Talk:List of Negro League baseball players

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This article was nominated for deletion on 8 April 2008. The result of the discussion was keep.

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[edit] Opinion

I like the list provided, but after checking The Baseball Encyclopedia, Revised 8th Edition, it became apparent to me that this important list of Negro League baseball players included more than those people who played in both the Negro Leagues and MLB. The original introduction indicated the list only included players who played in both leagues. I believe the edited introduction I entered now allows for the recognition of both types of players: those who played in the Negro Leagues and MLB and those who played only in the Negro Leagues. I think it's important for this list to include both types of players. As of August 2006, the list is only a very partial list. It would be nice to see the list grow.

[edit] Historical scope

Bill Monroe was recently added to this list, and I noticed that Hall of Famer Frank Grant was not on the list. I then read the page's intro and noticed that it set an historical date range of 1920 to 1960, which is generally accepted as being the dates of the organized Negro Leagues. Bill Monroe was dead before the Negro National League began play, and would not be covered by this article's scope.

We should either reword the intro so that it includes those players of color who played in the pre-league days as well, or we cannot include players like Monroe. I would vote for the former. -- Couillaud (talk) 14:54, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I added Bill Monroe, and I have to admit not reading the blurb at the top before doing so. Looking over the list, there doesn't seem to be much consistency—early players like Rube Foster, Sol White, and Home Run Johnson are included, even though they didn't play in the post-1920 official leagues, but other early players like Frank Grant and Bud Fowler don't appear.

Asking the question of whether most readers would prefer that the list include or exclude pre-1920 players, I think the clear answer is that the list would be more useful if early players were included. Most histories of Negro league baseball (including Wikipedia's main article on the topic) do not draw a sharp line through 1920, which is sensible since both teams—such as the Chicago American Giants—and players—such as Oscar Charleston, John Henry Lloyd, and Cyclone Joe Williams—have histories that begin before 1920 and last into the era of organized leagues. I agree with your suggestion to reword the intro to include all players who played at least part of their careers in segregated black-only leagues or independent teams. If this is agreed to, then when I get a chance I'll try to fill in some of the omitted names. BRMo (talk) 23:48, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Arrangement of players list

We recently had a frivolous AfD nomination, but there was some good discussion about how to make this list better. I'd like to suggest that the list should be broken into the eras of Negro League play.

There are 19th-century players, who (obviously) played before the 20th century, but are better distinguished by having played at least part of their careers in the years between the 1870s and the mid-1890s, when black players faced prejudice but still played on integrated professional teams. Fleet Walker and Frank Grant are examples.

Next, there are the pre-league players, those who played their entire careers under Jim Crow rules, but played the majority of their careers before the formation of the NNL. Pete Hill and John Donaldson are examples.

Then there are those who played nearly all of their professional careers in the Negro Leagues between 1920 and 1950. This would include players like Willie Foster and Josh Gibson; it would also include Willard Brown, who made a brief appearance in the Majors as well.

There are those Negro League players who had significant careers in MLB as well; Jackie Robinson only played a single season in the Negro Leagues, but still gets credit as a notable Negro Leaguer. Players like Roy Campanella and Larry Doby fit this class as well.

The final part of the list would be those whose Negro League careers entirely (or nearly so) covered only the post-integration period. Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, Henry Aaron, and Minnie Minoso would be prime examples, but Mamie Johnson, who played in the 1950s and never got to even the high minors is notable in her own right.

There may be a few players that don't belong on the list, as they were not exceptionally notable in comparison the most of the list. Frank Leland was a player for a few years in the 1880s, but he is most notable as a manager and executive, something implicitly excluded from this list. I think there may be a few Negro League players who will get an article on them, and they are every bit as notable and deserving of an article as any Major Leaguer, but I think this list might be restricted to the most notable players. The category "Negro League Players" should give us everyone (assuming that the writers/editors of all relevant articles remember to include that category), but this list should be both more exclusive and more informative.

If anyone agrees with this idea, I could write it up in a day. I'm also open for any suggestions for improvement/expansion. -- Couillaud (talk) 15:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I've also been thinking about improving this list and even before the AfD nomination I had started working on it offline. I agree with organizing the players by era. Of course, quite a few players had long careers that spanned more than one era. For example, Cyclone Joe Williams and John Henry Lloyd probably were at their prime as players prior to the 1920s organization of formal leagues, but they also played for many years in the organized leagues. Would you have some kind of formal cut-off to determine which era such players should be assigned to?

