2024 MLB Thread

[Tiger337]

6 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

To me this there is a sense in which something this allows white society to paper over history, to be able put a gloss on the fact that those guy were not allowed to play. As you say - Stop looking for retroactive expiation - the wrong cannot be righted - period. Live with it. Dont hide it, don't bury it by "integrating" the stat sheets after the fact. Don't minimize it. Don't do it again.

Not the common way to see it I'm sure. YMMV

You can't right the huge injustice, but I think recognizing the Black leagues as major leagues motivates people to learn more about the leagues and the people that played them.  Since this move was actually already made three years ago (and is only being formalized now), I have seen this happening already.  There was a lot of talent in those leagues, every bit as good as that in the White leagues even if the depth is in question.  These players are being discussed in detail in various places where they were not before and I thing it's a good thing.  

[oblong]

2 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

You can't right the huge injustice, but I think recognizing the Black leagues as major leagues motivates people to learn more about the leagues and the people that played them.  Since this move was actually already made three years ago (and is only being formalized now), I have seen this happening already.  There was a lot of talent in those leagues, every bit as good as that in the White leagues even if the depth is in question.  These players are being discussed in detail in various places where they were not before and I thing it's a good thing.  

which should be the point of a historical record such as stats.  LIke I pointed out with regard to the other leagues in the 'official' record, they are already sort of 'messed up' so this doesn't degrade the quality.  There's such inconsistency in the early part of baseball's history on how stats were calculated anyway.  

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

I don’t buy Leershen’s hagiographical version of Cobb’s story. It was an intentional whitewash in many respects.

I don't know if it is or isn't a whitewash, but it seems that his version was too quickly accepted.

[1984Echoes]

10 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

... Pete Rose was kept out of the Hall of Fame because he broke the cardinal sin of baseball...

Just like Shoeless Joe Jackson.

[1984Echoes]

9 hours ago, oblong said:

You realize that official MLB stats already contain other leagues besides the AL and NL? MLB for most of history was just a legal agreement between the two regarding items like # of games played and contract enforcements.  They were separate legal entities. 

 

Here's a key point:

Official MLB stats ALSO includes stats from the FEDERAL LEAGUE of 1914-1915.

The Federal League was NOT the AL nor the NL.

Point.

[Tiger337]

8 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

 

Here's a key point:

Official MLB stats ALSO includes stats from the FEDERAL LEAGUE of 1914-1915.

The Federal League was NOT the AL nor the NL.

Point.

And it was most likely an inferior league to the top Black leagues.  

[1984Echoes]

Just now, Tiger337 said:

And it was most likely an inferior league to the top Black leagues.  

POINT!!!

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

Really?  I'd be interested in learning more.  Maybe he swung too far the other way but I'm sympathetic to the idea that Cobb was given harsher context due to the work of Al Stump and when you compare Cobb to his peers he's not such an evil caricature... unless you want to say all of them were.  

 

The Leerhsen book is a pretty good read, and I think it would make a good movie. But he did not do anything like a solid job of proving that Ty Cobb was significantly different from how he'd long been portrayed.

Leerhsen did acknowledge that Cobb was combative and likely to fight at the drop of a hat, or some other perceived slight. This was not at all uncommon at the time, especially among southerners, who have traditionally embraced a culture chiefly defined by honor and defending it against all slights large and small.

But Leerhsen does not do a good job of proving Ty Cobb was not racist, which was the author's greatest claim while promoting the book. For example, Leerhsen cited situations involving Cobb's father and took leaps to conclude that Mr. Cobb was a man who wanted to see blacks and whites on equal footing under the law and in terms of opportunities to succeed, but Leerhsen did not deliver any actual quotes or citations affirming this was the case. He drew his own conclusion, and worse yet, wrote it up so that it read as though it was merely his own conclusion. And then he imputed this thinking to young Ty himself, absent any evidence.

