Cyril Morong has a cool post up about the effects of integration (or lack thereof) on Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb’s career homerun totals. Quality of competition is often cited as a reason to downgrade the performances of players who played a long time ago, but it’s difficult to measure objectively. Here’s Morong’s framework:
Figure out what percentage of players would have been non-white if they were allowed to play (15%). Replace the bottom 15% of IP with non-white pitchers (who Morong showed to be equally talented as white pitchers). Find the change in league HR-rate. Adjust Ruth’s and Cobb’s totals accordingly.
You should read the article, but here’s a teaser — Ruth would have hit around 678 career homeruns, 5% fewer.
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Sky is a baseball fan and racket sport afficianado living in upstate NY. His favorite color is orange and is just about ready to give up on his life-long dream to become the next Magnus ver Magnuson (World's Strongest Man). His favorite baseball teams are the Yankees and Red Sox, proving that there's hope in the Middle East.
August 30th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Thanks for reading my article and posting something about it.