Bruce Markusen’s Cooperstown Confidential: Card Corner—Roy White

“There isn’t an ocean between them…just a stream.”

No less an authority than Bill James (who is ironically now a Boston Red Sox employee) has become one of White’s biggest champions, going so far as to claim that White was a better ballplayer than his Red Sox’ left field counterpart, Jim Rice. That’s especially noteworthy given that Rice undergoes an annual dalliance with the BBWAA, which has come within a whisker of electing him to the Hall of Fame. Rice is expected to win election next January, while White fell off the writers’ ballot after one inglorious campaign in 1985. White received no votes (while far lesser players like Don Kessinger and Jesus Alou garnered two and one, respectively), thereby dropping off the ballot immediately.

Now I don’t mean to carry the appreciation of White too far. Personally, I’ve never completely swallowed the comparisons with Rice. Rice’s lifetime on-base percentage was only eight points less than White’s, while his slugging percentage was light years better. The measure of ballpark effects is overrated here, too. While Rice certainly had an advantage hitting at Fenway Park, let’s remember that Yankee Stadium’s reputation as a pitcher’s park for much of the sixties and early seventies was overstated because of just how poor the Yankees’ offense was during those in-between years. Lineups overrun by players like Bobby Cox, Ron Woods, Jerry Kenney, and Celerino Sanchez tended to suppress the run-scoring totals at the Stadium. And then there was the matter of White’s arm, which might have been worse than that of Bernie Williams. White tended to throw “parachutes”—long, looping throws with a high arc—giving opposition baserunners an opportunity to take extra bases on balls hit to left field.