Multi-Purpose

You ever listen to baseball fans about how the Designated Hitter is the worst thing that ever happened to baseball because it changed the game? Or how about that interleague play is awful because it changed the game? I remember all the way back to when they argued that adding a round of playoffs would change the game. You know what? Baseball has never been static. It changes all the time and the notion that the game is set in stone and that nothing should ever change flies in the face of reality. Let me give you one real simple example.

In the beginning (catchy, right?) of baseball there were small rosters. Those made it absolutely necessary for players to be adept at playing more than one position. We call those guys utility players and in 19th Century baseball they were ubiquitous (didn’t think I knew a word that big, did you?). Then they began to die out as rosters expanded and free substitution was allowed. Those kinds of players are still around and still valuable, just not as common as 120 years ago. Two of the best played against each other in the 1950s.

Gil McDougald

Gil McDougald arrived in New York with the Yankees in 1951. He stayed through 1960, retiring rather than move to the expansion Los Angeles Angels. He was one of the Yankees’ finest players and most people never noticed. He regularly played 120 to 140 games (his low was 119 in 1960 and his high was 152 in 1952), usually hit in the 280s (he hit .300 twice and as low as .250 in 1958), popped an average of 14 home runs, and had an OPS+ above 100 all but two seasons (and one of those was 98). In other words he hit well and had he been a fulltime started might have hit even better. What he did was fill the infield hole, wherever it was. Over his career he played 599 games at second (come on, Casey, give him one more game at second), 508 at third, and 284 at shortstop. In 1952 and 1953 he spent more time at third than any other player while still logging a number of games at second. In 1954 he had more games at second than “regular” second baseman Joe Coleman. By 1956 he’d moved to shortstop where he settled in for that season and the next. In 1958 he went back to second base. No matter the infield position (except first, where I’ll bet he would have done well also), McDougald could be plugged in and you were set for the season. In his last two years he floated among all three of his former positions and solidified the infield. He was never flashy, never a star, but was a solid and important member of the 1950s Yankees dynasty.

Jim Gilliam

Throughout most of the 1950s into the mid-1960s, the Dodgers had a similar player, Jim Gilliam. “Junior” spent a short amount of time in the Negro Leagues before the Dodgers picked him up. His debut was 1953, when he won the National League Rookie of the Year. He was a switch hitter who could play anywhere. Over his career he hit .265, had about two and a half walks for every strikeout, scored over 1100 runs, and generally had an OPS+ in the 80s or 90s. Again, like McDougald, what he could do best was plug a hole. Over his career he played 1046 games at second, 761 at third, 203 in left field, 222 games in the outfield in which he switched positions during the game, and a smattering of games in right field, center field, and first base (never at shortstop). He came up to replace an aging Jackie Robinson at second and by 1955 was also spending a lot of time in left field. In 1958 (with the arrival of Charlie Neal) he was more or less the fulltime left fielder, although he put in 44 games at third. In 1959 and 1960 he was the regular third baseman. In 1961, ’62, and ’63 he was sliding between second and third. In 1964 and 1965 he was more or less the primary third baseman. His final year was 1966 and he spent most of his time at third.

Both McDougald and Gilliam were valuable assets to their teams, while falling below the level of stars. Both had difficult jobs having to fill in whatever position the team needed that year (or occasionally that week) and both did their job well. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that without these two men, the Stengel Yankees and the “Boys of Summer” would have been less successful.

E-Lite

Elite Giants logo

Negro League baseball is the story of a multitude of teams. Some, like the Monarch, Grays, and Crawfords, are famous. Others are utterly obscure, playing only a few years with little success and dying a quick death. Most teams are somewhere in the middle. One of those, a team that had some success but was never seen as a truly first rank team, was the Baltimore Elite Giants.

Thomas T. Wilson was a black businessman in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1918 he formed a black baseball team called the Nashville Standard Giants. They were semipro and played mainly in the South. By 1921 they were one of the more successful black teams in the South. They had reached elite status and the name change was an obvious. Wilson pronounced the word “e-lite” rather than “e-leet” and the odd pronunciation stuck for the remainder of their history.

In 1928 they were good enough and professional enough to attempt entry into the existing Negro Leagues. It didn’t work. The Negro National League wanted to stay away from adding Southern teams as much as possible and frankly Nashville was no one’s idea of an Eastern team (Eastern Colored League). In 1930 the Elite Giants finally made it into the NNL, only to see the league collapse after the next year. They finished seventh (of nine) in 1930 and last in 1931 (after moving to Cleveland and calling themselves the Cubs).

The years 1931 and 1932 saw the team surviving in the Negro Southern League. The league was considered “minor” in 1931, but with no other viable Negro Leagues it became a de facto “major” league for the 1932 season. By 1933, with economic times improving slightly, there was a movement to recreate a new Negro National League. The Giants were charter members, finishing fifth of seven in 1933. By 1934 they were up to fourth, but failing in attendance. Attempting to reverse the trend, Wilson moved the team to Columbus, Ohio for the 1935 season. Again they finished fourth and attendance wasn’t better in Columbus. In 1936 they made another move, this time to Washington, DC, becoming the Washington Elite Giants. They stayed there two seasons, finishing fifth of six in ’36 and third of six in ’37.

