Bud's not my favorite, but I think that particular argument (in the quoted passage) is sensible.

There were a few Hispanic players in Ruth's day, but the point is still valid.

"And the other day a player called me and said I should re-analyze Ruth. After all, there were no African-Americans or Hispanic players in those days."

And then "that player" moved on to argue that the media was biased against him because he was black, followed by a lengthy dissertation on the state and functionality of his testicles.

None? None at all? Then who were those guys in the Negro leagues?
They were guys in the Negro leagues, and not in the American and National Leagues.

Paging Admiral Ackbar, Admiral Ackbar to the steriod thread stat.

Who would be complaining to Selig 'bout the brothers being frozen out?

Maybe one of the many brothers currently in MLB? Or one of the many many Hispanics?

You assume it's your windmill.

Let's blame Doug Glanville!

So, does that mean that their statistics were suspect because they played against inferior competition?
Whose stats? Negro leaguers, or those in the AL and NL?

And the other day a player called me and said I should re-analyze Ruth. After all, there were no African-Americans or Hispanic players in those days.

Dolf Luque says hi.

good lord kevin...are you seriously arguing that the level of competition in MLB didn't increase after 1947, or just trolling?

I think kevin is just pointing out that even when Bud's right about something, he still finds a way to screw it up.

The level of competition in MLB did not suddenly and dramatically increase in 1947. Obviously, it took over a decade for MLB to come close to being fully integrated and for the effects of integration on the playing environment to take hold.

Personally, I think Bud just made this up, anyway. Does anyone really think that players call up the commissioner just to chat about asterisks? Well, maybe Curt Schilling has the commish on his speed dial, but I doubt that too many others do.

Besides, everybody knows that Ruth was black. :)

The level of competition in MLB did not suddenly and dramatically increase in 1947. Obviously, it took over a decade for MLB to come close to being fully integrated and for the effects of integration on the playing environment to take hold.

True, but that's just semantics. Selig simply should have said "after" instead of "in."

So, does that mean that their statistics were suspect because they played against inferior competition?

It means many records would not have been made by white players from the mid-1880's to 1947 if African-American records had been allowed to play.

The level of competition in MLB did not suddenly and dramatically increase in 1947. Obviously, it took over a decade for MLB to come close to being fully integrated and for the effects of integration on the playing environment to take hold.

Without question, though as you point out, we know what Selig was saying (God I hate sticking up for that clown!)

It means many records would not have been made by white players from the mid-1880's to 1947 if African-American records had been allowed to play.

What about records made by mixed race combos, such as Benny Goodman's?

What about records made by mixed race combos, such as Benny Goodman's?

Let them try asterisking Hampton and Krupa! :-)

The thing that frustrates me about the argument that says that pre-1947, a.k.a. "old and white," records are automatically suspect because of the exclusion of most non-whites is that it ignores the fact that there were half as many teams then as now. While the post-Jackie Robinson MLB was open for the first time to maybe 12-15% of the population, there is a countervailing point to be made that the white players of yore were even more the cream of the white crop than is the case today.

Obviously, if you eliminated African-American players from today's MLB, the talent pool would be drastically reduced. But if you then reduced the number of teams by 50%, would the resulting small, whites-only league be as competitive (i.e., difficult for a minor league prospect to break into), more competitive or less competitive than the big tent we have now? I'm not looking to start a racial flame war, BTW, I'm genuinely curious what people think.

The thing that frustrates me about the argument that says that pre-1947, a.k.a. "old and white," records are automatically suspect because of the exclusion of most non-whites is that it ignores the fact that there were half as many teams then as now.

And your argument ignores the fact that there was much less than half as much of a talent pool to draw from when filling those teams. As a ratio of roster slots to available talent, baseball is more exclusive now.

(Of course, population sizes aren't everything, or China would have all the top ballplayers in the world. But certainly as a first order measure, it doesn't make sense to look at the raw number of teams without looking at the population from which those teams are drawing.)

Paging Admiral Ackbar, Admiral Ackbar to the steriod thread stat.

Which one? They're everywhere.

But certainly as a first order measure, it doesn't make sense to look at the raw number of teams without looking at the population from which those teams are drawing.

You'd actually look at the baseball-playing population, or, more specifically, the baseball-playing population that the MLB scouting community is aware of.

It would end up being a very complicated equation. On the one hand, a larger percentage of the young male population in the U.S. was playing baseball in 1947. Baseball was the premiere sport sixty years ago, and interest as a whole has waned since then. Modern athletes have many more options in terms of sports to pursue.

On the other hand, scouting techniques have become much more sophisticated (although there's still a ways to go in terms of scouting coverage), and they're finding talent in places not even dreamed of in the past.

The thing that frustrates me about the argument that says that pre-1947, a.k.a. "old and white," records are automatically suspect because of the exclusion of most non-whites is that it ignores the fact that there were half as many teams then as now.

I don't think Selig's argument ignores that. I think the quote "At this point there’s no rational, objective way to judge anybody," accurately states the difficulty of cross-era comparisons. As much as I hate to defend Selig, I don't think he needs to state every reason why those comparisons are difficult to make his point.

On the one hand, a larger percentage of the young male population in the U.S. was playing baseball in 1947. Baseball was the premiere sport sixty years ago, and interest as a whole has waned since then. Modern athletes have many more options in terms of sports to pursue.

Modern athletes also have the option of coming from Latin America, Japan, Korea, etc. :-)

Moreover I'm not so sure about the idea that a smaller percentage of the population was playing baseball then than now. How many high schools had teams in those days? How many 16 year-old kids were stuck in factory or farm jobs all day long?

There were a ton more minor-league teams in those days, but college baseball was minimal (or unimportant).

Anyway, objections aside, I suspect the US talent pool as a percent of eligible population is smaller than it used to be but that is more than made up by talent from other baseball-mad parts of the world.

As to asterisks, here's what I'll say. There is no good solution to this ... but asterisks would have to be about the worst. What exactly would that mean? "We think (sometimes know) this guy used for some unknown period of time with some unknown impact on performance, so we don't think this should be the real record but we're too wimpy to actually say it's not the real record"? Either throw up your hands and say "not much we can do" or say "anyone confirmed to have used steroids is out of the record book."

And even if Bonds is the despicable egotistical cheat that some believe, I can't see him calling Selig. Even despicable cheats have standards, especially egotistical ones.

For once I completely agree with Selig.

Asterisks are not only pointess, but I think they'd damage the integrity of the records more than they'd help them. Since all numbers are products of their times, how should the record books choose which ones to asterisk and which ones not to? Simple- they shouldn't. They should list numbers exactly as they happened, just like they always have. It's up to the experts, voters, and fans to determine for themselves which era inflated record is really the most impressive.

