Quote:
Originally Posted by pgconboy
And my obvious point was that whites FAILED to make the majors as a result of open and free competition.
Blacks were completely denied entry due to racism.
I don't see a shred of wiggle room.
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Except that open and free competition wasn't, even for white players.
With the reserve clause, a team that had a good player didn't need to look for or sign another for that position unless they thought they'd be much better.
One telling point to me was made years ago by an old time player who spoke to the club I was in.
He said that at the time there were about 17,000 people playing in organized leagues.
When he played, the estimated number of people in organized leagues was closer to 175,000
What this did was lead to good but not great players sticking around due to being agreeable. The holdouts, the surly, were simply replaced, unless they were spectacular like Ted Williams or Joe DiMaggio. (Not saying either was, those were the two examples he used)
There were players who were probably major league caliber playing in industrial leagues, and a piece of why they never made it big could be that given the choice of playing a few years in the minors making very little, or staying on a career path that initially paid less, but had more long term stability and potential many wouldn't sign.
I suspect that given the available careers, the competition for spots on a top ML team was more than it was for a then major league team.
12-17-2020, 11:19 AM
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