Please delete

Careers
1. Don Newcombe
2. Juan Marichal
3. Feggie Jenkins
4. Pedro Martinez
5. Luis Tiant

Short term greatness
1. Dwight Gooden
2. Vida Blue
3. Mudcat Grant
4. Ramon Martinez
5. JR Richards

A) If you increase the pool of talent you're drawing from you're necessarily going to make the opponents (Ted Williams or otherwise) fare worse than they otherwise would have.

B) The appropriate comparison should be not to the two greatest pitchers in MLB history but to the below average pitchers of the 1940s who wouldn't have been on the roster to face Teddy if the game had integrated earlier.

+1

+2

Ty Cobb hit .366 vs. Walter Johnson. So, who or these mysterious pitchers who Cobb couldn't have hit against?
If your assumptions were correct, then how do you explain Williams hitting .388 in 1957? The fact is integrating the majors didn't slow Ted down. From 1954-57 Williams hit .359 with an OPS+ of 203.

You do remember that Ted used his hall of fame induction speech to talk about the need to recognize the greatness of great black players who were denied their pace in the majors. It's also important to remember that the national league integrated a lot faster so ted wasn't facing many black pitchers prior to retirement

Also the mysterious pitchers were
1. Jose Mendez
2. Rube and Bill Foster
3. Dick Redding
4. George Wilson
5. Smoking Joe Williams

These were the type of players who could have at very least replaced the below average starters Cobb was feasting on

"Could pitch." How many did? Particularly early in integration there weren't too many. Those who did were veterans from the Negro Leagues. At least that is my perception. Sam Jones, Paige, Don Newcombe, Joe Black. They were all either Dodgers or Giants. No one in the AL who comes to mind other than Paige. Who else? Name names. Gibson was literally 10 years later and in the NL. Marichal was in a different league too and basically debuted the year Williams retired. So best as I can tell, your statement is basically irrelevant insofar as Williams numbers are concerned he was still basically hitting pre-integration pitching. There is no difference because there was literally no difference.

And Hank Aaron hit .362 against Koufax. I'm going to extrapolate from your anecdotes as arguments logic that Aaron must have had about a .450-.475 career BA.

Cobb's lifetime average is .367 so he was just below average when facing Johnson (probably like most others). :D Ok, not so bad....:p

Al, this is an interesting topic. Are there any books (biographies) on Oscar? Have you read them? It'd be interesting to see James put together a document supporting why he believes Oscar is top 5, that's a very bold statement. As far as card values go, it's supply and demand (as indicated throughout this thread) which are based on so many of the factors that have been mentioned in this thread. Negro League collecting is a niche that has a relatively small audience. Please don't read too deeply into that, it's just a statement that covers the reason why there's such a difference in Clemente vs Oscar.

Also Ty Cobb hit .139 against Bill Bayne. You can look it up. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess there was at least one Negro League pitcher better than Bill Bayne.

None that I know of as of now. I have heard that there are a few thinking about the project. And don’t worry. I have pretty thick skin and so not really give a “darn” what others think about the negro leagues. There are some great general books. Including a biography of Mendez which is cool. I always say that one should collect what they like. I am partial to history and pretty much detest injustice, so I am fascinated by this niche. The funny thing is that I have always loved Clemente, but if given the chance I would rather own a Dave Brown Billiken to a mid grade Clemente rookie any day. If you don’t know about Dave Brown, you should check him out. Fascinating story.

I have been posting some YouTube videos about the cards, but maybe we should spend some time on the history as well. The blog that I posted has some pretty good info on Charleston, though.

Al