They should asterisk all stats made by mixed ballplayers whose parents were married before Loving v. Virginia in states where anti-miscegination laws were still in full effect. After all, these jerks should not benefit from their parents flaunting the fair and just laws of the land for their own selfish love of another human being who happened to be the wrong color.

I'd say welcome to Groundhog Day, except that I find myself agreeing with Nieporent. So I know it must be a new day.

I'd like to hook Selig up to a lie detector and start grilling him about exactly which player "called me and said I should re-analyze Ruth." Even if the lie detector were just plugged into a sandbox, I'd love to see that lying motherfukker squirm, since you know that this story was invented by one of his dimmer flunkies. You'd have to believe in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, and Barry's story about flaxseed oil in order to be dumb enough to swallow this apocryphal bit of self-serving nonsense.

To pick the obvious example, does everyone really think that it's incomprehensible that Joe Morgan would call Bud Selig after the Barry Bonds "press conference" and put that question to him as a way to stave off asterisk talk? I'm not saying it happened, but I wouldn't be shocked for a retired ballplayer with some loyalty toward Barry doing that.

The position that Selig is an awful commissioner is a reasonable one, maybe the only reasonable position. The position though that everything Selig does is therefore stupid and wrong is an excuse not to think.

To pick the obvious example, does everyone really think that it's incomprehensible that Joe Morgan would call Bud Selig after the Barry Bonds "press conference" and put that question to him as a way to stave off asterisk talk? I'm not saying it happened, but I wouldn't be shocked for a retired ballplayer with some loyalty toward Barry doing that.

Look, this rhetorical question about pre-1947 asterisks has been raised so many times in public and in threads on this site that it's not incomprehensible that someone, perhaps even Morgan, would agree with it. What I do find both incomprehensible and unbelievable is that any real "player" ever raised this issue in private with Bud Selig. If you're going to bring up the point, it makes infinitely more sense to do it in public, like Bonds himself did. It's not as if "Morgan" (or whoever) would think it rude to do so---and anyone who believes in the segregation / steroids comparison has an infinite number of public forums available. I just think this "conversation" is a flat-out piece of BS which Selig made up in order to give himself a strawman to debate with.

The crime of segregated baseball didn't have anything to do with the exclusion of superior talent. It was civil rights issue that men should be allowed to work and ply their trade anywhere they wished.

It was both a civil rights issue and a talent exclusion issue.

The records compiled by Ruth et al aren't "suspect," but reasonable acknowledgment of the talent pool that supports MLB in every era is necessary to understand and interpret every player's performance. The quality of competition in MLB has certainly not been constant over time; it's very clear that for many reasons, integration chief among them, the quality of competition in Ruth's era was meaningfully lower than it is today.

What I do find both incomprehensible and unbelievable is that any real "player" ever raised this issue in private with Bud Selig.

Why not? Some might feel it's worth the while influencing the dim-witted nincompoop that sits on the throne. You only have to stand speaking to a slimy slug for five minutes, then you're set!

If you're going to bring up the point, it makes infinitely more sense to do it in public, like Bonds himself did.

Does it really? A five minute telephone conversation in private seems like less effort to me. And you wouldn't get ridiculed on BTF...

And really, if you're a fairly obscure player, working behind the scenes is all you can do.

Given the above, I think we can finally establish that the 1950s were the golden age of baseball, no matter when you were 12. No expansion yet and essentially two major leagues worth of players merged into one.

Olie Olssen,

I'd believe all this if Selig had just named the player, which of course he didn't, and he won't, because there was no such player.

And goddamit, Kevin and Treder, I don't have time to get into this swamp today, especially when I agree with Treder and not one of the leading members of my 'Union.' But then again, if Jerry can have "an alliance" with Newman....

Kevin, just think of it this way: Take the 50 worst players out of the Majors from say, 1935, and replace them with the 50 best Negro Leaguers. You can't possibly say that this wouldn't have affected the level of competition in the Majors.

You're both making the false assumption that, had the Negro leagues not existed and the major leagues allowed blacks to play, then everyone of the best black players would have ended up on a major league roster.

In the 1950s, the Negro leagues did exist (although in increasingly tattered fashion), and it is a near-certainty that every one of the best black players ended up on a major league roster.

If baseball had remained segregated through the 1950s, then Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, Satchel Paige, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, Minnie Minoso, Luke Easter, Monte Irvin, Hank Thompson, Sam Jethroe, Willie Mays, George Crowe, Bill Bruton, Connie Johnson, Ernie Banks, Vic Power, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Frank Robinson, Orlando Cepeda, Vada Pinson, Bob Gibson, and Willie McCovey would not have played an inning of major league ball in that decade.

It's completely preposterous to suggest that their absence would not have yielded a lower quality of competition.

Being a great player is first about having the opportunity to play. If you don't get the opportunity to play, your talent lies on fallow ground.

Please expand on how playing in the minors would have caused their talent not to develop. Wouldn't this have given them the opportunity to play?

Why is that the wrong way? If the owners had woke up in 1935 instead of 1947 and said, "We could make a lot more money and if we weren't so fricking racist," it's exactly what would have happened.

Your assumptions work in reverse as well--maybe if it was that much more competitive to be a major league ballplayer, Babe Ruth would have given up before making the majors, Ty Cobb and Cap Anson would've been told to stick it if they wouldn't pay with black players, or Barry Bonds would have been less competitive if his father hadn't faced racism when he was a kid.

The point is not that Ruth would have sucked if he had to play again black ballplayers. The point is that anyone can come up with a hypothetical scenario when their favorite player or ethnicity would win out.

The only generalizations we can make across eras are broad ones--mathematically, the major sports pull from a much larger range of potential players than they ever did and that makes it likely that they have a greater talent pool now than ever. Looking at raw stats, human beings run faster and are stronger than ever. The knowledge on the game, in part to sabermetrics, but really all brands of study about the game is deeper than ever.

All of these point to a higher level of play now than in any previous era.

There were many african-american professional players in existence then who wouldn't have had a chance to play for pay if not for the Negro leagues. In that sense, the lesser black players "benefitted" from that system.

and then...

Being a great player is first about having the opportunity to play. If you don't get the opportunity to play, your talent lies on fallow ground.

If the black players were good enough to be stars, why wouldn't they have made MLB rosters? We're talking about the better players here, not the lesser ones. Surely, good pitchers replace the replacement level pitchers and have good hitters replace the replacement level hitters would reduce Ruth's stats (both raw and advanced).

More importantly, why does it have to be assumed that all of the black players would have played in the majors? Wouldn't some being excluded mean there was less talent?

