Seamheads.com updates Negro Leagues Database with 1948 stats
We are pleased to pass along this update from SABR member Gary Ashwill at Seamheads.com on October 17, 2018:
The latest addition to the Seamheads Negro Leagues DB encompasses the 1948 Negro American League, Negro National League, and World Series.
This was the last season for the NNL, which ceased operations in 1949 as the Homestead Grays and Black Yankees dropped out, and the four remaining teams joined the Negro American League. It was thus also the last season for the Black World Series.
In the NAL the Kansas City Monarchs won the first half behind the efforts of Jim LaMarque (8-1, 2.74), Hank Thompson (.368/.460/.613), and Willard Brown (.387/.460/.622), but were upset in the league championship series by the second-half champion Birmingham Black Barons, led by a 17-year-old rookie named Willie Mays. The Black Barons had plenty of other good players, though, not the least of which was shortstop and batting champ Artie Wilson, who became the last player in a U.S. professional league to bat .400 in the 20th century (.402 according to official statistics, and a whopping .462 in the subset of games with box scores).
The Barons met their match in the World Series in the form of the veteran Homestead Grays, who cut them down in five games despite being exiled from both of their home parks due to scheduling conflicts with the Pirates and Senators, their major league landlords. This marked the third time in six years that the Grays defeated Birmingham in the black fall classic.
To view the award-winning Seamheads Negro Leagues Database, visit http://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/index.php
To read SABR biographies from Bittersweet Goodbye: The Black Barons, the Grays, and the 1948 Negro League World Series, click here.
Related links:
- Seamheads Negro Leagues Database update: 1938 season (June 4, 2018)
- Seamheads Negro Leagues Database update: 1945 season (September 21, 2017)
- Seamheads Negro Leagues Database update: 1925 season (February 4, 2016)
- Seamheads Negro Leagues Database update: 1932 East-West League stats (August 13, 2015)
- Little-known players from the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database (February 2, 2012)
- Read our Q&A with Gary Ashwill about the Negro Leagues Database (September 14, 2011)
Originally published: October 18, 2018. Last Updated: July 16, 2020.