Tiger337

I just pre-ordered it. I have not read a book about 1984 that I thought was really good. Maybe, I am just too nostalgic about that season.

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!

Torkelson's career is looking very similar to Andrew Vaughn so far. He's two years younger than Vaughn, so the the Tigers are not likely to give up on him soon. It seems like a trip to Toledo might be a good idea. It's not like he had sustained success there prior to his MLB career.

When Baez walks, it probably means that the pitcher is having a bad game. So, it is probably Pither sucks => Baez walks + Pitcher sucks => Tigers wins rather than Baez walks => Tigers win.

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

That's OK. Trump's casinos don't last very long.

He won't be convicted and even if he is nothing much will happen to him.

I don't have enough information to know if it was or wasn't. What info I do have sounds like spin from the two front offices. I am not convinced that there was nothing he could have done. Perhaps, he could have understood better that Rodriguez was a quirky person and worked out a trade well ahead of the deadline. Maybe he did that, but I do think that the GM needs to take some responsibility when they fail to get it all to work. I am confident that if the same thing happened to Avila, fan reaction would have been more negative.

I keep forgetting that nothing is ever Hinch's or Harris' fault.

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.

Harris really doesn't do a good job communcating with the public. That is not a concern of mine and shouldn't affect his ability to do the more important parts of his job. It's just an observation.

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

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

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.

Not a fan of 19th Centuury ball?

Yes, there are some great players from Japan, but not half the league's hitters like Blacks in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Anyway, Japan is not America. There are professional baseball leagues in a lot of different countries. Are we supposed to recognize all of them as Major Leagues? Americans were banned from the American Major League, so they started their own American major league and now it is finally being recognized as such. I don't really understand why this is a problem for some people.

AAAA players regularly go to Japan and start slugging. Most of the players that come from there do not play as well in MLB as they did here. It is generally viewed by scouts as minor league quality, although it no doubt has talent. Even if they are MLB quality, there really isn't a reason to incorporate their stats as a major league. It does not have the same kind of connection to MLB that the Black leagues did. Many many players in the Black Leagues would have been in the Major Leagues of their own country had they been allowed. They SHOULD have been and WOULD have been part of the major leagues had they not been banned. They should be recognized as major leaguers. And they actually used the beat the White teams head to head more often than not. There is no asterisk on Bonds record. He is the official home run leader according to MLB.com Pete Rose was kept out of the Hall of Fame because he broke the cardinal sin of baseball. He deserved it, allthough now I don't care what happens to him since MLB is so shamelessly promoting gambling on the game every chance they get.

The Japanese and Mexican Leagues are not MLB quality. Crappy players who couldn't make it in the majors sometimes play there and become stars. The American and National Leagues were not major league baseball as we know it today either and they didn't fare that well against what you say was inferior competition. My guess is that the Black leagues were slightly inferior due to the Black population being smaller, but I believe they were closer to Major Leagues than Minor Leagues. There was an immense amount of talent in those leagues. one of the reasons segregation lasted so long was White players fear of losing their jobs.

They played more than 50 games, but the data are not available. You need 162 innings or 502 plate appearances to qualify for titles, so the Black League players are not going to qualify for any single-season records anyway. I'm not sure what records people are worried about.

Not a lot between home runs though.

Some would argue that White Leagues prior to 1947 should not be mixed in with integration era leagues beause the competition level was lower. I say put all the stats out there and let fans and researchers decide what to do. There will be American League Stats, National League stats and all the different Black leagues. If someone wants to ignore the Black leagues, they can do so. How inferior are the Black leagues? Most assume they were inferior because the population of Blacks was smaller than the population of Whites, but Black teams had a better record in exhibitions between White and Black teams. So, maybe not so inferior. Nobody really knows.

I thought they already did that. Baseball-Reference already did it like 3 years ago. It's good to see that it's official now.

Greene needs to bat clean up because he always hits home runs.

We aren't talking Tony LaRussa here!