Monday, November 17, 2014

Setting the Context for Context

As part of facilitating the NYC 19th Century Baseball Interdisciplinary Symposium on November 15th at John Jay College (CUNY), I had the opportunity to offer the following opening remarks.

Base ball historians and base ball umpires have some things in common, the most important of which is a shared mission to "get it right." Umpires try objectively to interpret what they see to make the correct call, while base ball historians interpret and analyze facts to get the story "right," to help construct a house built on a rock of facts.  Those who work in the pre-professional period (1840-1870) have the added challenge of not just trying to help build something, but also to help dispose of the debris of another house built not on the rock of facts, but upon the sand of myth - the Doubleday myth.  When I give a talk on early New Jersey base ball, right at the beginning, I test the audience by observing that when the first New Jersey clubs were formed in 1855, base ball was a relatively new game since it had been invented less than 20 years earlier by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown.  When I say that, about one-third of the audience looks at me as if to say, "This guy doesn't know what he is talking about," another third seems to think, "I'm not sure, but this guy may not know what he's talking about," and the remaining third looks at the other two-thirds as if to say, "What's the problem?"



So myth deconstruction continues, but committed as we are to the belief that the history of base ball is a history of evolution, not creation, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the process of evolution has times and places that are especially noteworthy.  The greater New York area is one of those places and the pre-professional era is one of those times.  Here, during that period, base ball first became organized, first became competitive and first received significant media attention.  That doesn't make the greater New York area base ball's birthplace, but it is fair to say it was the game's cradle or incubator.

In my view, it's also important to think of the greater New York regionally since different places made significant contributions.  New York City gave the game a critical mass of organized clubs at the same time New Jersey provided an important playing venue and the first instance of organized African-American base ball while Brooklyn broadened the playing population and increased the level of competition.  There were numerous interactions throughout the area some of which we most likely don't completely understand.  For example, the Eagle Club of New York was one of the city's oldest clubs, but after 1856 at least half of its regular lineup was made up of Jersey City residents.  Our initial reaction may be to wonder about far they had to travel to games when, in fact, their trip to neighboring Hoboken was easier than that of the New York members.



Thinking in terms of a geographic region is part of thinking about context.  Today's symposium is all about context which is especially important for the pre-professional period because the fact that much about base ball was just getting started or just getting noticed means original source material is less readily available.  For instance by 1860 in New Jersey, there was a random pattern of clubs throughout the northern part of the state - one connection seems to be that almost without exception the communities which had clubs also had a direct railroad link to Newark.  What that means isn't entirely clear, but the knowledge opens ways to better understand how the game grew and spread throughout the state.  Today, our hope is that by the end of the symposium, each of us will have a better understanding of the context that helped shaped "our game" in the greater New York area.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

A Stolen Base is a Stolen Base, is a ?

In The Summer Game, the initial collection of his classic "New Yorker Magazine" baseball essays, Roger Angell wrote:

"Good pitching in a close game is the cement that makes baseball the marvelous, complicated structure that it is.  It raises players to keenness and courage; it forces managers to think about strategy rather than raw power, it nails the fan's attention, so that he remembers every pitch, every throw, every span of inches that separates hits from outs.  And in the end, of course, it implacably reveals the true talents of the teams in the field."


Roger Angell 

Anyone looking for support for that argument need look no further than 2014's last major league game, the seventh game of this year's World Series won by the Giants largely on the strong left arm of Madison Bumgarner.   No one who saw any part of his pitching performances will forget the Giant lefty's dominating performance reminiscent of Sandy Koufax's three hit shut out on two days rest in the seventh game of the 1965 World Series almost a half a century ago.  And just as Angell predicted, the strong pitching of both teams produced a full measure of keenness, courage and strategy.