It's not about punishing white playres from that era or being suspect of their stats. It's about taking context into consideration.

I'd believe all this if Selig had just named the player, which of course he didn't, and he won't, because there was no such player.

For the life of me I can't see why Andy is harping on this. Who carse if this actually happened. Whether a real player called, or whether it was simply a rhetorical device to bring up the subject, what does it matter? How does it have any bearing on the larger point?

All of these point to a higher level of play now than in any previous era.

Certainly, in addition to the significant issue of how dramatic improvements in sports medicine and conditioning allow modern players to recover from injuries far better than ever before.

The percentage of black players in MLB has been slowly receding since the early seventies. Are you trying to tell me that, within one generation, the innate talent in the north american black population has been reduced so dramatically?

Of course not.

Or perhaps there are sociological factors afoot? Like expanded opportunities elsewhere, diminished interest in baseball, competition from other sports, competition form overseas etc.

Of course.

These same factors, or at least other similar ones, existed back in the 30's and 40's too.

Of course. They always do.

IMO, it was the Negro Leagues that made the players, not the other way around.

I don't know what this means. In any case, nothing you've said begins to refute the abundant evidence that the quality of competition in the major leagues is meaningfully greater today than in Ruth's era.

Of course, I'm not arguing that today's level of competition isn't meaningfully greater today than in Ruth's era so I don't know why you are bringing it up.

Well, sorry then, kevin, I thought you were. You said this:

I don't think having black players in baseball would have changed Ruth's numbers one iota, all else being equal.

Which is a statement that doesn't stand up to logical scrutiny.

Please forgive me for being a bit confused as to exactly what it is you're asserting. :-)

IMO, it was the Negro Leagues that made the players, not the other way around.

How did the Negro Leagues make the players, but the AL and NL didn't?

I'd believe all this if Selig had just named the player, which of course he didn't, and he won't, because there was no such player.

For the life of me I can't see why Andy is harping on this. Who carse if this actually happened. Whether a real player called, or whether it was simply a rhetorical device to bring up the subject, what does it matter? How does it have any bearing on the larger point?

There is no larger point here, and I never said that there was. There is only the simple observation that Selig likely pulled a conversation out of his arse in order to debate a strawman, sort of like Ronald Reagan debating the welfare Cadillac woman. If you mean the larger point about steroid asterisks, please note that I haven't addressed this issue myself today. We both know how we stand on this subject, unless you've changed your mind in the past week or so.

The influx of black players in the 40's and fifties was partly due to the socioligical artifact of having a separate professional league (the Negro Leagues) around that was signing and developing players. Without the Negro leagues, a great many of those players might have chosen a different line of work.

I think Danny's point in 48 answers this. If a league makes the players in some sense, then both (1) the AL and NL would have made black players as well as white, and (2) it would be true that the leagues made Ruth and other white players.

Ruth would have done just as well, all things being equal.

Sorry, but this statement does not stand up to logical scrutiny, once you think about it a bit.

What does the "all things being equal" proviso mean? If the major leagues had been integrated in Ruth's time, all things would not have been equal to how they were. They would have been different; that's the entire issue.

It's an abundantly clear empirical fact, beyond any rational dispute, that the influx of players of color into MLB in the 1950s meaningfully improved the quality of competition. That's another way of saying the quality of competition before integration was lower. You can't have one without the other. Integration isn't the only factor impacting quality of competition, but it's certainly a major one.

And since integration plainly did improve the quality of MLB competition, then it simply stands to reason that if MLB had been integrated in Ruth's era, Ruth wouldn't have "done just as well." He'd have done damn well, of course, he'd have been a megastar under any circumstances. But it's folly to believe that the precise statistics he put up were not a function of his precise competitive conditions -- just as they are for every player at all times.

Had black pitchers been able to compete for major league jobs in the 1920s/30s, major league pitching staffs would have been better than they were. It isn't plausible to assert otherwise. And if pitching staffs had been better than they were, Ruth (and everyone else) would not have put up quite the exact numbers he did. There is simply no rational way to dispute this.

This isn't to disparage Ruth or his contemporaries in any way. It's simply to acknowledge reality.

Bravo, Steve. Now if you can only recognize that steroids can affect comparative records as well...

But that's for a past and future thread, since I'm outta here for the afternoon.

Bravo, Steve. Now if you can only recognize that steroids can affect comparative records as well...

EVERYTHING affects comparative records, always. Steroids are no exception.

The fool's errand is attempting to disentangle whatever impact steroids specifically have from the myriad of other things going on for any particular record of any particular player (other PEDs, conditioning, nutrition, sports medicine, who's using what, how much, when, etc. etc.), along with the always-present pool-of-talent dynamics.

Putting an asterisk on any record is a vacuous exercise. EVERYTHING is a function of its conditions. It would make far more sense to put an asterisk on every record than to attempt to decide which records deserve an asterisk -- and of course putting an asterisk on everything is exactly the same as putting an asterisk on nothing.

EVERY raw number always requires interpretation and assessment and valuation. That's what analysts and fans do, and it's what makes the game interesting. It isn't what record-keepers do; their job is to record what happened, no matter what our opinion of it.

Don't you think the major leagues had something to do with developing quality of competition?

Of course they did -- as they would have had the majors been integrated earlier.

[i/]The best black players in the fifties were not the ones who emerged from the Negro leayges, they were the ones who were developed by the major league clubs, like Aaron and Mays and Banks.

This is factually incorrect. Aaron, Mays, and Banks all were originally signed, and played extensively, in the Negro League. Banks was a major Negro League star, who went directly to the Cubs from the Negro League without an inning in the minors.

Not if you think about it a little more deeply.

No, kevin. A faulty premise is a faulty premise. Think about it all day long and it's still a faulty premise.

Well fine, but I'm not here to split hairs. If you want to take 10 HRs off of Ruth's total, go ahead.

I don't want to take 10 HRs off Ruth's total. I don't know to what extent the whites-only conditions he played under influenced his statistics, and neither do you. It might be 10 HRs, it might be 100. Acknowledging this isn't splitting hairs, it's dealing with reality.

The major leagues have been integrated for almost 60 years now. The best black pitcher in the majors over all that time was probably Bob Gibson. Nobody would put Gibson on their top 10 list. In fact, there has been a noticable paucity of great black pitchers.

I would put Pedro Martinez ahead of Gibson. But yes, there has been a paucity of great black pitchers in the majors compared to the number of great black hitters. Exactly why is a complicated question, unavoidably involving racist stereotypes on the part of coaches and organizations.

This doesn't change at all the proposition that the inclusion of players of color in the talent pool increases the quality of competition, at all positions.

