Joe Nuxhall No Longer Recognized As The Youngest Player In MLB History

[TRF]

This reminds me of Pete saying he's the hit King because Ichiro did not get all his hits in the U.S. Even though they were almost even from age 27 to 45. We can't count it because it wasn't MLB but we can't ignore it because Ichiro CLEARLY had the talent to do what he did those 5 seasons prior where he had 853 hits, 46 fewer than Rose in that timeframe in 150ish fewer games.

It's an artificial line meant to keep people out in a time when we should be expanding baseball and recognizing the accomplishments of these players.

I can recognize Rose's greatness, and he was great, without saying Ichiro was great BUT...

Same with Negro League players. Plus we are talking about a HOF player in Campanella here. Picking nits like this is weird to me.

[Wonderful Monds]

Barry Bonds is part of the story of baseball. The further we get out from the steroid era the more I think the lines blur. Sure Bonds was aided in his performance, but so were the pitchers he was facing. I don't know how prevalent greenies were with Hank and his team, but they were rampant during the 60's and 70's.

The negro leagues were a part of baseball's story. Were they as competitive as MLB, no, but that doesn't mean that the stats and numbers should be lost to history. Honestly outside of Cincinnati, no one really cares that Joe Nuxhall is no longer considered the youngest player in MLB history.

The stats and numbers matter and I really don’t care about Nuxhall’s designation or whatever, but the Negro Leagues were quite literally not the MLB.

As far as whether this happened with other leagues too - okay, it was dumb when they did that too then, because they were also not the MLB.

Anything that happened before 1900 also I don’t really care about lol, basically a borderline different sport, whatever comes out of that mess, go for it.

[westofyou]

Integrity they shout!!

[MikeS21]

It just seems as if baseball is headed in the direction that every player and every stat is going to end up with some kind of asterisk or two behind their name - some qualifier - that “explains” performance, whether it be juiced-up baseballs, sub-par competition, steroids, or whatever.

[westofyou]

It just seems as if baseball is headed in the direction that every player and every stat is going to end up with some kind of asterisk or two behind their name - some qualifier - that “explains” performance, whether it be juiced-up baseballs, sub-par competition, steroids, or whatever.

It's data, it has to be categorized somehow. Currently the game uses meta data to get true results, eras help define those sets and it matters. Hence a big umbrella of "MLB" is a big bucket of data that needs meta data to explain it. Some just want to throw some of that that data and its history off to the side. There are no absolutes in life or baseball, things can all exist but most of the time the real story is behind the numbers. So look at it all and try to discern what story you want to see and why, but you can't whitewash any of these accomplishments fully

[M2]

It seems like both Nuxhall and Campanella will be remembered whenever the subject is discussed so it's no big deal to me.

Yep. They'll be in the same sentence, separated by a comma.

[Tony Cloninger]

The stats and numbers matter and I really don’t care about Nuxhall’s designation or whatever, but the Negro Leagues were quite literally not the MLB.

As far as whether this happened with other leagues too - okay, it was dumb when they did that too then, because they were also not the MLB.

Anything that happened before 1900 also I don’t really care about lol, basically a borderline different sport, whatever comes out of that mess, go for it.

This I agree with although the AA of the 1880s was more major league than the Fed League at least. Game though was what. 5 balls is a walk. If you fouled a pitch with 2 strikes you’re out? I can tell you where to throw me the ball to the pitcher?

I never thought the Fed League should be included. Clearly Bernie Kauff was not as good as he showed in that league as soon as he joined the NL in 1916. He may have been the Cobb of the Feds as they called him but he was never that good. I’m just using the most profile player as an example.

Someone brought up the AFL as well. Clearly defense in the AFL was not a concern because you need excitement and ratings. The game was more wide open. Had no racial quotas and scouted black colleges a lot more. But until the late 60s was not as good as the NFL. Save for a Lance Alworth and a handful of others.

[Redsfaithful]

Good thread, I wasn't 100% sure how I felt about this before reading, but reading the posts here it's pretty clearly the correct thing to do.

All of this is a sloppy mess but that's ok, because the history of baseball is a sloppy mess. Even the steroid stuff, I've never been able to be mad about it. There's not a portion of baseball history that was run "fair". I doubt we know the half of it when it comes to the game's entire history and cheating.

I do hope Nuxy continues to be mentioned when this is brought up, alongside Camp, but I'm sure he will.

[Bourgeois Zee]

All of this is a sloppy mess but that's ok, because the history of baseball is a sloppy mess.

That's where I'm at.

Negro Leagues are similar to the others. As a result, they should count as much.

I disagree with Keefe Cato in terms of the amount of Black players who'd have been successful in MLB in the heyday of segregated baseball. I suspect, looking at the economics and numbers of the players who became above average, the Black hitter was nearly as good, on average, as his white counterpart in MLB. He had to contend with a dirtier ball. (Spitballs and scuffballs were both legal in the Negro Leagues, and balls were kept in play longer.) Parks were often far harder to hit HR out of as well, both because of the length of fences and the relative poor lighting.

We know the upper levels of the Negro League, of course. Aaron, Mays, Minoso, Doby, Banks, Campanella, Jackie Robinson all belong among the greatest players in the history of the sport. They'd have been stars in the 1920s, 1940s, or 1960s. The guys just below that are often shortchanged, though. Junior Gilliam, Luke Easter, Al Smith, Elston Howard, even Monte Irvin (a deserving HoF, IMO) get short shrift. They were very good Negro Leaguers who ended up being very good major leaguers when given a chance. Often, they weren't given those chances until they were past their prime, of course. And they all had to tear down the minor leagues before being given that chance.

