Leaving on a jet plane ...

I'm getting ready to head to San Francisco for more Bonds magic -- nothing better than a good flight delay in Milwaukee to make your day -- and I read a comment by brilliant reader Mr. Clutch concerning my last blog. It reminded me that there was one more important point to make.

Here's the comment:

Joe, I understand your argument, but I have one important one important (I think) objection. On your list of talented black players, I don't believe I see a single pitcher. I know some black pitchers have been effective, but in general, the great majority of black players have been hitters. To what do we atrribute this? I have no idea, and I certainly don't wish to stereotype. It does seem to be a fact, however, and it must be considered. Even today, there are only two effective black pitchers I can think of (Willis and Sabathia).

I have heard this argument quite a bit -- although (and I want to make it clear this is NOT what Mr. Clutch is saying) I have usually heard it as a charge that Negro Leagues hitters weren't as good as they are sometimes made out to be because there have not been many great black pitchers through the years. It is, in fact, usually that very argument that leads to bring out my "Let's take a look at the 10 years after integration" case that I brought out in the last blog.

But I think it's important here to make a point that I only brushed the last time. Yes, there have been quite a few good to excellent black pitchers in the Major Leagues -- Bob Gibson, Fergie Jenkins, Vida Blue, Lee Smith, J.R. Richard, Mudcat Grant, Al Downing, Dwight Gooden, Mike Norris, Dontrelle Willie, Sam Jones among them.

But remember, any and all dark-skinned athletes were banned from play in the big leagues before 1947. This included dark-skinned Latin players as well. Luis Tiant's father pitched in the Negro Leagues, for instance. So, now, let's look at some dark skinned pitchers since 1947 who I suspect also would have played in Negro Leagues:

Luis Tiant, Mike Cuellar, Camilo Pascual, Juan Marichal, Pedro Martinez, Bartolo Colon, Joaquin Andujar, Jose Rijo, Dennis Martinez, Johan Santana, Carlos Zambrano, Javier Vazquez, Mariano Rivera, etc., etc.

Again, it's just part of the context. But I think it's realistic to think that having black pitchers would have had an effect on Ruth.

I'm going to try something here, and I have no idea if it will work ... but let's try to prove a point by picking an example. For not-entirely-random reasons, I'll choose Andy Van Slyke in 1992. Van Slyke had a very good seaosn that year. He hit .324 with 45 doubles, 12 triples, 14 homers, he scored 103 runs, drove in 89, stole 12 bases, won a Gold Glove. He finished fourth in the MVP balloting. A fine year.

Now, let's take him back pre-1947. I might get this wrong -- it's difficult to know exactly how light-skinned a player would have had to be to play in the pre-Robinson days -- so bear with me and please forgive any statistical misses.

Take him back to 1947, and you can more or less eliminate 83 at-bats. I figure he had these against Dennis Martinez, Sid Fernandez, Dwight Gooden, Ben Rivera (who Van Slyke spanked all year), Ramon Martinez, Chuck McElroy, Jose DeLeon, Ken Hill, Xavier Hernandez, Alejandro Pena, Lee Smith (I stopped with pitchers who faced him fewer than four times -- I mean I'm stuck in an airport, for crying out loud).

OK, he hit .289 against those guys (thanks to the 7-for-10 with triple and homer against Ben Rivera). So without those at-bats, Van Slyke hit .330. If you would just replace those pitchers and just use what he did against everyone else, his season total would have looked more like this.

.330 average, 202 hits, 49 doubles, 12 triples, 15 homers, 95 RBIs.

And this is assuming that the pitchers he faced were about the Major League average, which of course they would not be -- they would be pitchers from Class AAA and Class AA. So you could might even add a few more points to the average, a few more hits, a homer or two, who knows, maybe four or five RBIs, so the numbers could conceivably look like this:

.334 average, 206 hits, 51 doubles, 12 triples, 16 homers, 100 RBIs.

Voila, suddenly you have a Tris Speaker, Stan Musial, Al Simmons kinda year.

These numbers are a silly guess, of course, and probably way off. We're just playing around. But there's another point here too: Van Slyke finished fourth in the MVP voting that year. However, the three players who finished ahead of him (Barry Bonds, Terry Pendleton and Gary Sheffield) were all African American. So take them away, he's also the league MVP. He finished second in batting (to Sheffield) so give him a batting title. He finished fifth in OPS, but only Darren Daulton among the first four is white. He finished third in runs created (behind Bonds and Sheffield) so put him on top there too.

You see what I'm getting at here ... It isn't just that Babe Ruth might not have hit 714 homers had he played against men of color. It's that Oscar Charleston might have hit 745 homers and stolen 800 bases. It's that Josh Gibson may have hit 68 homers in a season. You are, after all, judged against the players of your time. Ruth is amazing because he was SO MUCH BETTER than anyone else of his time. But that may not have been so had black athletes been allowed in the game.

Anyway, this is all just guesswork and free-form thoughts ... something worth talking about while I chase Barry Bonds around the country.