Attendance still wasn’t good, and Baltimore had been without a team since 1934. Wilson made one last move, this time to fill the Baltimore void (a new team moved into Washington, failed, and was ultimately replaced by the Homestead Grays). This time they found a permanent home. Between 1938 and 1948 they were the Baltimore Elite Giants, the name by which they are most frequently known.

They also got better. In 1938 they finished second. In 1939 they finished third, but qualified for the NNL playoffs. They beat second place Newark 3 games to 1 to advance to the NNL championship against the Grays. They beat Homestead 3 games to 1 for their first championship. In 1940 there were no playoffs and they finished second. In 1941 they finished first. In 1942 they were again second. Several good things happened to propel the Elite Giants into championship contenders. First, they were now stable in Baltimore. Fans were up, revenue was up, and the league itself was now more stable. Second, they managed to put together a very good lineup. Hall of Famer Biz Mackey was there through 1938 (before moving to Newark). He was instrumental in mentoring fellow Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella. Charlie Biot played center field, and Henry Kimbro in left were in their prime. Here’s a shot of the 1941 team. Campanella is on the left of the first row and Biot is on the left of the back row.

1941 Elite Giants

  By 1943 things were changing. The war was effecting attendance and play quality as team members went off to war. They finished with a losing record in 1943, finished second in 1944, but were barely over .500. In 1945 they were again second, but in 1946 dropped all the way to next-to-last (fifth).  

1946 saw two major changes for Baltimore. First Wilson, health failing. sold the team and second, the Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson and changed the entire face of black baseball. Campanella went to Brooklyn, other players retired or got a look at the white minor league. In 1947 they dropped to fourth. The 1948 season was a split season with Baltimore winning the first half and Homestead the second half. There was no playoff. By this point the Elite Giants had managed to reverse course for at least a short while. They picked up Leon Day and Toots Ferrell to go along with infielders Jim Gilliam and PeeWee Butts and new pitcher, Joe Black. It was enough to make the team good for a final few seasons.

The NNL folded in 1948, tried to revive in 1949 and failed. The Elite Giants were one of its premier teams. They won the 1949 pennant, came in second in 1950, and lost a ton of money. The team was sold back to Nashville where it hung on for one final year. They folded after the 1951 season.

Unlike the Monarchs, Grays, or Crawfords, or the Yankees for that matter, the Elite Giants were a more typical baseball team. As with most teams they were periodically good, sometimes wretched. As with most Negro League teams they were frequently on the move trying to establish themselves in new towns with new fans willing to support them. They finally hit pay dirt in Baltimore and stabilized for a  long period of time. They also fielded some good teams and produced a lot of decent players (Gilliam, Black, etc) and one great one: Campanella. I sometimes wonder what the true sports (as opposed to social) legacy of the Negro Leagues should be. Keeping the sport alive in segregated times is number one, but I’m not sure that proving the depth of talent among black ball players wasn’t a close second. In that way the Elite Giants are both typical and important.

The First Generation

I want to look at something I found that is just a bit unusual. I’ll be the first to admit that I looked at the initial generation of black players to make the Major Leagues as guys whose careers are incomplete. After all, so my argument went, they lost so much time to segregation that we only have a part of their career to study. Turns out that argument is only partially true. In the case of older players like Sam Jethroe or Luke Easter or Satchel Paige or Willard Brown it’s correct. But there is another group of first generation blacks who don’t fit at all into that argument. In what you’re about to read, do not forget that this is a  very small sample of players and is nothing like a definitive look at all the players of the era.

Among the players who first integrated the Major Leagues were a number of younger up and coming players. I looked at some of them with an eye toward determining if what we had was something like a full career. I took the players who integrated their teams prior to 1951 then eliminated those guys like Jethroe and the others mentioned above who I knew had established Negro League careers of long duration. I concentrated on their ages. There was some differences in the posted age of various players so I went with Baseball-Reference.com’s age (right or wrong, it is at least a starting point). By concentrating on the Rookies of the Year and a handful of other players who came quickly to mind I put together the following list of first generation players who were relatively young (At my age “young” is always relative) and spent time in the Negro Leagues before 1951: 20-Willie Mays; 21-Hank Thompson; 23-Larry Doby, Minnie Minoso,  Don Newcombe; 24-Jim Gilliam; 26-Roy Campanella; 28-Joe Black, Jackie Robinson; and 30-Monte Irvin. They average 24.6 years of age when they arrive in the Major Leagues, and if you leave out Irvin, the oldest, it’s 24.0. Now let’s be honest here. Obviously under a normal career progression, guys like Irvin are already passed their prime and both Black and Robinson are right in the heart of theirs. And Campanella is also different in that he’d been playing Negro League ball since age 16. So even within this group, a number have lost significant time to Negro League play, just not all. This list also leaves out players like Hank Aaron and Ernie Banks who come up later and, at least to me, aren’t quite members of that first generation of black Major Leaguers.

