparisons were scaled to a reference of 500 at-bats.

Left-handed hitters are compared to both Arráez and the MLB average in Table 6. For switch-hitters Jeimer Candelario and Elly de La Cruz, only left-handed at-bats are considered. Hit probabilities are provided for each hit type in the last row for reference. Players do not control hits in any category, but they have some control over the number of quality at-bats, or the number of balls put in play that are predicted to have good outcomes. Popups were uncommon and similar for all hitters and therefore eliminated in coming tables.

 

Table 6. Reds LHH Comparisons to Luis Arráez and MLB Average, Per 500 AB

 

Most Reds lefties scored well on home runs and productive fly balls in Table 6. Although the team had no top-10 home run hitters, overall home run production was acceptable. However, this benefit was offset by a surfeit of strikeouts. It would be unrealistic to expect other players to match Arráez’s elite strikeout avoidance, but reducing strikeouts to at least league-average levels is a reasonable goal. Converting strikeouts to groundballs was shown to have a measurable improvement, adding 13 points of batting average in Table 4. Arráez also excelled in the quantity and quality of liners. Most line drives grade out as quality at-bats, with hit probabilities of .586 to the outfield and .711 to the infield. This highlights the critical importance of launch angles to produce the most productive hit types. Well-struck balls with a launch angle near 20 degrees did not typically end up as home runs, but they were likely to result in hits. Converting grounders to infield liners increased batting averages by 31 points for lefties, so the goal of reaching the league average is another reasonable goal for 2025.

Understanding quality grounders was a bit more complicated. Improved groundball launch speeds and angles results in 12 extra points of batting average, but shifting groundballs to favorable spray angles yielded an increase of 31 points. Reds groundball spray angles are compared to league hitters in Table 7. Quality grounders are a result of: a) many grounders hit the other way; b) some grounders hit up the middle c) few grounders pulled toward first base, and d) grounders hit with good launch speed and launch angle characteristics. Most lefties would benefit from pulling fewer grounders and hitting more the other way. An all-fields approach is key to increasing quality at-bats.

NOTE: For Tables 6 through 9, bold text shows areas where Reds hitters matched Arraez/Witt and the league average. Italic (or shaded/colored) text in the tables show areas where the Reds compared well to Arraez/Witt or the league average. Areas where Reds hitters are below average are shown in plain text.

 

Table 7. Reds LHH Comparisons to Luis Arráez and MLB Average, Launch Angle, Per 500 AB

 

Table 8. Reds RHH Comparisons to Bobby Witt Jr. and MLB Average, Per 500 AB

 

Reds right-handed hitters are compared to Bobby Witt Jr. and the MLB average in Table 8. Observed hits were again scaled to 500 at-bats. Cincinnati’s right-handed hitters had a difficult year at the plate in 2024, with low home run production and high strikeouts. No hitter matched Witt in more than any one single category. Santiago Espinal and Jonathan India had the most quality line drives. Launch angle and line drives stand out as areas for improvement for Cincinnati righties in 2025.

Groundball quality is more difficult to quantify for righties. Improved spray angles can yield improvements of up to eight points of batting average, while improved launch angles can yield up to 11. Table 9 shows right-handed groundball hits and balls in play. Improving the quality of groundballs would help, but right-handed hitters shouldn’t come to the plate trying to hit a better grounder to get on base. A simple message for right-handed hitters could be to focus on launch angle, as the best path to improvement lies on increasing line drives. A secondary message could be that home runs are great, but converting strikeouts even to average groundballs has a dramatic impact.

 

Table 9. Reds RHH Comparisons to Bobby Witt Jr. and MLB Average, Launch Angle, Per 500 AB

 

SUMMARY

After reviewing these numbers, the obvious challenge for most batters is to hit more line drives and more groundballs to favorable spray angles without increasing strikeouts or popups. Hitters could improve their offensive production by understanding the tendencies of leading hitters, how the infield defends against these tendencies, and the qualitative benefits of different hitting approaches. However, the author does not think all hitters would benefit from attempting to increase their rates of quality infield liners or grounders. Clean-up hitters need to keep swinging away. Discerning hitters need to take walks. But hitters should consider when balls into poorly defended spray angle zones are possible and warranted. 

DONALD SLAVIK is currently an aerospace consultant and an MLB grounds crew member. On the grounds crew, he chalks lines, brooms the infield, repairs bullpen mounds, and fluffs the grass. Don’s first baseball technical paper was published in the Baseball Research Journal (Spring 2024) and presented at SABR 52 (Minneapolis).

 

Acknowledgments

Davy Andrews did a wonderful job editing this article. The author is grateful to get suggestions from reviewers Jim Donnelley and Cindy Slavik—and all the friends that provided ideas as the work progressed. The anonymous peer reviewers also provided specific and invaluable feedback—I did my best to update the work with the suggestions they provided.

Online appendix

Click here to view the online appendix for this article.