Expert: Jamie Selko - 8/1/2007

Question
Jamie -- records & benchmarks are very much in the news these days w/Glavine, Bonds & ARod.  My question is this -- when it comes to the standard baseball benchmarks of 300+ wins, 3,000+ hits & 500+ home runs -- what Negro leaguers are believed to belong in these elite clubs?  Who are they & by best accounts what kinds of #'s did they amass?

Thanks so much for your time!

Jim

Answer
Howdy- Short answer: No one came any where close to those numbers in regular Negro League contests.
 Long answer: The schedules were much too uneven, with every team playing a different number of games and even "official" league games rarely approached even 70 games, and most often were only around the 50 game mark, and frequently fewer.  Players jumped teams and leagues, teams would skip scheduled contests to play more remunerative exhibitions elsewhere...
 Now, when you add in exhibitions, Mexican, Cuban and Puerto Rican league seasons, undoubtedly several players reached those figures.  Josh Gibson, For example, is credited with over 850 home runs over his career.  Mule Suttles, who holds the all-time Negro League single-season home run mark, undoubtedly hit over well over 600 in all venues over the course of his career.  As for hits, well, you can't amass 3000 hits playing 50 games a year.  Did some of these players collect 3000 if you add in every game they played?  It would be hard to see how they couldn't have, playing al year round and sometimes over 200 games a season.  Add in playing for over 20 years in some cases, and it becomes a dead certainty.
The same holds true for pitchers. Satchel Paige obviously won over 500 games, maybe even 800, over his career, but many were exhibition games against other traveling teams, semi-pro teams, town teams and "outlaw" league clubs.
 Now, would some of these players have reached those numbers in the major leagues?  You betcha.