L. Robert Davids

This BRJ edition is available online via the SABR website.

The tenth Baseball Research Journal, published late in 1981, is perhaps a step down from the previous edition, largely because it doesn't contain any classic research essays. What it does contain is mostly solid research, well presented, on a wide variety of topics.

This edition's first two articles, Emil Rothe's "Was the Federal League a Major League?" and Raymond Kush's "The Building of Wrigley Field" are not really related, but their topics overlap a bit and I rather expected more Federal League material. Rothe, by the way, gives his question a qualified "Yes" answer. The evidence is mixed, as he shows.

The issue contains two biographical essays built around interviews--Allen Quimby on Red Lucas, and Eugene Murdock on Leroy Parmelee. Jim Riley and John Holway profiled black players Dave Barnhill (a Negro Leaguer) and Jose Mendez (an early 1900s Cuban barnstormer). Robert Cole told about radio broadcaster Al Helfer, who did "Game of the Day" broadcasts on the Liberty and Mutual Networks after the Second World War. The edition's best profile is of Ray Fisher, written by Dave Proctor, who examines Fisher's playing career, why he got blacklisted by the Commissioner, and his subsequent life, most prominently as coach at the University of Michigan. The Fisher profile may be the longest piece ever published in BRJ, but it's quite excellent. Others profiled include Walter Johnson (by Ron Liebman), Hurricane Hazle (Tom Jozwik), and Ted Lyons (Thomas Karnes)

Sabermetric efforts included William Akins' attempt to identify the best fielders of the late 1800s and Dallas Adams' nice attempt to draw the parameters necessary to study the probability of hitting .400. Bill Rubenstein's useful extension of the Dick Cramer study (in the 1980 BRJ)--Cramer demonstrated increasing major league batting skill over time--identifies a few significant issues (and there's a response from Cramer at the end). Cliff Frolich and Garry Scott contributed an exploration of "Where Fans Sit to Catch Baseballs"--this study's weaknesses include some sampling issues and a less-than-fully-explained methodology, but their conclusions see reasonable. James Skipper's examination of player nicknames has a sabermetric appearance--tables and numbers--but all in all unsatisfying--I quibbled with his definitions, and learned less than I'd hoped. The same is true of James Maywar's examination of strikeout pitchers, which just seemed misguided.

A long-standing personal favorite article in this issue was John Pardon's "A Bizarre Game of Baseball." Not only was the game played in a predecessor of the Midwest League, it was absolutely preposterous. (Read Pardon's item here.) The issue's other minor league piece describes a Minor League All-Star Game played at Cooperstown in 1939, and discusses why the effort didn't continue.

There were fewer entries in the List with Explanation category in the 1981 edition. Ray Gonzalez' "Pitchers Giving Up Home Runs" is a pioneering effort in that direction, and as usual with this author is quite well done. William Akins' fielding study, mentioned above, fits the list pattern but this list is pretty short. Joseph Donner listed all the major league cycle hitters. Bob Davids' piece on steals fits the pattern, too. Another short list was James Maywar's examination of strikeout pitchers, which I dismissed a couple paragraphs ago.

For the record, I found this edition of Al Kermisch's "Researcher's Notebook" to be weak. It read more like an assigned piece than actual research notes.

The issue ends with a look at the 1892 season, which (like 1981) was a split season, and examines the parallels, differences, and consequences. I'm guessing this unattributed article was composed by Davids.

All in all this is a fairly strong issue, but there's nothing really special here.






This review has also been published on a dabbler's journal.
… (altro)

The third BRJ issue has the usual array of basic research and lightweight work; it's interesting enough and very readable. The best work in this edition was biographical.

Ted Patterson's portrait of Waite Hoyt is easily the best piece in the volume; it covers his playing career and his subsequent career as Cincinnati's baseball radio announcer. The description of Hoyt's early radio work is fascinating, and the discussion of his transition into his new career is unexpectedly interesting.

Bob Hoie's look at Hal Chase is nearly as good. These two biographies justify the issue.

George Hilton kicked off the issue with a good look at the history of Comiskey Park. Elsewhere in the journal are looks at the minor league careers of Willie Mays (by Randy Linthurst) and Grover Cleveland Alexander (Al Kermisch); both are workmanlike, and likely of interest to some readers. Ray Gonzalez looked at hitters who'd broken up no-hitters; the novelty here is that he included folks who got more than one hit when the rest of their team was blanked--typical Gonzalez work, and as interesting as usual. Tom Hufford's portrait of Muscle Shoals is a good portrait of a career minor leaguer (someone should write/compile a book of these). Bill Plott's look at the 1886 Southern League of Colored Base Ballists is a fine effort to reconstruct an early professional league's record from inadequately-preserved records; that it's a Negro league is a bonus.