If we're going to exclude some less important players (and I'd favor limiting the list to major players), then we should explicitly describe the limiting criteria in the article's lede paragraph. That information would be needed in order to explain why some players are not included or why we might have to revert other editors' additions of minor players. Two criteria I'd focus on are a) a long career at the highest level (most players with long careers were also very good players) or b) players who were clearly major stars in shorter careers (so that players like Dobie Moore and Chino Smith could also be included).

I think the list would be more useful if it included a little bit of additional information. I'm thinking of beginning and ending years active (at the highest level), primary position(s) played, and maybe something like number of East-West All-Star Games. I thought of including teams played for...that would be great if everyone was like Buck Leonard and basically played for one team, but I think too many of these guys played for lots of teams and it would make the list unwieldy. I also thought of birth and death dates, but it seems like in an awful lot of cases these are unknown or controversial. I'd like to keep the list as factual and uncontroversial as possible (though I recognize that sources disagree on almost every fact on the Negro Leagues). I'd like to use Riley as the main source, and use in-line citations if the information from Riley has to be corrected using information from another source. Is there any other information that you'd like to see included? I'd format the list as a series of tables; I can start playing around with formatting in my userspace.

Finally, there's the question of including red links—that is, players currently without Wikipedia articles. There are quite a few really good players without articles (for example, see all the red links in the list of 94 nominees in the 2006 Hall of Fame special election). Looking at the Hall of Fame list and browsing through Riley for players with long articles who don't yet have a Wikipedia article, I think there are about 50 to 60 major players that are worth including. I'm in favor of adding them—it would provide a guide to what articles are most needed and would provide at least a little bit of biographical information about players who aren't currently covered in Wikipedia. Is this agreeable? BRMo (talk) 23:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

All very good ideas. As you're the guy who came up with the career stats table for Josh Gibson (which I have shamelessly made use of over on the Baseball Reference Bullpen <http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Main_Page> for Gibson and nine other players)

Although exact career dates are not known for all players (owing to the poor coverage given teams pre-league and during the depression), I think including such information when known helps a great deal. As for cutoffs, I think most players will naturally fall into one category without much debate, and the few who hit the transitional area (Pop Lloyd and Joe Williams probably the best examples) can be placed where they make most sense, or in both if necessary.

One of the criteria we could include on the list of notability is that a player has been included on a notable list. Bill James did this many years ago with his first Historical Baseball Abstract when he built his list of greatest players; he included everyone from three or four well-known (and respected) lists as well as everyone in the Hall, and most of the 55 who failed first cut should receive consideration for inclusion. We should include anyone who is in the online Baseball Hall of Merit, or who has received strong consideration. There was a famous All-Star team voted in 1952 that gets cited frequently, but I imagine everyone from that list has already made all the others. As for teams played for, there are men who played for six or more teams, but we could include most prominent teams played for. For example, Paige would have the Black Barons, Crawfords, and Monarchs as his prime teams.

Short careers are not necessarily a problem, if there was a reason. See Lyman Bostock for a short but notable MLB career. I have no trouble with Moore or Smith.

If a player is on this list, there should be an article, so if someone wants to include a player without an article, they should at least start the article themselves.

There are some players who were not particularly notable (anyone starting after 1950 has a problem, just because of the quality of the league) for their Negro League careers, but gained notability in other ways: Henry Aaron and Ernie Banks made the Hall on their MLB careers; Mamie "Peanut" Johnson was a pioneer female professional baseball player (40 years ahead of Ila Borders); Ike Brown is notable for having been the last Negro League player to have later made the Majors. Guys who simply played a season or two in the 50s Negro Leagues plus a few in the low minors are not particularly notable. I've never been convinced that Charley Pride was all that notable as a Negro League player, but that's not my call.

If you want to set something up in your userspace (or simply rewrite the article itself), do so, and if I can help, let me know.

-- Couillaud (talk) 14:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

It's sounds like we're largely in agreement. I'll try to work out a table format to get it started, then place it in a subpage where you or others can help fill the data. I'll find another place to put my list of important Negro league players who don't yet have articles. (I personally don't like to start stub articles; I generally prefer to wait until I have the time to write a decent start-class article.) I'll also mention that the Hall of Merit hasn't fared well here, so I'd recommend against citing it as a source. When other editors have referenced the project, the links have usually been removed with a comment saying that WP:EL doesn't allow linking to blogs. I don't think that's a problem because, as a former participant in the HoM project myself, I believe that everyone who did well there also appears on other lists we can cite, such as the Pittsburgh Courier, SABR, or Bill James lists. BRMo (talk) 17:55, 12 April 2008 (UTC)