THE 1942 MEXICAN LEAGUE SEASON

We’ve added data from the 1942 Mexican League, a season of 84-88 games that finished with three teams within two games of first place. Union Laguna de Torreon posted the best record (48-40) thanks to Martin Dihigo, who proved why he’s one of the greatest players in baseball history. The 37-year-old Dihigo not only led […]

NORMALIZING NEGRO LEAGUE STATISTICS

Most baseball fans are familiar with the concept of ‘normalizing’ statistics. For MLB statistics, the most basic adjustment is to normalize for park effects. The simplest park normalization calculation takes the impact of a team’s park on runs scored then divides that number, either positive or negative, in half, and then that calculation is applied […]

Major League Equivalencies for The Negro Leagues

Major League Equivalents (MLEs) are a series of calculations designed to take non-major league baseball performance and estimate what that performance’s results would look like statistically in the context of the Major Leagues. Bill James gets credit for popularizing MLEs, as he outlined his method for minor league batters in the 1985 Baseball Abstract. James […]

THE 1941 MEXICAN LEAGUE SEASON

Before the 1941 season began, the Mexican League consolidated, going from 7 teams down to only 6 teams. Although the number of Negro Leaguers decreased from 67 to 58, in percentage terms they increased from around 33% to 40% of the total player population. But this understates their impact, as in terms of At Bats, […]

MACK PARK: Friend or Foe?

Ballparks are not uniform in baseball. Each one has unique dimensions and can be either a friend of Pitcher and foe of the batter, or vice versa. And beyond that, they can be friendly to RH batters, or LH batters, or both, or neither. Over the last decade, we’ve been continually building a “Negro Leagues […]

The Mexican Leagues are Here!

From its inception in 1924, thru the 1939 season, the Mexican League was basically a league of native Mexican semi-pro players, playing for their local teams. There were a few foreign imports that played in the league during those seasons, most notably Martin Dihigo, who left the New York Cubans after the 1936 season to […]

ESTIMATING PARK FACTORS FOR THE NEGRO LEAGUES

Most serious baseball fans understand that ballparks can have a large impact on statistical performance. However, trying to measure that exact impact often proves difficult. In work we’ve done on Major League ballparks at Seamheads.com, it takes about three full years of data, regressed by about one additional season worth of games, to get a […]

The “technically …not” Hall of Fame

In 2006, a Baseball Hall of Fame Special Committee on Negro Leagues, made up primarily of expert blackball scholars, elected 17 Negro Leaguers to the Hall of Fame, almost doubling the total number of players and executives whose careers were primarily in the Negro Leagues from 18 to 35. If we use Sol White and […]

THE BALLPARK CHRONICLES

Soon a new version of the classic ballpark book “Green Cathedrals” will be issued by SABR (Society for American Baseball Research). After having researched over 400 specific Blackball parks for the updated book, here are a few interesting ballpark facts I discovered. Philadelphia Mysteries Pencoyd Park was the home of the 1928 Philadelphia Tigers of […]

Negro Leagues Database Update: East-West All-Star Games Added

We have now added 22 new games to the Negro Leagues Database – the 16 East-West All-Star games played annually at Comiskey Park in Chicago from 1933 through 1948, plus 6 ‘second all-star games’ that were played at various eastern ballparks (two at the Polo Grounds, two at Yankee Stadium, one at Griffith Stadium and […]

Principal Park: Despite City’s Size, Ballpark Has Big Impact

Minor league baseball a Des Moines, Iowa, staple at same location since 1947 Submitted by Steve Dunn Located at the confluence of the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers in Des Moines, Iowa, Principal Park and its two predecessors have hosted professional baseball since Friday, June 20, 1947. One of the more unique games in minor […]

Long-Term Battery Combinations

Submitted by Howard Johnson The most comforting words that can be heard by any hard-core fan of professional baseball is the annual mid-winter pronouncement that “Pitchers and catchers will report on ….” Given those are the two positions involved on every pitch of every game, each performs within the confines of a space rigorously defined […]

History of a St. Louis Baseball Franchise: The St. Louis Stars

St. Louis Stars The St. Louis Stars were born when Richard William Kent, Sam Sheppard, Dr. J. W. “George” McClelland and Dr. G. B. Keys purchased the NNL St. Louis Giants franchise after the 1921 season. Dick Kent was a very successful businessman, who went from being a shoe shine boy to a real estate […]

St. Louis’ Forgotten Champions

On Sunday afternoon, October 7, 1928, at Sportsman’s Park, the St. Louis Cardinals were about to play the New York Yankees in the 3rd game of the 1928 World Series, finding themselves already down 2 games to none. This was the “Murderers Row” Yankees, with Ruth, Gehrig, Lazzeri, Combs, Hoyt, Pennock, etc. They played in […]

1928 Negro National League Season Review – It’s in the Stars

For both Black History Month and the 90th Anniversary of the 1928 Negro National League season, below is a recap of the 1928 NNL pennant race. The Stars’ Wonderful First Half The 1928 NNL consisted of the following teams (in order of their 1927 records): Chicago American Giants (won 1st half, playoffs and World Series […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1941 NNL & NAL

For the second year in a row, the Negro Leagues’ best player, Josh Gibson, played in the Mexican League instead of with the Homestead Grays. For the standings at least, it didn’t matter as Homestead finished first for the fifth consecutive year. The Grays were a very veteran team by 1941. Thirty-three year old first […]

Don Stanhouse – Less Than 6 Degrees of Separation

If you remember 1970’s baseball, you might remember Don Stanhouse. Star athlete from Du Quoin, IL. Played quarterback in high school, and had football scholarship offers from Notre Dame and Missouri. Drafted in the first round, 9th overall as a 3rd baseman/pitcher by the Oakland A’s in the 1969 player draft. Called up to the […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1913-14 AND 1914-15 Cuban National League

