Early black MLB players being thrown at

This is my first joint entry on my race and my baseball stats blogs!

Was looking at the cumulative stats for times hit by pitch (HBP) in the early years of black players in the historically white major leagues. (BTW, kudos to Major League Baseball for fully recognizing the "Negro Leagues" as "major leagues," and to baseball-reference.com for fully integrating the Negro League stats (such as they are) into their database.)

Using fangraphs.com, I looked at the stats from 1947-56 cumulative (1947 being, of course, the year the color line in major league baseball was crossed). Here's what I came up with for highest rates of being hit by pitch per Plate Appearances (PAs), minimum 1000 PAs for the range of years:

HBP    PAs   PAs/HBP  Player        Race
119    4598    38.64    M. Minoso    Black (Cuban)
032    1345    42.03    Fr. Robinson Black
080    3874    48.43    Sh. Lollar      white
053    2823    53.26    Sol Hemus    white
021    1246    59.33    T. Glaviano   white
028    1931    68.96    Luke Easter   Black
033    2352    71.27    F. Hatfield     white
080    5745    71.81    Nellie Fox     white
037    2712    73.30    Al Smith        Black
028    2167    77.39    C. Courtney   white
025    1975    79.00    Sam Jethroe    Black
072    5802    80.58    J. Robinson    Black

To clarify, this chart indicates that Minnie Minoso, for every 38 and 2/3s times he would step to the plate through 1955, it would end with him would be awarded first base due to being hit by a pitch.

So, we see that six of the 12 players most likely to be hit by a pitch during these 10 years were Black. This may not seem that stark a number, until we realize that of the 300 players who "qualified" based on at least 1000 PAs during those 10 years, only 19 of them were Black (or Latin Americans whose dark skin would have kept them out of the historically white leagues pre-1947). Thus, black players constitute only 6.3% of the player pool, but 50% of the HBP leaders for those years.

This provides empirical evidence for the many accounts from early black players of being targeted by pitchers for their skin color. There is an alternative explanation--some players (Ron Hunt in the 1970s being the most notorious) are known to SEEK being hit by a pitch, crowding the plate and leaning into some pitches, as a way of getting on base. On the list above, for instance, it may be that Minoso, Frank Robinson and Nellie Fox were known for, if not seeking, at least not minding reaching base in this way. But, far more likely, it is a case of white pitchers, often with the support and encouragement of management and teammates, sought to intimidate de-segregation pioneers, perhaps even with the hope of reversing the change. For, much like school integration in the decade plus following the Brown decision, baseball integration was more a trickle than a flood early on. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first_black_Major_League_Baseball_players, only twelve black players had appeared, on only five of the 16 historically white teams through 1950, four years after Jackie Robinson broke the barrier. It wasn't until 1954 that over half of the teams had "given in" to the new reality, and 1959 until the last team (the Boston Red Sox) was integrated.

Re: MLB Moving the All-Star Game

 It's amazing how blind we can sometimes be to the effects of race and racism. Take Sen. Tim Scott, the only black Republican U.S. senator of the past 40 years and one of only two since Reconstruction (Sen. Edward Brooks, MA, 1967-79 being the other). Here is his tweet, with blinders fully on, yesterday:

Tim Scott

@SenatorTimScott

23h

Georgia: Voter ID, 17 days of early voting. Colorado: Voter ID, 15 days of early voting. Atlanta is 51% Black. Denver is 9.2% Black. The @MLB is moving the #MLBAllStarGame out of ATL which has more day-of voting rights than CO? The Wokes are at it again, folks.

First off, the comparison in days of early voting is misleading, since Colorado allows no-excuse, no i.d. vote by mail, which is how the vast majority vote in that state, and they make plentiful drop boxes available during early voting. Georgia, meanwhile, has clamped down on these freedoms with the recently passed law.

But then look at how he brings up the difference in percent black as an argument against having moved the game. His point, I suppose, is the harm done to black workers and black-owned businesses in Atlanta. But, come on, the Braves aren't even in "Atlanta" since choosing to move their stadium out the of city, where it was near many black neighborhoods, to an unincorporated part of the metro area, where they know longer pay taxes to support those neighborhoods and where it is less convenient for black workers and businesses to be involved.

