Talk:Negro league baseball

.

Season's eye view

The article doesn't say much about how a season of competition in one of the Negro leagues was organised. Negro National League (1933–48)#Pennant winners has some relevant information:

From 1937 and 1938, 1940, and 1942 through 1946, the team in first place at the end of the season was declared the Pennant winner. Due to the unorthodox nature of the schedule (and little incentive to enforce it), some teams frequently played many more games than others did in any given season. This led to some disputed championships and two teams claiming the title. Generally, the team with the best winning percentage (with some minimum number of games played) was awarded the Pennant, but other times it was the team with the most victories. The "games behind" method of recording standings was uncommon in most black leagues.

The "unorthodox nature of the schedule" is not further described. At one extreme, maybe the "league" was more like a series of challenge-matches between pairs of teams, and at the end of the season some newspaper printed a summary table of statistics sorted by some metric of its own choosing and declared the first-listed team to be the champions. Was there more formality in the structure, at least in theory, and to what extent did practice depart from theory? How much did the overall disorder impair the ability of players and fans to take seriously the notion of any competition beyond the level of an individual game? jnestorius^(talk) 18:06, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

List of Negro league baseball champions goes slightly more into detail regarding a few disputed titles. Basically, it is important to note that, unlike the majors, the stronger teams were in charge of the league rather than the league being in charge of all of the teams. Some years the schedule wasn't set out over a calendar; rather teams agreed to play so many games against each other and then met up when travel and a venue were available. As the season progressed, when it was obvious what teams were not going to be competitive, those teams couldn't afford to complete the schedule but could make money barnstorming instead. The league could either fine them or expel them, or look the other way. Therefore the stronger teams played twice as many games as the weaker teams sometimes.

Additionally, some teams would be admitted as "associate" teams. These teams were not bound by a schedule and were not included in the standings (so were not able to compete for the pennant). Games against these teams by member teams *did* count in the standings for the member team, throwing the number of games played out of balance. It was all about gate receipts for the most part -- these "associate" teams were either doing the member teams a favor because they could draw good attendance, or the "associate" team was trying to get into the league and had to prove themselves.

Regarding player statistics, yes that was usually left to whatever newspapers bothered to compile them. It is important to note that player contracts were virtually impossible to enforce early on, so stars would jump from team to team or even to Cuba or Mexico or North Dakota in midseason. Pennant winners, however, were a different story. In the early years, some teams would pad their schedule with more games against weaker teams, so the number of wins was sometimes misleading, and the stronger owners usually declared a winner based on their gut, even if that winner happened to be their own team (see Pittsburgh Crawfords, 1933). Then, winning percentage was usually the agreed upon winner, but that was confusing if another team had more wins. This was resolved later on with play-offs, some years set up before the season started, some years played only if there was a dispute.

To answer your last sentence, in my opinion, the teams made money on individual games, and the individual game with star players was really what the fans came to see -- not a season long Pennant race like in the majors. Hope this helps, sorry if it's TL:DR. Rgrds. --64.85.216.211 (talk) 04:00, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, that information is useful. My question, while motivated by personal curiosity, was intended as a spur to help improve the article. If you have verifiable sources for your information, you might like to cite them here, or even update the article itself. Regards jnestorius^(talk) 17:13, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Terminology

When did the term "Black Ball" originate? Who used it first? How common a term is it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vmavanti (talk • contribs) 12:48, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 11 March 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: NO CONSENSUS Daniel Case (talk) 05:30, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

---

Negro league baseball → Negro League baseball – In sources, "League" is almost always capitalized in this context, while "baseball" is not. See n-grams. Dicklyon (talk) 23:42, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Baseball-related deletion discussions. Bison X (talk) 00:53, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose There was no "Negro League," instead there was a collection of leagues referred to by an umbrella term. Had it not been for the contemporary usage of a capital "n" in "Negro," this would be "negro league baseball." There was a Negro National League, a Negro American League, a Negro Southern League, but no "Negro League." Being as this is a Wikipedia article about the collection of leagues that recognized that African Americans have the freedom to play organized baseball, and not about one league with a formal name, the "l" is lowercase. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 01:11, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per Bison. Not a league name but the name for a collection of leagues. --Spekkios (talk) 09:12, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support, it does appear that reliable sources have moved towards the capital "L". See NPR, Sports Illustrated, Major League Baseball, Sportsnet, among others. 162 etc. (talk) 17:39, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support per nom and 162. We base our names on reliable sources, not original research. Calidum 21:08, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. As the above comments point out, there was no "Negro League". As such, it is not a proper noun so it should not be capitalized. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:37, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Why does that matter? Should we move Major league baseball to lowercase then? 162 etc. (talk) 16:37, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

It matters because basic English grammar rules matter. And Major League Baseball is a proper noun, which is why it's capitalized. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:30, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Seattle Steelhead’s

How come no mention of Negro owner of Seattle Steelheads? 2601:601:1700:6F30:A9BD:6B44:F53B:4954 (talk) 17:51, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

I deduce you are talking about Abe Saperstein, no? The way you phrased your question implies he was black but was in fact white. Either way, he is mentioned in the section on WWII. Let me know if you had something else in mind. Rgrds. --BX (talk) 04:28, 18 April 2024 (UTC)