So I wondered was 24.6 “old” for a rookie in the 1947-1955 era? For comparison I took a like number of white players. I went to the Rookie of the Year list and took the white players from 1948 through 1955 trying to come up with 10 names, two of which were pitchers. Here’s the list: 21-Harvey Kuenn; 22-Roy Sievers, Herb Score; 23-Gil McDougald; 24-Bill Virdon, Wally Moon, Bob Grim; 25-Harry Byrd; 26-Alvin Dark, Walt Dropo.  The average age here is 23.8, or less than one year difference. And if you leave out Dropo (who with Dark is the oldest), you get 23.4.

The point of all this is not to compare the black players with the white players, although you can if you want. The point is that there is a group of Negro League players who arrive in the Major Leagues at about the same age as white counterparts so we may look at their Major League careers as being as substantially complete as those white counterparts. That doesn’t mean that special circumstances might have changed the age the player arrived in the Major Leagues, only that both groups arrive at roughly the same age. 

Of the black list above only Irvin and Joe Black are older than the oldest of the white players. Campanella is the same age as the oldest white player. As mentioned above, this doesn’t mean that the careers should be directly compared; only that the black players, like the white players, have careers that are substantially complete. It does mean that should you ask if Jim Gilliam was as good as Wally Moon (both were 24 when they arrived in the Majors), you can look over their career stats, and then make a judgement without wondering how much did Gilliam lose to his Negro League career. I think that’s worth noting. What you decide about either Gilliam and Moon is up to you.

The Way to Win: The Antithesis of Murder’s Row

Walter Alson while the team was in Brooklyn

In the 1960s baseball changed, going back to something like the Deadball Era. Now the home run didn’t disappear, but it went from being the primary element of the game to a supporting role. The starring role went to Deadball staples speed and pitching. No team epitomized that more than the 1962-1966 Los Angeles Dodgers. 

I admit to being a Dodgers fan, but I also acknowledge that this team, particularly the 1965 version was one of the weaker teams to ever dominate an era. The ’65 Dodgers were dead last in home runs with 78 and seventh (in a 10 team league) in hitting. Of course they could pitch and run. They also played defense pretty well. They were the antithesis of the great Yankees dynasties, but they were built, personnelwise, very much like those Bronx teams. In the period they won two World Series’, lost one, lost a three game playoff and finished sixth (1964). 

Walter Alston was the manager. He’d gotten into one game for the Cardinals back in the 1930s, then took up managing. He joined the Dodgers when they were in Brooklyn and was the manager when they won their first World Series in 1955. He went with them to Los Angeles and led them to another Series win in 1959. By the 1960s he was well established, considered knowledgable, and was well liked my most of the clubhouse. The “most” is key. Apparently there was some question about how well he’d handled integrating the team as more and more black players arrived in the late 1950s an early 1960s (he came on board well after 1947 so was not there for the initial arrival of black players). There’s no evidence of overt racism that I can find, but a number of black players didn’t like him. And he didn’t particularly like Sandy Koufax (bad move, Jack) although he recognized the talent. 

The team had two stars, both, as you would expect, pitchers. Don Drysdale won the 1962 Cy Young award and Sandy Koufax won the same award in 1963, 1965, and 1966.  Back then there was only one Cy Young awarded (not one in both leagues) which should tell you just how dominant the two Dodgers stars were. BTW Koufax is still the only pitcher to win three Cy Young’s unanimously (with Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, and Drysdale in the same league no less). He also won the 1963 MVP award. 

The Dodgers had some really good players to go along with their stars. Maury Wills led off, played shortstop, led the league in stolen bases, won the 1962 MVP, and gets sporadic support for the Hall of Fame (although not from this quarter). Willie Davis was a good fielding (except for one inning in 1966-ouch) center fielder, Tommy Davis won back-to-back batting titles (before getting hurt), and Frank Howard was a monster who provided what little power the Dodgers had. After going to Washington he won a couple of home run titles. 

The team went through a number of role players in the five-year period. Johnny Roseboro was an excellent catcher who hit a little, Ron Fairly could handle both first base and the outfield (after Howard went to Washington), Lou Johnson took Howard’s place as the power hitter (such as it was), Jim Lefebrve won the 1965 Rookie of the Year Award, and Wes Parker was a slick fielding first baseman who took Fairly’s place. The third pitcher was originally Johnny Podres, who had by this time become something of a role player. Claude Osteen replaced him late in the run, and Don Sutton was a rookie in 1966 going 12-12 at the start of a Hall of Fame career. Then there was Jim Gilliam, maybe the ultimate role player. Put him at second, put him at third, stick him in the outfield. It didn’t matter, he performed well in each. 

There was a one-year wonder also. Phil Regan replaced Ron Perranoski as the closer in 1966. He went 14-1 with 21 saves. He never had another year even vaguely approaching that season. Perranoski is sort of a one-year wonder. His 1963 was by far his greatest year, but his other years weren’t the drop off that I associate with one-year wonders. 

On the surface this team is absolutely unlike the great Yankees dynasties. If you look at the types of players, even they look different. But if you look at a more generalized view of the team, you find it’s made up in the same style as the other teams mentioned in previous posts. I’ll wrap this up in the next post.