And--here's the main point, as brought out in my reply to Sen. Scott's tweet:

"Uh, you've kind of missed the point, Senator. Atlanta being 51% black and Denver 9% is a very good indication of why GA is trying to take away the votes of black people, while CO is seeking the widest possible participation of its citizenry in that sacred exercise in democracy."

For him to have totally missed (or intentionally ignored) this connection is mind-boggling. Is he not familiar with the history of the disenfranchisement of black voters in this country, especially in the South? What the ever-loving hell.

The Royals and Race, Take 2

 

"We're very much not a racist family"--the dude on the left.

Thou "doth protest too much, methinks."--Another William from England.

The Royals and Race

 I was surprised and pleased about the extent to which race was explicitly discussed as what was behind much of Meghan and Harry's problems in the UK. That "tone of the baby's skin" speculative concern, expressed to Harry, first brought up by Meghan when talking alone with Oprah, really laid it out bare. Oprah's expression of shock was a little over the top, imho. I thought Meghan's alternate take--how great a symbolic meaning a darker-skinned royal could have for a Commonwealth that is 70% or more of color--allowing them to see themselves represented in the monarchy--was thought-provoking.

I wonder if Harry was glad Meghan had brought up that conversation/confrontation, whether they had decided beforehand to bring it out. I speculate he made have been uncomfortable, but maybe glad in the end it had seen the light of day. He CERTAINLY was not comfortable or willing to reveal just who initiated that discussion with him. Not the Queen--he still spoke glowingly of his grandmother. Not her husband--no way Meghan would have been moved to call on hearing of his illness. That leaves his dad and his brother--I'm thinking more likely Charles is the kind of calculating cad that would be so nervous and preserving a certain "pure" image and what others might think and say. Harry certainly acted like there is a LOT of strain in that relationship, even more so than between the brothers. What say you?

Reinterpretting "Bacon's Rebellion"

 Race had nothing to do with Bacon's Rebellion was what I was taught in K-12 history classes. But like most EVERYthing in American history, dig a little deeper and there is race, lurking over the whole thing and playing a large role in explaining why what happened happened.

A good quote from the Wikipedia entry for the rebellions: Edmund S. Morgan's classic 1975 American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia connected the calamity of Bacon's Rebellion, namely the potential for lower-class revolt, with the colony's transition over to slavery: "But for those with eyes to see, there was an obvious lesson in the rebellion. Resentment of an alien race might be more powerful than resentment of an upper class. Virginians did not immediately grasp it. It would sink in as time went on."

Divide and conquer. Make white skin privilege the lever to separate oppressed from oppressed. Offer land rights (in the hinterlands) to the servant-class whites; deny it even to the free blacks, and make the unfree more clearly and forcefully slaves not just for life but on into perpetuity for their descendants.

Of course, race is complex and messy, and so things are not so simple. There is also the Native American angle here--the most pressing concern that triggered the rebellion was that the rebels (black and white, free or not, poor or middlin') wanted to completely rid Virginia of "the savages," whereas the colonial government actually had the gall to recognize a few rights (for the time being), like the right to live, for those folks who had inhabited the land since time immemorial and in some of them's own lifetimes had first encountered these pasty-faced savages (24 rebels were hung after the affair) who acted like they owned the world.

John Fogarty in the antiracism battle

 Legendary John Fogarty of Creedence fame has a new song out that addresses racism, inequality and the pandemic's suffering frontline workers.

Weeping in the Promised Land

Excerpt from the TV interview below:

Q. Do you think music can unify us?

Fogarty: Heck yes! No matter what those pasty white guys in the halls of Congress say, racism is systemic in our country. The phrase I sometimes say is, ‘Silence is racism’ because if you’re not doing something, you’re allowing the racists to win.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/rock-n-roll-legend-john-fogerty-on-new-protest-song-tackling-police-brutality-racism/vi-BB1cXHej