But I don't think it changed the quality of competition much at all.

You've yet to present anything approaching compelling evidence for this.

was trolling a little but I have a problem with the idea that the pre-1947 numbers are suspect because of a Jim Crow policy in baseball, RP.

I don't think having black players in baseball would have changed Ruth's numbers one iota, all else being equal.


A little bit ? This is part\ for the course. If you assume logically that the inclusion of African-American and Hispanic players raises the base talent level, Ruth's stat's are almost certain to have been reduced (due to the improved level of pitching talent) both in counting measures and in rate measures (higher talent, Ruth less likely to be an outlier). Its not rocket science.

Interesting. I was wondering about the pre-integration effects the other day.

Carry on.

Willie Mays started playing for the Birmingham Black Barons when he was 15, and signed with the Giants when he was 19. Not sure about Banks and Aaron, but I'm guessing their stories are similar.

As I see it, there is a huge problem with your argument, Kevin. Perhaps you could explain how you would answer:-

As you rightly point out, talent needs to develop. So performance = talent + development, in some way. And as you rightly point out, with or without integrated baseball, the amount of MLB opportunity for players in the 1930s to develop would be the same. The Negro leagues would not have existed, and all ballplayers, black and white, would have been developing through the minor leagues.

However, the initial levels of talent would be higher. The least talented (white) prospect in 1920 would now no longer be involved in organised baseball, but instead his place as a prospect would be taken by a more talented black prospect. And so on. So with integration, the players would be more able to take advantage of the development opportunities. And hence at the top level, the talent would be better.

So talking about development is irrelevant.

This seems very obvious to me, but perhaps you see things better than I do. I'm interested in your reply.

A little bit ? This is part\ for the course. If you assume logically that the inclusion of African-American and Hispanic players raises the base talent level, Ruth's stat's are almost certain to have been reduced (due to the improved level of pitching talent) both in counting measures and in rate measures (higher talent, Ruth less likely to be an outlier). Its not rocket science.

I agree. The white stars definitely would not have stood out to the same degree as they actually did pre-1947. I can't see a reasonable argument against that.

It doesn't answer it because it misses the obvious addendum that the reduction of the Negro leagues would have meant less opportunity for everyone, hence there would have been less stars.

No, Danny made the point first, but everyone else is saying essentially the same thing: the real losers would have been the marginally talented white players who had jobs in the 20s but lost those jobs in the 50s.

I think, if you want to boil this argument down, it's a nature vs nurture thing. With regard to baseball-playing ability, I side strongly on the nurture side.

No, it's not. It's stupidity versus reason. You're arguing that black players only developed because they played in the Negro Leagues. Everyone else is saying that the black players (some, all...it doesn't matter) would have developed playing in MLB. Why is it that you think a player like Ruth would develop in MLB, but Josh Gibson (if given the opportunity) wouldn't? It makes no sense.

Willie Mays started playing for the Birmingham Black Barons when he was 15, and signed with the Giants when he was 19. Not sure about Banks and Aaron, but I'm guessing their stories are similar.

Banks played for the Kansas City Monarchs beginning at age 17. Aaron played for two years with the Indianapolis Clowns.

With regard to baseball-playing ability, I side strongly on the nurture side.

I do too. That has utterly nothing to do with the impact a larger talent pool has on the quality of competition, in baseball or anything else in the world.

Why is it that you think a player like Ruth would develop in MLB, but Josh Gibson (if given the opportunity) wouldn't? It makes no sense.

That's a good point. It seems to me that if kevin's argument is that without segregated leagues, "some potential [white] stars would have been bumped", that would point even more to putting asterisks on pre-1947 records since who knows if Ruth would even have made it to Major League Baseball.

Not that I buy kevin's basic argument, but it certainly looks to me like that's where it's going.

I really don't think kevin's basic point is all that hard to see. The Negro Leagues flourished precisely because of the exclusion of blacks from MLB, and they had their own scouting and development system. The assumption that every single person who had an opportunity to develop in the Negro Leagues would have had a similar shot in an integrated MLB is clearly erroneous. The point is that integrated baseball would have meant fewer opportunities for both blacks and whites. This argument doesn't mean that the overall talent level wouldn't have been higher in integrated baseball, but it does mean that you can never know exactly how many (or which) blacks would have chosen and succeeded at careers in baseball.

So while I would say that he's overstating his case by quite a bit, I wouldn't say that his argument makes no sense.

The assumption that every single person who had an opportunity to develop in the Negro Leagues would have had a similar shot in an integrated MLB is clearly erroneous. The point is that integrated baseball would have meant fewer opportunities for both blacks and whites.

"Organized" baseball, including MLB and its National Association-sanctioned minor league system, offered far better pay and development opportunity for black players than the Negro Leagues ever did. The Negro Leagues were a ramshackle, barely-organized affiliation of teams, poorly capitalized and always on the brink of financial collapse. They offered crappy career opportunity for all but the few greatest stars.

The post-1947 era provided far greater motivation and opportunity for players of color (both American-born and Latin American) than they had ever known before. Integration undoubtedly increased the proportion of young men of color who pursued professional baseball.

The point is that integrated baseball would have meant fewer opportunities for both blacks and whites. This argument doesn't mean that the overall talent level wouldn't have been higher in integrated baseball, but it does mean that you can never know exactly how many (or which) blacks would have chosen and succeeded at careers in baseball.

Sure, but you could make this argument about any point in time. There's always a player somewhere who might be missed. There will never be a situation in which all the players with the most natural ability actually play in the majors.

The only question is whether that would be more true for some reason if integration had occurred earlier. I see no reason to believe that -- if it were true, then that same effect should have occurred in the 50s and 60s, yet what's the evidence for that?

Hmm, I translated Kevin differently than Dooley did.

It sounded to me as though he represents that without segregated leagues, the total number of opportunities is smaller, and the lost opportunities don't necessarily come off the bottom of the talent pool.

To phrase the question in a more modern context: where does Mike Piazza rank among the all time hitting catchers if there aren't enough opportunities for 62 rounds of draftees to share?

Kevin, did I get it right?

And of course they were all major stars right away. Willie Mays could do at 15 what Joe DiMaggio couldn't do until he was 25.

What does this have to do with anything? The point is that they were regulars in the negro leagues before moving over to the majors, and would have stayed in the negro leagues if the color barrier hadn't been lifted. no integration, no Mays, Aaron, and Banks in MLB. No Mays, Aaron, and Banks in MLB, less talent and competition overall.

Sure, VoU, but the issue remains: that chance always exists in MLB; why would it be any different if integration had occurred in the 20s rather than the 50s?

