[BobC]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

BobC, you are really going off the rails now.
The SABR demographic statistics show that African Americans made up 15% or more of MLB rosters from 1968 to 1977, which is about double what is today. I am not the only person who thinks this could be due to a waning in popularity of the sport among blacks. SABR also thinks this. If you look at the SABR article, it says right on the bottom: "The past 20 years has witnessed a decline in African American players in the game....The prevalent opinion seems to be that the cause of the decline in African Americans is external to major league baseball: that African Americans are focusing on other sports as youths, either by choice or because of fewer opportunities to play baseball. As far as we are aware, this issue has not been studied — it is reasoned speculation."

I never said, nor do I believe that African Americans could make up 50% to 70% of rosters. I am simply pointing out that current demographics are not a great metric for measuring African Americans ability to perform in the MLB.

Good, then maybe there is hope you will finally understand my point after all. I am fully aware of the thinking and supposition that black athletes seem not as attracted to baseball today as they may have once been, and have some of my own thoughts and opinions as to why this may be the case, but that is irrelevant to this discussion. But I especially like your reference to the "reasoned speculation" to such thinking, as that is sort of the same concept or impetus behind my point.

In my earlier posts I worked up what I referred to as an average annual number of players being recognized as major league level ballplayers each year to kind of get a sense of how many players one would normally expect to be replacing and supplanting the previously recognized MLB players whose talent level had maybe dropped below that elite, MLB talent level, due to age, injury, or otherwise. I believe the concept and thinking, or "reasoned speculation" as you referred to it, is that a certain percentage of a given population can normally be expected to be of such an elite athletic talent or status. But by suddenly increasing the number or percentage of such people deemed to be at this particular, elite talent level, it doesn't automatically make that statement true. It more likely means that you are somewhat arbitrarily now expanding the number of recognized elite athletes by suddenly including athletes you previously would not have recognized as elite. In other words, you've diluted down the overall talent level to be able to include and deem more athletes as elite, not actually have suddenly gained more elite level athletes.

I had said before that I purposely allowed some of the facts and figures I was using to be skewed against my argument. Specifically, in coming up with my average number of 136.8 new MLB players being recognized each year, I did so using the number of recognized MLB players of all-time from Baseball Almanac, 19,969 through today, and dividing it by the 146 years, since 1876, that MLB has now been in existence. That 19,969 figure apparently does not include any of the approximately 3,400 Negro League players that were recently added to the MLB ranks (haven't come across the exact number yet), except for the 45 or so black players that did end up playing in the major leagues and were part of that 3,400. I compared that 136.8 average to the average annual number of newly recognized MLB players from the Negro Leagues I came up with of 115.7. I got to that number by dividing the 3,355 players (3,400 - 45 players that did play in the majors) by the 29 years (1920-1948) over which the Negro Leagues are now recognized as the equivalent of MLB. I then pointed out how at the time of the Negro Leagues the black US population was only about 10%, and historically, black players had never at any time comprised more than 19%-20% of all MLB rosters. As such, you would think (and here I go using that "reasoned speculation" of yours again) these two averages, 136.8 versus 115.7, should have been much, much farther apart, with the average number of Negro League players being significantly less. The fact that these averages are so close though would seem to indicate that maybe we're granting MLB status to more black players than we should be, and thereby significantly diluting the talent level of MLB level players back then simply to include more blacks. And since at that time the leagues were segregated, the inclusion of all these additional black players, and subsequent severe dilution of the overall level of MLB talent, is going to fall mainly and squarely on the Negro Leagues.

I purposely skewed the overall average number of new MLB recognized players each year by using MLB's entire 146 year history. Since MLB expansion began back in 1961, the number of MLB teams has grown from 16 to 30. So naturally you would expect the average number of new MLB players each year since expansion to be much higher, and to have raised the overall annual average going back to the Negro League years. The point being, given the black percentage of the US population and historical representation of MLB players, 115.7 new MLB level Negro League players being recognized annually versus the 136.8 new MLB players being recognized annually overall is absurd enough, but it is actually much worse than that.