Beyond this, I was specifically looking for solid citations in the book's endnotes supporting Leerhsen's claims that accounts in Al Stump's book about Cobb were wrong, but the only evidence offered in the Leerhsen book was him merely saying Stump was wrong. I saw no citations of any newspaper, magazine, book or anything else that supports the Leerhsen's contentions about Stump. In fact, on at least one occasion, the author simply rejected, flatly, the accounts of newspapers of the time (specifically, regarding a fight with a street worker in Detroit early in his career, sometime before 1908), but without offering any contrary evidence to support his rejection. Leerhsen just says so and leaves it at that. This is a common tack he takes in the book, and I don't find that convincing. Plus, there are a lot of conclusive statements about Cobb's character that the author makes throughout the book that do not have any supporting citations in the end notes. For a reader to believe these statements are true, they would have to take only the Leerhsen's word for it, and nothing else.

Likewise, with Cobb's own behavior, such as the fight mentioned above, Leerhsen disregarded actual newspaper accounts in the Free Press which, at the time, reported straight up that as a southern man Cobb had a natural disinclination towards blacks which led to the fights. Instead, Leerhsen cited the Free Press's own racism in its general reporting about blacks, as though the paper was seeking to implicate Ty Cobb as a racist due only to his southern roots. Point being, the conclusion that Ty Cobb was simply not the racist everyone has always believed he was is based on nothing but the author's own hopeful conjecture, provided  without citations of confirming evidence, and even to the point of contradicting actual reporting of the time when it suits him to.

In short, Leerhsen comes off a Ty Cobb apologist whose goal was the do doing everything he can to exonerate Cobb's reputation as a racist. I am not surprised Baseball embraced Leerhsen's version of Cobb, since they would the stink of past racism to be washed away by our sepia-tinged 21st-Century imaginations of what we hope and wish people back then, which includes our own ancestors, were like.

[CaliforniaDreaming]

[buddha]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

The Leerhsen book is a pretty good read, and I think it would make a good movie. But he did not do anything like a solid job of proving that Ty Cobb was significantly different from how he'd long been portrayed.

Leerhsen did acknowledge that Cobb was combative and likely to fight at the drop of a hat, or some other perceived slight. This was not at all uncommon at the time, especially among southerners, who have traditionally embraced a culture chiefly defined by honor and defending it against all slights large and small.

But Leerhsen does not do a good job of proving Ty Cobb was not racist, which was the author's greatest claim while promoting the book. For example, Leerhsen cited situations involving Cobb's father and took leaps to conclude that Mr. Cobb was a man who wanted to see blacks and whites on equal footing under the law and in terms of opportunities to succeed, but Leerhsen did not deliver any actual quotes or citations affirming this was the case. He drew his own conclusion, and worse yet, wrote it up so that it read as though it was merely his own conclusion. And then he imputed this thinking to young Ty himself, absent any evidence.

Beyond this, I was specifically looking for solid citations in the book's endnotes supporting Leerhsen's claims that accounts in Al Stump's book about Cobb were wrong, but the only evidence offered in the Leerhsen book was him merely saying Stump was wrong. I saw no citations of any newspaper, magazine, book or anything else that supports the Leerhsen's contentions about Stump. In fact, on at least one occasion, the author simply rejected, flatly, the accounts of newspapers of the time (specifically, regarding a fight with a street worker in Detroit early in his career, sometime before 1908), but without offering any contrary evidence to support his rejection. Leerhsen just says so and leaves it at that. This is a common tack he takes in the book, and I don't find that convincing. Plus, there are a lot of conclusive statements about Cobb's character that the author makes throughout the book that do not have any supporting citations in the end notes. For a reader to believe these statements are true, they would have to take only the Leerhsen's word for it, and nothing else.

Likewise, with Cobb's own behavior, such as the fight mentioned above, Leerhsen disregarded actual newspaper accounts in the Free Press which, at the time, reported straight up that as a southern man Cobb had a natural disinclination towards blacks which led to the fights. Instead, Leerhsen cited the Free Press's own racism in its general reporting about blacks, as though the paper was seeking to implicate Ty Cobb as a racist due only to his southern roots. Point being, the conclusion that Ty Cobb was simply not the racist everyone has always believed he was is based on nothing but the author's own hopeful conjecture, provided  without citations of confirming evidence, and even to the point of contradicting actual reporting of the time when it suits him to.

In short, Leerhsen comes off a Ty Cobb apologist whose goal was the do doing everything he can to exonerate Cobb's reputation as a racist. I am not surprised Baseball embraced Leerhsen's version of Cobb, since they would the stink of past racism to be washed away by our sepia-tinged 21st-Century imaginations of what we hope and wish people back then, which includes our own ancestors, were like.