It doesn't answer it because it misses the obvious addendum that the reduction of the Negro leagues would have meant less opportunity for everyone, hence there would have been less stars.

Even assuming that there would have been 'less opportunity for everyone,' which is hardly a given (if blacks were playing in organized ball, then there'd be increased fan support for organized ball; more demand can mean more supply), it's certainly not 'obvious' that this means fewer stars.

Don't you think the major leagues had something to do with developing quality of competition? The best black players in the fifties were not the ones who emerged from the Negro leayges, they were the ones who were developed by the major league clubs, like Aaron and Mays and Banks.

Not only is this factually wrong -- they all came out of the Negro Leagues -- but it's a flawed measure, since MLB wasn't taking a random sampling of talent from the Negro Leagues; one can't draw a conclusion about the distribution of talent from a biased sample.

Moreover, you can't have it both ways. You can't claim that the majors develop talent rather than players having ability, and then cite as an example players who had demonstrated their talent from the very beginning, long before the majors had a chance to develop them.

In fact, looking back, I don't understand your point at all. On the one hand, you argue that it's the opportunity to play that makes talented players -- and that, hence, without the Negro Leagues there may not have been so many talented black players -- and yet on the other hand you cite people who (you incorrectly thought) weren't given an opportunity to play in the Negro Leagues.


I don't think innate talent is a major factor in how good a player is. Most of it is applied dilligence over a period of years, resulting in mastery of the requisite skills.

(Except for Bonds. For him, it's steroids, right?)

You can't be serious. Watch some lower level ball -- I'm not just talking about the minors; I'm including high school and below. Long before the "years" of "applied diligence," there's a clear and massive difference between talent levels of players. There's no way on earth that the elite players don't get signed if there's no color line.

It sounded to me as though he represents that without segregated leagues, the total number of opportunities is smaller, and the lost opportunities don't necessarily come off the bottom of the talent pool.

They don't necessarily come from the bottom, but they're likely to. Talent evaluation is not random, and it never was. Sure, it's not perfect, and it was probably farther from perfect back then. Still, 100 top prospects will turn out a whole lot better than 100 random minor leaguers. No one is saying every Negro League star would have flourished in MLB. We're saying that an influx of new talent, which blacks and (many) Latinos would have provided, would have resulted in a more talented league.

The fact that not every one of them would be selected out as amateurs only affects the matter of the degree--not the underlying point. Go back to Kevin's assertion: I don't think having black players in baseball would have changed Ruth's numbers one iota, all else being equal. That's just not defensible. One Satchel Paige in the league would change his numbers. Surely, having some of the best balck pitchers and some of the black hitters in the league would change his raw and context adjusted numbers.

Kevin, you do a poor Backlasher imitation. The fact that two people you dislike disagree with you doesn't mean they're following each other around. Andy and Mark both disagree with you, as well. In fact, Mark has twice in this thread pointed out how I've shown your arguments to be without merit. None of your childish insults give your argument validity.

You can't be serious. Watch some lower level ball -- I'm not just talking about the minors; I'm including high school and below. Long before the "years" of "applied diligence," there's a clear and massive difference between talent levels of players. There's no way on earth that the elite players don't get signed if there's no color line.

Kevin read a quote from Johnny Damon (a Red Sox player) that said this isn't true. So, clearly, you're wrong.

Don't you mean DRiPS, Kevin? Once again, poor imitation.

One Satchel Paige in the league would change his numbers.

Do you have DiPS to tell me how much, Danny?

You really are trying to channel BL or something.

Are you claiming that Satchel Paige wouldn't have been successful in the major leagues? Come on.

Because a contraction occurred in the fifties, Mark. The Negro leagues went out of business.

I'm now confused. This point helps me, not you. It means that the situation in the 50s is identical to what it would have been in the 20s if MLB had integrated then and no Negro Leagues had formed (there was an earlier Negro League, of course; this is hypothetical).

If you were right, then there should have been some increase in the number of deserving players who never made it to MLB. There seems to be no evidence of that, but it's essential to your argument. If that did NOT happen in the 50s, what reason is there to think it would have happened in the 20s?

Because a contraction occurred in the fifties, Mark. The Negro leagues went out of business.

I'm now confused. This point helps me, not you. It means that the situation in the 50s is identical to what it would have been in the 20s if MLB had integrated then and no Negro Leagues had formed (there was an earlier Negro League, of course; this is hypothetical).

If you were right, then there should have been some increase in the number of deserving players who never made it to MLB. There seems to be no evidence of that, but it's essential to your argument. If that did NOT happen in the 50s, what reason is there to think it would have happened in the 20s?

Obviously, I'm doubly confused.

Are you really that dumb, Kevin? I was (sarcastically) talking to David, the guy I quoted. I know the Damon quote is where you're getting this idea. I can practically see the gerbil spinning it's wheel in your head.

VOU: To phrase the question in a more modern context: where does Mike Piazza rank among the all time hitting catchers if there aren't enough opportunities for 62 rounds of draftees to share?
Kevin, did I get it right?

You might have summarized Kevin's point, but if you did, it doesn't support his argument. That's an argument against Babe Ruth (and hence in favor of an asterisk), not in favor of him.

If you reduce the number of opportunities but keep the talent pool the same size, you're more likely to miss out on any one individual player, of course. (Which could mean Ruth would have been the one not given a chance.) But that's an entirely different question than the effect on the overall level of play.

Moreover, if we desegregate organized ball, we're not "keeping the talent pool the same size." We're increasing it, from the perspective of the people in organized ball. Consider: if we reduce the draft to 50 rounds -- but begin signing Cuban players -- what are the effects on MLB?

Lose: one Mike Piazza. And lots of 60th round picks.
Gain: Lots of Cuban stars.

Is that a net gain or loss in the talent level of MLB? One great player missed. Bunches of great players added.

In fact, looking back, I don't understand your point at all.

This neatly sums up my reaction to kevin's entire thrust in this thread: it's incoherent.

Why is there such a disparity between the players than make the majors and the players that get drafted in the 1st round? You look at those BA lists and you wonder what they were somking to come up with those lists.

That's true at an individual level, but we're not talking about individuals. We're talking about overall talent levels. First round players do better than second round players who do better than third round players...

If the difference between players were primarily the minors/majors developing the players rather than the innate talent of the players, then either scouts would have to be doing an absolutely amazingly accurate job of predicting which players would work hard, or we'd expect to see future major league players distributed evenly across the draft.

And if the former, then why wouldn't that apply to the black prospects of the 1920s and 1930s also?

Lose: one Mike Piazza. And lots of 60th round picks.
Gain: Lots of Cuban stars.