Henry Chadwick 

Especially memorable was the diving stop and scoop of Giant second baseman Joe Panik which changed what could easily have been first and third with no one out to two out with no one on.  As brilliant as that play was, however, it wasn't the only "little" thing that played a "big" part in the game.  Far less attention seems to have been paid to two base running maneuvers which led to two of the game's five runs, most importantly the winning run tallied by the Giants in the top of the fifth.  In each case a runner on second (Alex Gordon of the Royals and Pablo Sandoval of the Giants) tagged up on a fly ball and advanced to third, putting himself in position to score a run that wouldn't have scored if he had waited for a batter to drive him in from second.  Both plays were important, but Sandoval's surprisingly (at least to me) quick move from second to third, led to the go ahead run brilliantly defended by Bumgarner.


Sliding Billy Hamilton 

Both runners, of course, received credit in the box score for scoring a run, but somehow it doesn't seem sufficient recognition for the actual contribution.  In his initial efforts at developing baseball statistics, the only offensive number tracked by Henry Chadwick was runs scored.  I remember reading somewhere that Chadwick's position was that once a runner reached base, it was his responsibility to get himself around the bases to score.  That's a little extreme, but carries the seeds for recognizing the importance of what Sandoval and Gordon did in getting themselves not just in scoring position, but close enough to score on an out.

Regardless of whether it was because of Chadwick's influence or some other reason,19th century major league score keepers had more discretion in recognizing these feats of feet.  According to an article by David Pietrusza and Bob Tiemann in the "Baseball Research Journal," through 1897 scorers could give a stolen base for runners who advanced on fly balls, infield outs and even when advancing from first to third on a base hit.  All but advancing on fly balls were eliminated beginning with the 1898 season and the fly ball out joined the extinct group in 1904.  While on the surface this seems far too liberal, the stolen base was supposed to be awarded only if there was "a palpable attempt" to retire the runner.  At least one study on the subject confirmed that the discretion given to the score keeper was used only sparingly.


Details of Billy Hamilton's 13 game base stealing streak including the opposition pitcher and catcher

Peter Morris in A Game of Inches notes that this difference in scoring makes it impossible to compare more modern base running statistics with those of the 19th century.  Understandable as this may be, however, Morris also notes that far more regrettably, the difference has led to an unwillingness to take 19th century statistics and records seriously.  One example of this is the difficulty Billy Hamilton, who played for the Philadelphia and Boston in the National League in the 1890's, had in being elected to the Hall of Fame.  Although obviously eligible since 1939, it wasn't until 1962, more than 20 years after his death that "Sliding Billy" got his well deserved recognition as an offensive force.  Perhaps the most impressive of Hamilton's accomplishments is 1697 runs scored in 1594 games, the highest ratio of runs scored to games played in baseball history.  Given that number of runs scored, it's not surprising that Hamilton didn't ignore the base stealing side of things. Two of his records which still stand are stolen bases in one game (7 in 1894) and consecutive games with a stolen base, 13 in 1891.  Working only with online newspapers, I was able to check "Sliding Billy's" performance in the latter streak without finding a single instance where a stolen base was awarded for any of the discretionary options,validating at least on that limited research the significance of Hamilton's achievement.


Philadelphia Inquirer - September 1, 1894

Hamilton did, of course, ultimately get his just deserts and the Hall of Fame's new process for evaluating players from the game's early days, which includes input from historians, should help to avoid similar situations in the future.  Unless, however, there's some sabermetric or other modern statistical measure that I'm not aware of for recognizing good base running, consistent performances like those in the seventh game could be over looked or not receive the appropriate emphasis.  While giving a "blank check" to score keepers to award stolen bases would be an over reaction, it seems to me there is merit in finding a way to give due credit to a player who advances on his own "skill and smarts."  After all what a base runner does when he beats a throw to move from second to third on a fly ball is using speed and judgement to "steal" a base.  And as Roger Angell observed, in a pitcher's duel, it's plays like that which make the difference between winning or losing and, as the Giants showed, sometimes the difference in winning it all.