Bob Davids closed the book with his own exploration of the Charlie Finley's A's use of Allan Lewis as a professional pinch runner from 1967 to 1973. Bob located a few predecessors, but most of the interesting cases were pitchers who ran the bases well. Lewis, overshadowed when Finley continued the experiment with Herb Washington, has largely been lost to history.

William Borst described his syllabus and teaching experience for a baseball history class he offered at Maryville College. Many of his planned speakers fell through, but the class went well. He was planning to repeat it.

There's a bit for the sabermetrically inclined. Dick Cramer and Pete Palmer jointly authored an essay about Batter's Run Average (OBA x SLG), with some analysis; the most interesting part is a formula for converting BRA to estimated runs. There's also less interesting work by Ronald Liebman (on Power/Speed; his formula's too simple), Stanley Kuminski (singles hitters), and Bob McConnell (home run average--there's nothing wrong with Bob's essay, really, except the baseball community found a different solution for expressing players' home run rates).

This list hardly exhausts the volume, which improves on the earlier editions. This is developing into a valuable journal.





This review has also been published on a dabbler's journal.
… (altro)

This edition, which has a minor league emphasis, is the first BRJ edition which feels like it was edited, rather than just assembled from pieces Bob Davids had at hand. The result is interesting, and generally satisfying.

The issue's first five pieces examined minor league clubs with reasonable claims to being history's best--the 1878 Buffalo Bisons (this one's by Joe Overfield), the 1919 through 1925 Baltimore Orioles (Al Kermisch), the 1930s Newark Bears (Randolph Linthurst), the 1932 Los Angeles Angels (Bill Schroeder), and the early-20s Fort Worth Panthers (Vern Luse). While all five essays are worth reading, none are really standout pieces; I liked Luse's best. Other pieces on the minor league theme included Eugene Murdock's terrific interview/portrait of Joe Hauser, John Pardon's retelling of Tony Napoles' 1946 season (he went 22-0 for Peekskill), and Ray Nemec's careful reconstruction of Perry Werden's career. Merl Kleinknecht's exploration of 19th-century black baseball necessarily discusses minor league participation, as well.

Kleinknecht's piece is a nicely-done pioneering historical study, by the way. Editor Bob Davids contributed a fine summary of the known statistical record of pinch hitting, and describes the need for further research. Bill Haber's description of his successful effort to find biographical details on 1911 Cleveland pitcher George Paige is great fun; he keeps finding dead ends and false leads, but sorts it all out mostly by persisting. Bill Borst's portrait of Helene Britton's stint as owner of the Cardinals is excellent.

Sabermetric pioneer Dick Cramer contributed his now-famous essay on clutch hitting, and Bill James threw in a delightful essay demonstrating that relief pitchers' ERAs are deflated by about .20 just because of the situations they inherit (this may no longer be true, by the way). Home run analysts John Tattersall and Ray Gonzalez both contributed disappointing articles inspired by Henry Aaron's retirement. Also of a sabermetric bent are Paul Epstein's analysis of mid-season manager changes and Stanley Fleming's essay about stolen bases, though I'd not recommend the latter.

In many ways, this is the best issue so far. There's one famous contribution, some excellent research, and some interesting reading.



This review has also been published on a dabbler's journal.… (altro)

This second BRJ edition had more substance than the first, right from the first article where David Voigt put the 1972 baseball strike into historical context. John Tattersall's offering discussed leadoff homeruns, and Fred Lieb presented a fine portrait of Hall of Fame historian Ernie Lanigan.

A few articles, of course, really show that SABR's long-term strengths were present from the beginning: WF Gustafson's piece about "Locating the Old-Time Players" presented the research issues--and the most useful materials--very well. Alvin Peterjohn wrote a nice piece about Akron baseball around 1880, and Ted Patterson's fine portrait of Bobo Holloman's short big-league career is worth the price of admission.

A bit more: There was a membership survey report about the best fielders through big-league history, Pete Palmer discussed OBA, and Bob McConnell's nice piece on switch hitters was good.

All in all, a fine effort.

This review is also posted on a dabbler's journal.… (altro)