Are you sure we lose Mike Piazza? I mean, the guy was a good enough hitter to find a job somewhere. This wasn't a guy that was going to go work on a farm to feed his family... his family was wealthy long before his career started.

If Piazza isn't drafted in 1988, don't you think he plays college ball somewhere? Maybe he doesn't convert to a catcher in college and so he's less impressive as, say, a poor defensive 1B. But a guy that skilled with any desire (and he must have been dedicated, to move from 62nd round pick to superstar) is going to sign on somewhere, and barring freak injury, you're going to see him in the majors someday.

To get back to Kevin's point about the ABA, major league baseball is very different from the NBA in that there are extensive minor leagues. Back in the 1920s, there were easily 100 minor league teams. The NBA, using colleges rather than the minors as a feeder, is not an apt comparison. As long as the minors were desegregated along with the majors, it's highly unlikely that players like Paige and Gibson and Charleston would have been overlooked.

"Organized" baseball, including MLB and its National Association-sanctioned minor league system, offered far better pay and development opportunity for black players than the Negro Leagues ever did.

I don't think this point can be overstated. The majors offered more money, more fame, more quality of life, and much more stability than the Negro Leagues did. If the majors had been offering the opportunities rather than the Negro Leagues, it's not hard to imagine people like Paul Robeson and Woody Strode and Kenny Washington turning into baseball players.

I know people who would play baseball for a living even if it paid minumum wage.

All of us know people who say things that we know aren't really true.

It's not hard to imagine wanting to play baseball rather than sharecrop or work the coalmines, no matter how little it paid.

For the umpteenth time in this thread, you undermine your own flimsy argument. If young men of color with the ability to play pro baseball were motivated to do it in the Negro Leagues -- which offered precious little in terms of pay or security -- then they would have been even more strongly motivated to do it in Organized Baseball. One of the ways in which integration served to increase quality of competition was by offering increased motivation for African-Americans to play pro ball, as well as, of course, black Latin Americans to come to the US.

Danny, I don't think you want to piss me off. You're not exactly laoaded for bear from the neck up, if you catch my drift.

glass houses and all that apply here I think.

Apparently, you don't understand what my point is.

On that, we wholeheartedly agree. :-)

I don't understand what your point is, and your assertion had MLB been integrated in the 1920s, its quality of competition wouldn't have been improved is rationally unsupportable.

Steve, now you're really showing your ignornace here.

The lame Backlasher imitation is getting a bit stale, kevin.

If people are willing to work at Walmart punching a cash register for minimum wage, they are certainly willing to play baseball for minimum wage.

People work for minimum wage because they have no other choice. I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but 99.9% of the time it's the case.

Playing professional baseball is extraordinarily difficult, stressful work. It requires constant travel, lots of out-of-pocket expenses (and especially in the old days, teams didn't begin to cover them all), endurance of extreme physical effort (especially for pitchers and catchers), the expectation of regular physical pain, the very real possiblity of frequent injury, constant competition for job status, almost no job security, and, except for a very, very small fraction, essentially no future.

If it were possible for teams to attract and retain players at minimum wage, they would do it. They can't, because people won't do that job for that kind of money, and they haven't since the very earliest days of professional baseball.

It's an attractive sentiment to say that you love to play ball so much that you'd do it for peanuts. But in truth virtually no one ever would.

So does the NBA, Boots. It's called the NCAA.

Which is why in that same paragraph, the part which you didn't quote, I used the word "colleges."

As I understand it, your contention is that people like M.L. Carr and Larry Brown wouldn't have had pro careers if not for the ABA, right? If the NBA had minor leagues, would those guys have quit playing after college, or would they have kept trying?

They must have had some credentials at that point, or they never would have gotten into the ABA. Surely, they would have been skilled enough to make it in a minor league, where they probably would have been noticed at some point.

I think this argument applies to the NFL more than any other league. Without the world league or arena football, two-time NFL MVP Kurt Warner would never have played pro football. It's not implausible to think that there was a quarterback out there in the '50s or '60s who got cut from an NFL team, like Johnny Unitas did, and never got another chance (unlike Unitas), despite having the skills to be one of the greatest ever.

This is like arguing with a Bush supporter. They aren't members of the "reality-based community," so logic and facts are irrelevant.

You might have summarized Kevin's point, but if you did, it doesn't support his argument.

That's not my fault.

The ariline pilots post is a joke right? The sill set for becoming an airling pilot is significantly more common than pro baseball player.

If you can imagine how many airplane pilots popped out of nowhere between 1920 and 1930, then you can begin to understand how the major leagues might have been able to find quality replacements for the black players they excluded prior to 1947.

No one is suggesting that white baseball was unable to find "quality replacements" for the black players they excluded. The issue is, very simply, this: were black players not excluded, there would have been a larger pool of candidates competing for every available spot. To blindly assert that a deeper talent pool and greater competition for jobs would not have yielded a higher general overall quality of play is something of a flat-earth society level of argument. Neither empirical data nor theoretical logic begins to support it.

<i>"The percentage of black players in MLB has been slowly receding since the early seventies. Are you trying to tell me that, within one generation, the innate talent in the north american black population has been reduced so dramatically?

Of course not."

But you can't have it both ways; you and Mark have time and again argued that it's "irrefutable" that availiable talent has increased with population. Nieporent, of all people, echoes my old point on China, and I still believe that if there were one notable Chinese player in the majors, you and Mark would say, "aha! now the talent pool includes 2 billion more people!" when it absolutely does not, but implies that of a population of 2 billion, an infintisimal percentage has made themselves -- or has been allowed by their society/culture's structure -- available to the talent pool.

The aim, of course, is to present as Fact your Theory that modern baseball is superior; and moreover, that baseball in 2006 is *inevitably* superior to baseball in 2005, which was in turn superior to that in 2004, and so on. IOW, the Panglossian thesis.

But it is *never* that cut and dried and there are few empircal facts available -- and that will not change until it can be quantified (and it can't be) how many people become interested in baseball now as opposed to previous eras. But then anecdotal evidence is completely against you on this count.

In fact, even if one takes as given your theory that athlectic ability remains relatively constant in any given population, it's even more likely that you're wrong, because your flaw is that you wish to minimalise the allure of other sports than baseball to youth. You'd be on more solid ground if football and soccer were not so popular. Other sports "steal" baseball players. Period. And they do so now far more than they ever did before.

I personally believe the talent pool was at its largest in the 60s and maybe early 70s in MLB, but the general talent pool (by which I mean, for MLB and the Negro Leagues together) was probably at its peak in the 40s-50s. That I can't prove this doesn't bother me; that you can't prove your theory yet so many consider it gospel does bother me.

