Quote:
Originally Posted by chiefsnorth
I know, I am just confused by the qualifications place on pre-Robinson hitters. If there had never been a color barrier, why would we assume that would have affected their numbers? There are not many blacks in the league today, but even in the 60s-70s, they weren't a huge number of the league's pitchers and they aren't still today.
Maybe back in the 30s before there were other sports they would have comprised a greater percentage of pitchers than they did in the 70s, but why would we assume that blacks would have been as a group significantly above league average as pitchers? Is there any historical data to support it?
If you are talking about pitching stats I could see the argument a little better but I don't think it would change a lot to these measures
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Well, it's undoubtedly true that hitters were far more predominant than pitchers for the first several years. However, the true measuring stick of baseball is how you did against your peers. We know that Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig put up awesome numbers. What we don't know is how many others would have performed if given those same opportunities.
So don't think of it as "Babe Ruth would have hit 100 fewer homeruns" but rather "How much different would Babe Ruth's production be in relation to his peers if his peers included African Americans and other minorities."
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"When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”--Abraham Lincoln
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