A guy like Cincinnati's own Bob Thurman is a good example, I'd argue, of a productive former Negro League ballplayer. Likely, only a handful of guys on this site-- a Reds' super site-- even know the name. But Thurman was a good Negro League ballplayer-- a first division guy for the Homestead Greys. He wasn't, however, an All-Star. Signed by the Yankees as a 32-year-old, he mashed in AAA, then eventually, at age 38, he ended up with the Reds. He struggled a bit his first season, but played 7 years beyond that with a 118 OPS+ and an 806 OPS. (He played professional baseball through age 45.) He and George Crowe were a pair of Redleg bench bats that were difference-makers in limited PAs. And for a number of seasons. They didn't get a real shot at becoming full-time starters for a variety of reasons (age, other players, bigotry), but both were extremely productive and remarkably long-lived (in terms of being productive MLB players). Neither was considered a great Negro League player; both were just as good (if not better) in limited PAs as Reds.

It is, IMO, the pitching where the Negro League is largely deficient. There are good reasons for this-- chief among them the amount of barnstorming innings put on incredibly small pitching staffs due to economic issues. As a result, the number of successful Negro League pitchers is far fewer than former Negro League hitters. (Only Don Newcombe, Toothpick Sam Jones, Connie Johnson, and Satchel Paige spring to mind. Maye Joe Black, if you're charitable.)

What I believe is the best evidence that the Negro Leagues belong in the discussion as a true top tier league is what happens in the next generation of Black ballplayers. We see the full explosion of exceptional Black MLB players in the next generation of players. By 1955, five years after the Negro Leagues had given up the ghost, 7 of the top 20 OPS+ bats were Black, with Aaron and Mays joining Mantle atop the league leaders and all-time greats. In 1960, it was 8. In 1965, it was 10 of 20, with Frank Robinson Cepeda, and Clemente joining them. Throughout that time, according to the US Census, Blacks accounted for around 10% of the US population. (By 1970, it was 11%.)

[Ron Madden]

Good thread, I wasn't 100% sure how I felt about this before reading, but reading the posts here it's pretty clearly the correct thing to do.

All of this is a sloppy mess but that's ok, because the history of baseball is a sloppy mess. Even the steroid stuff, I've never been able to be mad about it. There's not a portion of baseball history that was run "fair". I doubt we know the half of it when it comes to the game's entire history and cheating.

I do hope Nuxy continues to be mentioned when this is brought up, alongside Camp, but I'm sure he will.

Well said

[Old school 1983]

If the Negro Leagues were the Majors all along, I guess Jackie Robinson really wasn’t the first African American to play in the Majors. Can we get a grip and quit trying to rewrite history. Saying oh our bad you’re really a major league is post hoc crap. If that was the case, the negro league players wouldn’t have been clamoring to play in the MLB. Remember history. Don’t try to rewrite it after the fact. I think we all know why those other small time leagues in the games early days were considered major leagues and the negro leagues were not. It’s race. Trying to integrate the stats imo erase history and the valuable lessons it can teach us and imo it minimizes the pioneers who integrated the MLB. Remember history. Learn from it. Don’t try to rewrite it to make yourselves feel better later.

[Bourgeois Zee]

If the Negro Leagues were the Majors all along, I guess Jackie Robinson really wasn’t the first African American to play in the Majors. Can we get a grip and quit trying to rewrite history. Saying oh our bad you’re really a major league is post hoc crap. If that was the case, the negro league players wouldn’t have been clamoring to play in the MLB. Remember history. Don’t try to rewrite it after the fact. I think we all know why those other small time leagues in the games early days were considered major leagues and the negro leagues were not. It’s race. Trying to integrate the stats imo erase history and the valuable lessons it can teach us and imo it minimizes the pioneers who integrated the MLB. Remember history. Learn from it. Don’t try to rewrite it to make yourselves feel better later.

Quite a stretch to claim that counting the Negro Leagues as major league professional baseball is somehow minimizing the impact of Black baseballers.

It's not rewriting history-- it's accepting that the Negro Leagues were in the top tier of professional baseball.

[Bob Sheed]

If Nuxhall is no longer the youngest to play MLB, then does that mean Jackie Robinson is no longer the first black person to play MLB?

[757690]

If Nuxhall is no longer the youngest to play MLB, then does that mean Jackie Robinson is no longer the first black person to play MLB?

If I remember correctly, there were black players in early versions of MLB. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier that existed at the time in the National and American Leagues. That is what he is and should be known for.

Edit: There were. https://sabr.org/jackie75/segregation/

As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers, we need to look back at the history of the color line. As early as the 1860s, the Philadelphia Pythians were kept from playing in an all-White league. In the 1880s, Cap Anson and the Chicago White Stockings refused to take the field with Black players Moses Fleetwood Walker and George Stovey. In 1887, International League team executives voted to ban future contracts for Black players — and thus, the color line was born.

The 1888 Syracuse Stars included two Black players, catcher Moses Fleetwood Walker (top row, far left), and pitcher Robert Higgins (bottom row, far left). On July 14, 1887, International League owners voted to ban any future contracts with Black players. Fed up with the racism he had experienced in baseball, Higgins quit the team in midseason and Walker, the league’s lone remaining Black player, was released in 1889. No Black player would appear in an International League game again until Jackie Robinson with the Montreal Royals in 1946. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)

[westofyou]

Robinson is the first 20th century player, always has been. Everyone knew about Fleetwood Walker and Charlie Grant. Jackie's debut marked the end of an unspoken ban.

Again baseball history is not without its messes and oddities, today's organized business machine is a far cry from the way the game was run for decades before y'all were even a glint in your daddy's eye. MLB is a man created construct, therefore it is apt to be defined and redefined as the years go by, like most ideas by men.