Kevin, I have done my very best to go with you on this. But you haven't attempted seriously to address the objections people have raised. I really think you're just arguing for the sake of argument. Nurture may be more important that nature, but they both do matter.

Let's put it this way - do you think if in the 1920s they had said not only should players only be white, they should be white, blue eyed, right handed and have a small mole on their left cheek - do you think if that was the rule, that standards would still have been as high?

Restrictions lower the standard. It's obvious.

But you can't have it both ways; you and Mark have time and again argued that it's "irrefutable" that availiable talent has increased with population.

Have what both ways?

The proportion of American-born blacks (and American-born whites too) has declined in MLB over the past 30 years. Meanwhile the proportion of foreign-born players of all hues has skyrocketed.

Not only is the US population of young athletic males far greater than it was 30 years ago, so are the populations of many other countries, that MLB is drawing from far more readily than ever before. The feeder pool for MLB has grown far faster than the number of MLB jobs.

You'd be on more solid ground if football and soccer were not so popular. Other sports "steal" baseball players. Period. And they do so now far more than they ever did before.

They do. But professional baseball remains the most accessible sport for athletes of nonextravagant size, and it is the sport that promises the longest average career, and generally the best pay. There are many, many more professional baseball players in the US than pro football, basketball, hockey, or soccer players, and the typical MLB player is better paid than the typical football, hockey, or soccer player. Baseball is not played by the average Joe the way it was generations ago (in the US, anyway; it's played more avidly than ever in Latin America), but it is very seriously pursued by elite athletes. High-level youth baseball coaching clinics and academies are booming today as never before; college baseball today is played on a scale never seen before.

That I can't prove this doesn't bother me; that you can't prove your theory yet so many consider it gospel does bother me.

It isn't gospel, Retardo. It's logical assessment of the available evidence.

Unitas is a good example too, Boots.

I've read that Paul Brown had his eye on Unitas too, so in that instance, it might have been less a case of Unitas being overlooked, and more a case of the Steelers being idiots.

A little NFL trivia: The Steelers cut Johnny U. because he was blocked behind two other QBs, one of whom went on to be a long-time NFL team executive, and the other of whom went on to be a long-time NFL coach. Can you name them?

Again, I'm not apologising for excluding blacks. They deserved as much of a chance to play as anybody. But that's the real crime, a denial of human rights. The loss of qquaility was pretty minimal, if you ask me.

When people talk about the Negro league players, they always remember the stars but forget about the lousy players who wouldn't have gotten a chance to play at all except for Jim Crow.

Well, at least you cut the bulls*** and got to your real point.

But I just don't agree. Look at it this way -- would you concede that at least a few of the negro leaguers would have made it to the major leagues? (let's say 5%) If 5% of the negro league players make it to the majors, that means they would have displaced an equal number of white players. Why? Because they would have been better players (why else would they make it onto the rosters?) If 5% of the AL and NL was replaced with superior players, the talent level overall would have increased.

The exclusion of african americans only excluded 10-12%.

Practically speaking, the exclusion was of a far greater proportion than that.

10-12% of the total American population was (and is) African-American. But all segments of the American population don't pursue pro baseball careers equally. Baseball has always drawn predominantly from "working class" socioeconomic groups; essentially, young men who don't have many other viable career opportunities. People from affluent backgrounds, who can afford college and for whom secure, well-paying careers are accessible, rarely seriously pursue pro sports, which are extremely difficult, high-stress, low-security career pursuits -- that only leave the washed-out would-be pro ballplayer that much further behind his competitors for "real" jobs when he winds up with a sore arm at age 24.

African-Americans (and Latin Americans of color, whom you seem to consistently ignore here) were rarely in such circumstances. They represented (and still do) quite a bit more than 10-12% of the real feeder pool for pro baseball.

And that 10-12% can easily be made up for with extra training. So, the real decline was a lot less tah 10%.

Really.

When people talk about the Negro league players, they always remember the stars but forget about the lousy players who wouldn't have gotten a chance to play at all except for Jim Crow.

I don't know whether people do this or not, but in any case it has no bearing on the issue of integration's positive impact on the quality of competition in MLB.

if there were one notable Chinese player in the majors, you and Mark would say, "aha! now the talent pool includes 2 billion more people!"

Nah. In fact Steve and I have both argued to the contrary. It's our position that the talent increase took place gradually over a period of 20 years or so. It also occurred first in the NL, then in the AL.

you and Mark have time and again argued that it's "irrefutable" that availiable talent has increased with population.

I like to think our argument is more sophisticated than that. Of course, I like to think that of all my arguments.

Here's the problem: it's one thing to say that increasing population increases competition (which I do generally say), and another altogether to say (as kevin is) that increasing population might/would decrease competition. Even if I were wrong, it certainly would not follow that kevin is right. We're only discussing that narrower point here.

In fact, even if one takes as given your theory that athlectic ability remains relatively constant in any given population, it's even more likely that you're wrong, because your flaw is that you wish to minimalise the allure of other sports than baseball to youth.

This raises the difficult question whether playing baseball is just a manifestation of some general "athletic ability" or of a more specialized skill set (combined with hard work). The odd thing about this issue is that you, IIRC, agree with Nieporent, while Steve and I generally agree with kevin. Strange bedfellows indeed.

I personally believe the talent pool was at its largest in the 60s and maybe early 70s in MLB, but the general talent pool (by which I mean, for MLB and the Negro Leagues together) was probably at its peak in the 40s-50s.

I'd love for this to be true. It's no secret that my idol is Willie Mays. Nothing would make me happier than to be able to boost his status with the argument that he played against tougher competition than anyone else. While I do think it was harder then than in the 20s, I also think it's harder yet today.

You'r making the erroneous assumption that players are basically finished products the moment they sign a contract, rather than works in progress that need nurturing and maturation before they are ready to compete at the highest level.

That players of any color develop their skills in their late teens and early twenties, and that the minor leagues are generally where players develop their skills at this age, has absolutely nothing to do with the issue of integration increasing the talent pool, and thus the quality of competition, in the major leagues.

When the majors was excluding blacks, the talent withered on the vine until the Negro leagues opened for business and started to generate talented players. That's why you have this unusual bubble of black talent in the fifties.

This has to be some kind of record for self-mutilation of one's own line of argument. This unusual bubble of black talent that enriched MLB in the fifties would very likely have been an unusal bubble of talent enriching MLB in the twenties instead.

I'm not saying inherent ability had no impact

Sure sounded to me like that's what you were saying in Post # 30:

I don't think having black players in baseball would have changed Ruth's numbers one iota, all else being equal.

... The crime of segregated baseball didn't have anything to do with the exclusion of superior talent.