In going to Baseball Reference, I found you can look up the number of MLB players who made their major league debuts, by year. And it appears Baseball Reference now includes all the Negro League players in their stats. So going back to just the Negro League years of 1920-1948, I found that a total of 5,602 players made their MLB debuts during this time, of which approximately 3,400 were the recently recognized Negro League players. (I am not going to adjust that number this time by the 45 players who also made it into the major leagues eventually because I'm now restricting my comparison to just the Negro League years (1920-1948), and it is probably statistically insignificant for purposes of this argument anyway.) So that means that about only 2,202 (5,602 - 3,400) white players from the segregated major leagues became MLB level ballplayers during this time, versus 3,400 or so Negro League players. Or to compare them as averages, 75.9 white players per year (2,202 / 29 Yrs) versus 117.2 black players per year (3,400 / 29 Yrs) were being recognized as MLB level players during this time. Before I was looking at 136.8 to 115.7, whites to blacks, as the comparison, which was already absurd enough given the black US population % and MLB overall historical representation % of blacks. But now after focusing on just the specific years in question, I'm looking at 75.9 to 117.2, whites to blacks, which now turns things even more upside down and has MLB recognizing considerably more black players as major leaguers each year on average during this time than it does whites. Yet again, blacks only made up 10% of the US population back then.

And this is exactly why I asked if you believed that black athletes were overall so much better than white athletes, and that therefore you must have believed that had there been no segregation in baseball back during the time of the Negro Leagues that all the major league rosters would end up being 50%-60%-70% black then. To which you said NO! Well then, let's assume there was no segregation and bias back then. The number of MLB teams would likely have remained at 16 throughout this time, and thus they likely also wouldn't have needed anywhere near the 5,602 MLB players that debuted during these years. But all other things equal, and with no discrimination and bias, you would expect that of the entire 5,602 players that MLB considered as now being at the major league talent level from back then, whatever number of players they actually needed to keep filling the rosters at that time would likely have been somewhat along the same lines as the breakdown of white and black players now recognized as having MLB level talent, which according to actual historical data I'm presenting, would have been 60.5% black (3,400 / 5,602) versus 39.5% white (2,202 / 5,602). And as I mentioned earlier, players making their major league debuts are basically replacing aging and injured players, or others that for whatever reason(s) are primarily no longer able to perform at a MLB talent level. So, all other things equal and no discrimination and bias involved, if you go through 29 straight years averaging about 60.5% of the players making their major league debut with your team being black, want to hazard a guess as to what percentage of the team's roster is probably going to be made up of black ballplayers at the end of that 29th year?

I truly wasn't going to waste any more time responding to you, but your "off the rails" comment pissed me off. I have been presenting as much factual data and information as possible to support and prove the validity of my point, and have gone to the added trouble of explaining in detail how I used that information in my calculations. But it seems the main argument I am getting back from you and others includes really nothing in the way of factual data or detailed calculations, but mostly revolves around the "reasoned speculation" that today's black athletes don't like baseball as much anymore. No real proof, data, or facts, just commentary like there being 1,300 black athletes playing in the NBA and NFL now, and that is apparently all the explanation needed to account for the low percentage of blacks in MLB today. That kind of argument assumes that the 1,300 blacks currently in the NBA and NFL today could just have easily been playing MLB, if only they wanted to. (I wonder what Jordan would have to say about that?) And frankly, that kind of logic and thinking is a bit insulting to all black athletes as it kind of implies they only have a really small number of elite athletes that would otherwise be capable of making it into the majors.

So with this additional information I've now added, you are faced with a dilemma. You said that MLB would not be made up of rosters with 50%-60%-70% of the players being black. But if you go back to the Negro League years and look at the actual numbers of MLB players being recognized, and assume a somewhat equitable representation of the talent of players along racial lines, if there was no segregation and bias you would expect that MLB rosters would end up being mostly black, which you said they wouldn't! But if out of that pool of MLB recognized players back then, and without segregation and bias, you still ended up with MLB rosters being predominantly white, that would mean that a huge portion of those black players wouldn't have beaten out their white counterparts for all those MLB roster spots after all. And if that were the case, that would mean most of those Negro League players back then really didn't have MLB level talent and shouldn't have all just been arbitrarily added as major league players, and thereby let those Negro League players that did have MLB level talent get to pad their stats by playing against overall less talented players. But you didn't agree with that reasoning by me either, did you? Well, you can't have it both ways.

So what are you right about and what are you wrong about? And please don't just tell me that blacks athletes don't like baseball is the answer to everything. And don't be afraid to maybe try throwing some actual facts and data in, as well as maybe showing your calculations and work. Who knows, you might get some extra credit if you do.