The addition of the 1913/14 and 1914/15 Cuban National (Winter) Leagues now gives us a complete run of the Cuban Winter Leagues from 1902/03 thru 1914/15. This was a time period when many of the top Negro League players played in Cuba during the winter. During this same time, several Cuban teams would play against […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1907 National Association of Colored Professional Clubs of the United States and Cuba

Contrary to popular belief, blackball teams playing in a ‘real’ league did not begin in 1920.  In 1886, there was an attempt to start a 10 team “Southern Colored Base Ballist” league.  In 1887, the National Colored Baseball League managed to play 13 league games before folding.  The 1906 “ILIP League” (International League of Independent […]

Ballparks Database Updated!

The Seamheads.com Ballparks Database has now been updated with 2011 data plus the latest and greatest corrections. As a reminder, we provide two sets of calculations: 1-year factors and 3-year factors. The 1-year factors are observed factors, based on only the season in question.  While we do use an other parks corrector as described in the […]

Touring the Bases with…Garrett Totty

Garrett Totty is the Head Batboy for the Texas League Tulsa Drillers.   Garrett also plays catcher on his high school baseball team at Morris (Oklahoma) High School, where this past season he was teammates with Yankee’s 18th round draft choice Hayden Sharp. Seamheads:    Being a batboy on a professional team is probably something that many young […]

COMMUNITY PLAYING TIME FORECASTS

Tom M. Tango at the The Book Blog is requesting fans to fill out playing time estimates for the team they follow closely.   In the past, these fan generated playing time forecasts have proven to be better than the ‘expert’ forecasts and better than ‘automated’ forecast systems. If you want to participate, the link is: […]

FEATURES OF THE BALLPARKS DATABASE

Besides the basic field dimensions and batting event factors, there are some other features of the ballparks database that I’d like to highlight: Starting with the index page, you’ll see that the default order is number of games played in the stadium.   Fenway Park and Wrigley Field are at the top.   This can be an […]

Ballparks Database Updated!

Last month we rolled out the online version of the Seamheads Ballparks database, which contained descriptive information about every park ever used as a major league stadium, plus calculations of the impact on batting components for LH and RH batters beginning in 1950. Today we’ve released an update to the original data.   The latest detailed […]

The 1928 Negro Leagues – The Two Leagues Part II

Part I: http://www.seamheads.com/2010/12/12/the-1928-negro-leagues-%e2%80%93-the-two-leagues/ The following is from the unpublished manuscript LOST LEAGUES: The 1928 Negro National and Eastern Colored Leagues. First, a quick recap of Part I, which covered The Product and The Market: The Product – The Negro Leagues generally had lower batting and slugging averages than the major leagues did in the 1920’s, […]

The 1928 Negro Leagues – The Two Leagues

The Negro National League (1920-1931).   Also known as the Western League. The Eastern Colored League (1924-1928).   Also known as the Eastern League. The Product How they played the game: (Negro Leagues Data from National Baseball Hall of Fame) In the 1920’s, the two Negro Leagues had both Batting Averages and Slugging Averages slightly lower than […]

The History of a St. Louis Baseball Franchise: The Original St. Louis Stars

The following is from the unpublished manuscript LOST LEAGUES: The 1928 Negro National and Eastern Colored Leagues. The St. Louis Stars were born when Richard William Kent, Sam Sheppard, Dr. J. W. “George” McClelland and Dr. G. B. Keys purchased the Negro National League ( NNL) St. Louis Giants franchise after the 1921 season. Dick […]

Seamheads at SABR 40

This is KJOK at your Seamheads anchor desk, reporting “almost live” from the SABR 40 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.   SABR 40 is the 40th annual convention of the Society for American Baseball Research, which brings together authors, teachers, researchers and baseball fans for four days of baseball presentations, baseball history, baseball games, baseball road trips, […]

Touring the Bases with…..Craig Wright

Craig R. Wright was the first of what today would be called a “Sabermetrician” to be hired by a major league baseball team. He was the primary author of “The Diamond Appraised” (1989), and with Texas Rangers play-by-play announcer Eric Nadel has done a radio pre-game show called “A Page from Baseball Past” since 1984. […]

Ballpark Analysis

Back in July, we announced the latest and greatest version of the Seamheads Ballpark Database (see: http://seamheads.com/blog/2009/07/02/the-seamheads-ballparks-database-is-here/).  We also promised we would eventually begin publishing a series of analytical articles that would use the data from the Ballparks Database to investigate various questions, along the lines of what we had previously done in this article […]

The Seamheads Ballparks Database is Here!

The latest version of the Seamheads (aka KJOK) Ballparks database has been loaded to the site (see http://seamheads.com/db/databases.htm, then click Ballpark Stat Splits.  There is also a link for the documentation file.)

The Mother of All World Series Comebacks: Part II

There was once a team that faced FIVE World Series elimination games! Not familiar with that series? Learn more by reading Part I.  Otherwise, here’s the rest of the story.

The Mother of All World Series Comebacks: Part I

After getting down three games to one, the Tampa Bay Rays faced what is commonly known as an ‘elimination’, or must-win game. Unfortunately for the Rays, they lost their first and only elimination game of the series, and the year was over. However, there was once a team that faced FIVE World Series elimination games! […]

How the Home Team Wins

In baseball, the home field advantage is relatively small compared to professional football or basketball.

Book Review: “The Eastern Colored League”

This won’t be your typical book review. 

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