And in various other forms many times since.

just that the impact is way overblown and that other more powerful factors would have had countervailing effects to minimize the loss of natural talent to barely noticeable levels.

And there is nothing you've provided in support of this assertion, either empirical or logical in nature, that has made it persuasive.

"The proportion of American-born blacks (and American-born whites too) has declined in MLB over the past 30 years. Meanwhile the proportion of foreign-born players of all hues has skyrocketed."

You have a cite for the second sentence? Skyrocketed how much? You know far more about 60s player than I do. Would you have me believe that the existence of Luis Aparacio then is so completely blown away demographically by the existence of Uggie and Zambrano now?

I looked that the Venezuelan-born page on BR. Yes, there are more 90s and 00s cites than 60s and 70s, but dont pretend that players didnt come from foriegn countries then. *You* have to prove that the proportion of foriegn-born players has "skyrocketed" so much that it offsets the players "stolen" by other sports more popular than baseball, before you can say that it's a "logical assessment".

"But professional baseball remains the most accessible sport for athletes of nonextravagant size, and it is the sport that promises the longest average career, and generally the best pay. There are many, many more professional baseball players in the US than pro football, basketball, hockey, or soccer players, and the typical MLB player is better paid than the typical football, hockey, or soccer player."

Oh, come on. I'm the biggest fan of materialist explanations on this site, and I can't even begin to agree with this. It doesnt work that way, Bo Jackson to the contrary. Building a skill in sports requires an investment in childhood when such careerist calculations are not even entertained. They start to play a sport because they *like* it (and here's the appropriate time for materialism -- if and how much they like it *is* dictated by culture); if they are talented, their skill grows and if things go right they eventually professionally play that given sport. That you'd imply a high school athlete is crunching numbers to decide which sport will pay better in 5 years is silly, Steve.

Baseball is not played by the average Joe the way it was generations ago (in the US, anyway; it's played more avidly than ever in Latin America)"

Yes, and you have to account for that first point, instead of simply saying that it's more than made up for by other countries.

Forty years ago, poor kids, rural and ghetto divisions, played stickball. Now they play hoops in urban areas; soccer, football and hoops in rural ones. Would you have me believe that kids who couldn't give a flying #### about baseball grow up to be 18 year olds crunching numbers and deciding that it'd be smart to pick up a bat?

More avidly in Latin countries than ever? How so? Are you implying the extremely unlikely secanrio that baseball is "stealing" soccer players? And weren't certain latin areas *always* baseball factories? I'd be very surprised if there are proportionally more players coming out of the Dominican than there was in the 70s or 80s, for instance. All this stuff you take for a given isnt anymore given than my own theory, yet it serves a Panglossian purpose and so is "logical".

As for other "feeder" countries, this is what I'm talking about with the Chinese hypothetical. Isnt it true that you consider Australia a "feeder country" because it's contributed, what, Shipley and Nillsson to the majors? So you "count" Oz's whole population as a counter to the loss of the single most intensive baseball farm in history, lower class America? It's like you're saying that because a few dates come from the Sahara, its many acres of sand is more than a substitute for losing, say, the genuinely productive acres of the Americna breadbasket. Too silly.

"High-level youth baseball coaching clinics and academies are booming today as never before; college baseball today is played on a scale never seen before."

And all this shows is that you've lost less availiable talent in the wealthy and upper middle classes, which never did contribute very much to the pool of the eras I cite as probably the the most talent-intensive.

It required the Negro leagues to manufacture that bubble.

In the first place, black baseball well predates the 1920s. In the second place, for about the hundredth time you're ignoring the impact of Latin American players of color, which has little to do with the Negro Leagues.

In the third place, whenever MLB would have integrated, it would have occurred with its own unique set of historical particulars -- but to maintain that the infusion of a new pool of talent wouldn't have improved the quality of competition in MLB is just anti-rational.

You are making the spurious assumption that all those players would have made it into the minors and bubbled their way to the top.

No. I'm not. But if any more than a handful did -- and the actual historical data from the 1940s and 1950s clearly indicates that far more than a handful would -- they couldn't help but have an impact on the quality of play.

It just isn't so.

It factually happened in the 1950s. Your tortured logic that it somehow wouldn't have happened in an earlier era flies in the face of empirical data as well as common sense.

Mark, I'm not saying inherent ability had no impact

I agree it's a matter of degree.

Well, VoiceOfUnrreason understands where I'm coming from and so does Mark Field and RETARDO

I do understand your point, I think, but I don't agree with it.

You have a cite for the second sentence?

Are you seriously ignorant of the fact that the proportion of Latin-born players is higher today than ever before (and is still growing)? (Not to mention Asian-born players.)

That you'd imply a high school athlete is crunching numbers to decide which sport will pay better in 5 years is silly, Steve.

It happens all the time, and it often starts (as you suggest) at an age well before high school.

Would you have me believe that kids who couldn't give a flying #### about baseball grow up to be 18 year olds crunching numbers and deciding that it'd be smart to pick up a bat?

I wouldn't. But go on the internet and search for youth baseball clinics, academies, traveling teams, and so on. The sophisticated (and expensive) training of kids to become seriously competitive baseball players is a growth industry.

More avidly in Latin countries than ever? How so?

Are you sincerely ignorant about the history of baseball in the Dominican Republic?

I'd be very surprised if there are proportionally more players coming out of the Dominican than there was in the 70s or 80s, for instance.

If there aren't proportionally more, it's only because the proportion coming from other Latin countries, as well as the Pacific rim, is growing. There is more money in professional baseball today than ever before, and thus it acts as a magnet for poor kids from these many countries more than ever.

And weren't certain latin areas *always* baseball factories?

No. They weren't. They certainly weren't in the 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s, when there was no market for black Latin baseball players in the United States. They became baseball factories when there was a market demand for them to do so.

THE NEGRO LEAGUES CREATED A BUBBLE. THE NEGRO LEAGUES NO LONGER EXIST.

Which, for the thousandth time, has utterly nothing to do with the question of what the impact of integration would have been on the quality of competition in MLB had it occurred earlier than when it did.

They start to play a sport because they *like* it (and here's the appropriate time for materialism -- if and how much they like it *is* dictated by culture);

Key point here.

They "start" because it looks like fun. However, they continue to play it because 1. it is 'fun' and 2. they have a 'knack' for it. You can't de-emphasize point 2...and if I could use anecdotal evidence most kids I knew growing up (myself included) had more "fun" in sports where we seemed to have a 'knack'.

So other sports do steal potential talent from baseball but in most cases it is because these kids showed greater talent in another direction. Most likely a direction that doesn't share a similar skill set...

TBT