Posts Tagged ‘Cooperstown’

Going, Going, Gone — How the longball will get McGwire into the Hall

June 19th, 2011

His plaque in Cooperstown will read, “the man who saved baseball.”

What it will not say is that Mark McGwire made it into the Hall of Fame on the strength of a single statistic.

With the American public so enamored with the towering, majestic homerun, McGwire’s 583, the fifth most all-time, get him talked about as one of baseball’s greatest. Though if you take away the longballs, McGwire’s career numbers are hardly stellar, and in reality, only slightly above average.

One can hardly applaud McGwire’s career .263 batting average, and his 1,626 hits place him a whopping 403rd all-time on that list. What’s more, Big Mac struck out a staggering 1,596 times, a pace of nearly a punchout per hit. Only nineteen men in major league history have ever struck out more. Now while striking out may come with the territory for a slugger, McGwire struck out 200 more times than Hank Aaron in half as many at bats, and struck 70 times more than Willie Mays in roughly 5000 fewer at bats.

If you compare McGwire’s career numbers to those of the seventeen first basemen currently enshrined in Cooperstown, the disparity is remarkable. Only Harmon Killebrew (.256) has a lower batting average than McGwire, who also ranks dead last in hits, doubles, and total bases. His totals of 1,414 RBI and 1,167 runs scored are significantly lower than the averages of HOF first basemen, who produced 1,596.3 RBI and 1,390 runs on average. This is also a group where McGwire’s lofty homerun total of 583 is only slightly better than Killebrew’s 573, Jimmie Foxx’s 534, or Willie McCovey’s 521.

Forgetting members of the Hall for a moment, McGwire still falls short when compared to four of his contemporaries. Raphael Palmeiro, Fred McGriff, Andres Galarraga, and Will Clark all came into the league at the same time as McGwire, and again, with the exception of homeruns, each of the other four have statistical superiority. Only Galarraga has scored fewer runs (1,128 to McGwire’s 1,167), and all four have more hits, doubles, and a higher career batting average. Only Clark has fewer total bases with 3,562 to Big Mac’s 3,639, though “The Thrill” is ahead of Big Mac in average (.303 to .263), hits (2,176 to 1,626), doubles (440 to 252), intentional walks (155 to 150), and strikeouts (1190 to 1596).

Of the four, McGwire’s poorest comparison is to Palmeiro, who has a higher career batting average (.294 to .263), more runs scored (1,357 to 1,167), driven in (1,470 to 1414), doubles (488 to 252), and total bases (4,386 to 3,639). Palmeiro has also struck out just 1,073 to McGwire’s 1,596. With 447 career homeruns, Palmeiro is still a good distance behind McGwire, but also has plenty of years left ahead in his comfy Designated Hitter role, and should be able to close much of that gap before his career comes to an end. » Read more: Going, Going, Gone — How the longball will get McGwire into the Hall

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African Americans in Baseball

June 16th, 2011

African Americans were banned from major league baseball, until Jackie Robinson stepped on the field for the Dodgers. From 1871 to 1947, African American baseball players were forced to play only those teams made up of negroes. Here are some well known African Americans in baseball, who not only played for their respective teams, but also fought against racism.

Bud Fowler
Bud Fowler was born on March 16, 1858, in Fort Plain, New York. His real name was John W. Jackson, and he learned baseball in Cooperstown, New York. He was the first known African-American professional player and is first mentioned to have pitched for a team in Chelsea, in April 1878. Later the same month, he pitched a game for the Lynn Live Oaks against the Boston Nationals, and finished that season with Worcester. He continued to play for teams in New England and Canada for the next four years. He also played for teams in Niles, Ohio, Stillwater and Minnesota. Fowler died on February 26, 1913, in Frankfort, New York. His death was primarily because of illness and poverty, and received national attention.

Rube Foster
Andrew Rube Foster was born on September 17, 1879, in Calvert, Texas. He is considered to be one of the best African-American pitchers of the 1900s. He started his professional career in 1897, with an independent black team Waco Yellow Jackets. Foster also founded the Chicago American Giants, which was considered as one of the most successful black baseball teams of the pre-integration era. He went on to play for Frank Leland’s Chicago Union Giants, Bardeen’s Otsego Independents and Cuban X-Giants. Later he joined the Chicago Leland Giants as its playing manager, and under his leadership, the team won 110 games. Out of these, it won 48 straight matches and lost only ten matches. In 1920, Foster along with the owners of six other midwestern clubs, formed a professional baseball circuit for African-American teams. He died in 1930, because of mental illness.

Jackie Robinson
Jack Roosevelt Robinson (popularly known as Jackie Robinson) was born on January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia. He graduated from Dakota Junior High School in 1935, and got enrolled in Muir Tech. Jackie was inspired by his elder brothers Mack and Frank, to pursue his interest in sports. He played in the baseball, football, and basketball teams, and was very fond of tennis. He was selected for the All-Star Games, from 1949 to 1954, and was the recipient of the inaugural MLB Rookie of the Year Award, in 1947. He also went on to win the National League MVP Award in 1949, being the first black player to be so honored. He was the first African-American television analyst in Major League Baseball, and the first African-American vice-president of a major American corporation. Robinson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. He died on October 24, 1972, in Stamford, Connecticut, of a heart attack.
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