"baseball" embraced it?  i think if youre as involved in baseball as you are, you might think that.  the average person who knows a little about baseball still sees ty cobb as a racist, regardless of the revisionist history.  i dont remember some grand pronouncement about cobb as "not a racist" from baseball.  

they published a story on a book about a baseball player, they do that all the time.

otoh, you pay attention to baseball a lot more than i do so its possible im off base.

as for cobb, it would be pretty unusual for him NOT to be a racist considering where he grew up and the time he grew up in.  however, the stories from al stump seem to be exaggerated to sell books.

there is a middle ground between cobb as some enlightened figure - which i find very hard to believe - and cobb as the ultimate white racist villian cariacture he was portrayed as by stump and ken burns, where be became the lightning rod for all that was bad in american society in that time period.  admittedly, it is easier to see cobb as the latter more than the former.

american society was cruel to black people.  and that includes most of the people living at that time who we regard as great americans.  your lincolns, your jeffersons, your roosevelts.  all of em.

[Tiger337]

3 minutes ago, buddha said:

"baseball" embraced it?  i think if youre as involved in baseball as you are, you might think that.  the average person who knows a little about baseball still sees ty cobb as a racist, regardless of the revisionist history.  i dont remember some grand pronouncement about cobb as "not a racist" from baseball.  

they published a story on a book about a baseball player, they do that all the time.

otoh, you pay attention to baseball a lot more than i do so its possible im off base.

as for cobb, it would be pretty unusual for him NOT to be a racist considering where he grew up and the time he grew up in.  however, the stories from al stump seem to be exaggerated to sell books.

there is a middle ground between cobb as some enlightened figure - which i find very hard to believe - and cobb as the ultimate white racist villian cariacture he was portrayed as by stump and ken burns, where be became the lightning rod for all that was bad in american society in that time period.  admittedly, it is easier to see cobb as the latter more than the former.

american society was cruel to black people.  and that includes most of the people living at that time who we regard as great americans.  your lincolns, your jeffersons, your roosevelts.  all of em.

Yeah, I think most fans still think of Cobb as racist.  I think it's only a subset of very avid fans and maybe semi-avid Tigers fans who might have been influenced by the book. American society was very cruel to Blacks and Cobb was part of that society. I don't know if EVERYONE was "cruel", but practically nobody treated them as equals (They still don't really do that but that's a topic for a different forum). Some were worse than others and Cobb may or may not been one of them.  

[buddha]

31 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Yeah, I think most fans still think of Cobb as racist.  I think it's only a subset of very avid fans and maybe semi-avid Tigers fans who might have been influenced by the book. American society was very cruel to Blacks and Cobb was part of that society. I don't know if EVERYONE was "cruel", but practically nobody treated them as equals (They still don't really do that but that's a topic for a different forum). Some were worse than others and Cobb may or may not been one of them.  

youre right, "everyone" is an exaggeration.  however, it was an unequal and unfair society.

[oblong]

and it extends beyond just the racism. The Stump book and movie made it look like his peers didn't like him and I don't think that's true.

As for proof of this... either I don't understand the points clearly but I think chas has it backwards.  I wouldn't expect to see Cobb's contemporary sources and proof in his time to disprove alllegations made decades later.  It's not like the media back then would say "Well, in the 1960's and later in the 1990's, they're going to be saying this stuff about him so let's clear the air now".

My understanding of that book was he wanted to write a new one on him since it had been so long, so when we went around looking at material he wasn't finding references to support the myths he expected to write about, he didn't set out to clear the air... the data led him to that.

 

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, oblong said:

As for proof of this... either I don't understand the points clearly but I think chas has it backwards.  I wouldn't expect to see Cobb's contemporary sources and proof in his time to disprove alllegations made decades later.  It's not like the media back then would say "Well, in the 1960's and later in the 1990's, they're going to be saying this stuff about him so let's clear the air now".

What I meant to say in my clear-as-mud way is that the Free Press reported on Cobb beating up a black man on the streets of Detroit and explained his violence as being that of a man born in the south who dislikes black peoples. Leerhsen rejected this reporting with evidence by claiming the Free Press itself was racist in the way they reported about black people at the time. IOW, Leerhsen rejected the story not because he had evidence, but because he wanted to.

