Advice on Researching Negro League history

[jerseygary]

The Seamheads stats are compiled from verified box scores and game accounts against Negro league (loose term for other top-level Black baseball teams). You have to remember that top Blackball teams back in Redding's day played most of their games against white semi-pro and town teams. In Redding's day, games against other top Black teams were usually only scheduled once or twice a week, simply because there weren't that many of them, and the games against the white teams were more lucrative.

Plus, you have to remember that although all pre-Jackie Robinson Black baseball teams are called "The Negro Leagues", There were gaps in which there was no established league, and some teams like many of the ones Cannonball Redding played for were non-league teams, preferring to stay independent because there was more money playing white semi-pro teams.

So when someone writes that Redding pitched 30 no-hitters, you have to think that he was probably pitching against a town team from Wallington, NJ, a shoe company sponsored team or other semi-pro club. To really see how Redding or any of his contemporaries matched up against top-drawer talent, look how he did against teams of barnstorming major minor leaguers or a really good semi-pro team loaded with ex or future big leaguers like the Brooklyn Bushwicks or Paterson Silk Sox.

Because of lack of comprehensive newspaper coverage at the time, the exploits of those old Blackball guys became more and more distorted through oral re-telling. All the recent research kind of knocks them back to size again, dispelling long held myths like Josh Gibson hit 72 home runs in a year and all that. Does it diminish their level of play - no, not at all - but it puts them in better focus.

Negro League research and trying to figure out how good they really were gets really murky, but if you try hard enough, it starts to get at least a little clearer. You might want to pick up a copy of Scott Simkus' book "Outsider Baseball". He really gets into the statistical analysis of the Negro Leagues and comparing them against white players of the era. Personally I think Simkus' book is the most important baseball history book to come along in a decade and I highly recommend it.

To get back to Redding, his Seamhead stats might not match up to the hype published about him in older books, but you have to understand how the teams he played for operated, which was completely different than white major and minor league play. You'll never have a clear line of stats that can compare to Walter Johnson's entry in the Baseball Encyclopedia, but with creative research, contemporary accounts and some hard work you can get an idea of how those guys match up.