[rats60]

Originally Posted by aljurgela

All fair points... I am not as sophisticated with Mr. James on the stats side of the equation, so I generally will trust his opinion.. but this quote from him gives you some insight:

"It’s not like one person saw Oscar Charleston play and said that he was the greatest player ever. Lots of people said he was the greatest player they ever saw. John McGraw, who knew something about baseball, reportedly said that. . . . His statistical record, such as it is, would not discourage you from believing that this was true. I don’t think I’m a soft touch or easily persuaded; I believe I’m fairly skeptical. I just don’t see any reason not to believe that this man was as good as anybody who ever played the game."

I also tend to be somewhat moved by this opinion:

Bill James, than whom no one has ever more carefully or impartially considered the historical evidence. In his New Bill James Baseball Historical Abstract, James ranks Charleston the fourth-greatest baseball player of all time.
Only Ruth, Wagner, and Mays were greater. Cobb, Mantle, Musial, Aaron, Williams, and other elite members of the tiny, last-names-only club don’t quite measure up.

Think about it. Bill James said that. Not a random fan or family member. Not a sportswriter ginning up a story. Not a basement-dweller blogger at Bleacher Report. Not an attention-seeking talking head. Not a revisionist historian with a social or political agenda. Bill James. The father of sabermetrics. The man who brought a new level of rigor in our thinking about baseball—indeed, about sports generally. The man who launched the analytics revolution. A walking baseball encyclopedia. A man who prides himself on not giving a damn what other people think.

He is the one who said that Oscar Charleston was the fourth-greatest player of all time, which of course makes Charleston one of the greatest athletes in American history.

Anyone who is interested in this may find this page (and the ones generally about him) helpful.

https://oscarcharleston.com/tag/bill-james/

I don't doubt that Charleston was a great player, at worst top 5 Negro League player. However, I have a problem with rating any Negro League player that high for the fact that they never played in the Majors, to no fault of their own. Ty Cobb hit .367 with 4191 hits, 892 stolen bases and won 12 batting titles. Could Charleston have done that? We will never know, but Cobb did. Ted Williams hit .344 with 521 HRs, despite missing 5 season to military service, with an OPS+ of 190. Could Charleston have done that? I don't think there is enough data to say that Oscar was better than all time greats like Cobb and Williams.

Babe Ruth said Pop Lloyd was the best Negro League player. Monte Irvin said Josh Gibson was the best. So who is right? McGraw? Ruth? Irvin? All see are are conflicting opinions. Also, some stories are exagurated like the one that Oscar would have made "the catch" in the 1954 World Series, but would have been waiting for the ball to arrive instead of making the catch on the dead run like Mays.