Also, in response to Buddhist, when I use the term “Baseball” with a capital “B”, I mean Baseball the industry, versus baseball the game or baseball the fan base or anything like that. So when I say Baseball likely embraced the Leerhsen version of Cobb’s story, they didn’t need to do so with any grand pronouncement, but it is better for the business of baseball to deflect any and all attention away from any negative aspects related to players, especially their racism and focus on the positive achievements and personal traits, and Leerhsen’s book does that for both Cobb and for Baseball. Rehabilitating Cobb’s image helps Baseball, and they appreciate help.

 

[buddha]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

What I meant to say in my clear-as-mud way is that the Free Press reported on Cobb beating up a black man on the streets of Detroit and explained his violence as being that of a man born in the south who dislikes black peoples. Leerhsen rejected this reporting with evidence by claiming the Free Press itself was racist in the way they reported about black people at the time. IOW, Leerhsen rejected the story not because he had evidence, but because he wanted to.

Also, in response to Buddhist, when I use the term “Baseball” with a capital “B”, I mean Baseball the industry, versus baseball the game or baseball the fan base or anything like that. So when I say Baseball likely embraced the Leerhsen version of Cobb’s story, they didn’t need to do so with any grand pronouncement, but it is better for the business of baseball to deflect any and all attention away from any negative aspects related to players, especially their racism and focus on the positive achievements and personal traits, and Leerhsen’s book does that for both Cobb and for Baseball. Rehabilitating Cobb’s image helps Baseball, and they appreciate help.

 

you didnt say "likely" before.  you said Baseball embraced it.  i dont see any evidence that Baseball or baseball embraced anything.  i just see an article about a baseball player, the same way there are articles about almost every book written about a famous old player.

if anything, sports organizations trip over themselves to discredit their racist past and racist former players.  they go out of their way to "honor" and remember black and other non-white players no matter what their actual contributions were.  its good for business in 2024.

in many ways, its a much needed correction considering the long history of mistreatment.  but i dont think Baseball has made any attempt to institutionally rehabilitate ty cobb or any other past person whose reputation has become one of abject racism.  i dont see anyone looking to fondly remember kennesaw mountain landis or cy young.  theyre becoming pariahs.

 

[Toddwert]

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/effectively-wild-episode-2170-making-it-official/

 Then (1:02:12) they talk to official MLB historian John Thorn and Negro Leagues researcher Larry Lester about MLB adding Negro Leagues stats to its official major league historical record, pensions for surviving Negro Leagues players, the East-West Classic, and more, plus a few follow-ups

 

a good discussion about the negro league stats ... starts about the 1:02 mark

[chasfh]

19 minutes ago, buddha said:

you didnt say "likely" before.  you said Baseball embraced it.  i dont see any evidence that Baseball or baseball embraced anything.  i just see an article about a baseball player, the same way there are articles about almost every book written about a famous old player.

if anything, sports organizations trip over themselves to discredit their racist past and racist former players.  they go out of their way to "honor" and remember black and other non-white players no matter what their actual contributions were.  its good for business in 2024.

in many ways, its a much needed correction considering the long history of mistreatment.  but i dont think Baseball has made any attempt to institutionally rehabilitate ty cobb or any other past person whose reputation has become one of abject racism.  i dont see anyone looking to fondly remember kennesaw mountain landis or cy young.  theyre becoming pariahs.

 

Baseball did embrace it—you yourself linked to an article on the MLB website that is completely and wholeheartedly accepting of Leerhsen's side of the story.

Baseball likely did so because it's advantageous for them to gloss over Cobb's actual documented behavior that clearly portrays him as a virulent racist to the point that he injured people because of it, and portraying him as lied about and misunderstood instead. That way, fans can celebrate his historical accomplishments without feeling icky about it. And that's good for the business of baseball.

[buddha]

22 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Baseball did embrace it—you yourself linked to an article on the MLB website that is completely and wholeheartedly accepting of Leerhsen's side of the story.

Baseball likely did so because it's advantageous for them to gloss over Cobb's actual documented behavior that clearly portrays him as a virulent racist to the point that he injured people because of it, and portraying him as lied about and misunderstood instead. That way, fans can celebrate his historical accomplishments without feeling icky about it. And that's good for the business of baseball.

as i previously said, they talked about a book written about a player.

they do that all the time.  its not an effort to rehabilitate anyone.  its content for a website and publicity for a book.

youre making it into some conspiracy about Baseball because you dont like the people that run baseball.

[chasfh]

14 hours ago, buddha said:

as i previously said, they talked about a book written about a player.

they do that all the time.  its not an effort to rehabilitate anyone.  its content for a website and publicity for a book.

youre making it into some conspiracy about Baseball because you dont like the people that run baseball.

Objection, badgering the witness. 😉

 

 

Edited May 30 by chasfh

[Tiger337]

Pointing out that a large business promotes things to their advantage even if they aren't true is hardly a conspiracy!

[buddha]

51 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Pointing out that a large business promotes things to their advantage even if they aren't true is hardly a conspiracy!

i think most people dont care about ty cobb or his legacy other than baseball history geeks like myself.

i cant imagine baseball folks sitting around thinking "you know what would be a great idea?  talk about how ty cobb was wronged!"

[Tiger337]

4 minutes ago, buddha said:

i think most people dont care about ty cobb or his legacy other than baseball history geeks like myself.

i cant imagine baseball folks sitting around thinking "you know what would be a great idea?  talk about how ty cobb was wronged!"

I agree that most people don't care.  We do this a lot on this site - history geeks, stat geeks, political geeks making a big deal out of something 90% of the policy doesn't care about.  It's why I come here though!

Edited May 30 by Tiger337

[chasfh]

To be clear, I'm not saying anything like, this has always been a conspiracy by Baseball to "Disneyfy" itself by exonerating all its bad actors. But Leerhsen did drop an opportunity in Baseball's lap to draw people's attention away from Cobb's violent behavior by casting doubt on it, which Baseball does benefit from. Because when people become confused about someone's issue—was Cobb a violent racist like I've heard all these years, or was that all a big lie?—they compensate by putting the issue out of their mind and focusing on the things about the people they do know, and bonus, can like and celebrate. Cobb is a core part of baseball history, but Baseball can't market the #1 takeaway fans have about Cobb, so once people stop thinking about that part of him, Baseball can then can comfortably market Cobb as one of the all-time greats of baseball history who fans can love without having to feel icky about it. It's not anything like a conspiracy, or even a plan, concocted by Baseball. I don't think it's even something that's in the back of their minds at any given moment. I think it's a case of, if the opportunity happens to present itself, they could take advantage of it if/when the moment is right.

FWIW, I think Baseball would love to be able to so that with Pete Rose, too, since so much of Pete Rose on the field was so easy to enjoy and would make for great highlights, especially since they have so much video of the guy. But he's a harder case because his sin was against the game of baseball itself, and it was Baseball that made him permanently ineligible, so if they tried to celebrate Pete in any way, they'd have some 'splainin' to do.

 

 

Edited May 30 by chasfh

[Tiger337]

41 minutes ago, chasfh said:

FWIW, I think Baseball would love to be able to so that with Pete Rose, too, since so much of Pete Rose on the field was so easy to enjoy and would make for great highlights, especially since they have so much video of the guy. But he's a harder case because his sin was against Baseball itself, and it was Baseball that made him permanently ineligible, so if they tried to celebrate Pete in any way, they'd have some 'splainin' to do.

 

 

They already have some 'splainin' to do with their constant promotion of betting on the game.  I understand that pushing fans to gamble on the game is not the same as a manager betting on the game, but the hypocrisy is too deep to ignore.   

Edited May 30 by Tiger337

[chasfh]

2 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

They already have some 'splainin' to do with their constant promotion of betting on the game.  I understand that pushing fans to gamble on the game is not the same as a manager betting on the game, but the hypocirisy is too deep to ignore.   

I wish they did, and that their embrace of gambling hurt them in any way. But all it's doing is bringing people to the game who weren't paying attention to it before, and that's good for their bottom line. After all, you and I are in something like the 98th-percentile of fandom, as well as on the far end of the hate spectrum of gambling in baseball, and it's not as though either of us are boycotting the game in protest of it.