Correct - Speaker worked with Doby on developing outfield skills.
As to old racists changing their ways, I noted upthread that Ty Cobb was a big fan of Willie Mays. Interestingly, he also said the contemporary (in the 1950s) player that most reminded him of himself was Roy Campanella, also Black.
I have always wondered if this wasn’t misreported, and that what Cobb said was that Campanella was his favorite player and Mays reminded him of himself. I can understand why he would like either player, but him saying Roy Campanella reminded Cobb of himself makes no sense at all. Campanella was certainly a great player, but he was about as UNLIKE Cobb as a great player can be; he was a squat, slow, righthanded hitting catcher who was primarily known for hitting home runs and stellar defense, none of which describes Ty Cobb, who as a multitalented, fast center fielder was obviously a lot more like Willie Mays (that’s not a fantastic comparison - Mays was small, right handed, and a great fielder, none of which was true of Cobb, but he’s a hell of a lot closer.)
It’s just odd to me that Cobb, a man who knew a thing or two about baseball, would look around baseball, pick out a guy who had nothing at all in common with him, and say “He’s like I was!”
It’s hard to know what criteria Cobb was using. Maybe he considers some intangibles to be critical - work ethic or perfectionism? I’ve no idea.
A few random thoughts on this thread:
I would recommend the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. Lots of great info in there, including ways to compare players from different eras. James provides some historical context about how the games were played, and makes some excellent points about players and ballparks.
Ted Williams was a great hitter. His career numbers are terrific, but even so, he lost 3 years to WWII, and most of 2 seasons to Korea. He averaged 37 home runs, 188 hits and 130 RBI a season. If you project similar numbers for the missed seasons, he ends up in the 670 HR/ 3500 hits/2400 RBI neighborhood, which is Babe Ruth/Willie Mays/Hank Aaron territory.
Any right-handed hitter who played in the old Yankee Stadium was better than his numbers show, including DiMaggio. BTW, DiMaggio had a 61-game hitting streak in the PCL, but that’s not the minor league record (69 by Joe Wilhoit). It’s possible that his 56 will be bested someday, but I’m dubious.
Jackie Robinson was a very good ballplayer. His career got a late start due to WWII and the color line–he was 27 before he reached the majors. But if you are looking for a counterpart to Cobb, I’d look at Robinson. Both were the most competitive of men, and their baserunning reflected that. Of course, Cobb is remembered as the most hated player of his day and a horrible racist, and Robinson is memorialized by hagiography, but they are more alike than most will admit. Bob Gibson, another extremely competitive man, doesn’t come out that well, either, at least by Ken Burns.
I remember Pete Rose at 3rd base in the '76 series, coming way in on Mickey Rivers…Still, I don’t recall Pete being thought of as a good defensive player.
There’s a story that Eddie Gaedel appeared in an exhibition game later that summer and got rung up on three straight pitches, then ejected for arguing with the umpire. I can’t find it anywhere, though.
As far as centerfielders go, Devon White was outstanding, but I always thought Gary Pettis was the best in the game.
Finally, many of my interests line up with several of Burns’s films–baseball, jazz, WWII–but I’ve never been able to finish one of his films. I just lose interest. I’m not sure what it is, but something about his approach turns me off and I turn him off.
Well, not exactly, no. You are looking at his totals for every 162 games, not for every season he played. Williams never played 162 games in any season, in part because the American League only played 154 games a season until his last year, and he usually didn’t even come near the 154 they did play. He “only” had three actual seasons with 130 RBI, and three with 188 hits. Infact, if you look at his “per 162 games” Triple Crown stats of .344 with 37 homers and 130 RBI, he only had one real season in his career when he did that, in 1942.
Williams missed a lot of playing time every year after he returned from Korea, so it’s quite possible he’d have put up those averages, or something close to it, in his missed war years. It is interested to note than according to WAR, his three best seasons surrounded his WWII service; according to BBRef he posted 10.4 WAR in 1941 and 1942, and 10.6 in 1946. If one assumes that without having to go to fight the Japanese he had posted three more years of equivalent greatness, that places him at about 152 WAR, which would elevate him from the 14th highest total of all time to sixth (past, among other people, Stan Musial, who lost one year to WWII but would still be well behind Williams.)
Again, though, that memory is wrong.
I tried to edit my post last night but it timed out on me. Yes, those numbers are based on a 162 game season. I knocked them down a bit to account for that, so I estimated that he could hit 30 home runs a season for the 5 years he missed, which would give him 671 for his career, which I rounded down. I did similar estimates for hits and RBI, and if anything, my numbers may be too low. It’s possible he would have averaged 35 HR a season for those years–who knows?–but Williams’s career numbers could be much higher than they are and he could reasonably be argued to be the greatest hitter in the history of the game.
Richie Ashburn regularly made about 10% more putouts every season than Mays. But Ashburn had a weak throwing arm and almost no outfield assists. The thing about Mays’s catch is that he then wheeled and threw a ball to the infield and prevented a run from scoring from second. Ashburn would have made the catch easily but not the throw.
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The only outfield assist that I recall from Ashburn was in bottom of 9th in a 1-1 tie with Brooklyn in the last game of the 1950 season when Cal Abrams tried to score from second on a single to center. A three run homer by Dick Sisler in the top of the tenth gave the pennant to the Phillies.
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The Polo Grounds was laid out like an italic “U” with a ridiculous 483 feet to the center field wall: https://thisgreatgame.com/ballparks-polo-grounds/
To put that into perspective: Hitting a ball from home plate to the center field seats at the Polo Grounds meant hitting it fully 15% of the distance needed to hit it across the Harlem River and have it land on the pitcher’s mound at Yankee Stadium. Only four more people ever did the former than the latter (4 to 0).
The center fielder was expected to cover an area easily comparable to a football field. Running full speed to catch a ball near the wall and then wheeling to make a good throw to second was very impressive. Certainly Mays was not the only one to make that play in that place and there’s some exaggeration in the mythology, but doing so in the World Series in a game-changing situation was bound to be memorable.
This guy has done some excellent illustrations of ballpark layouts, with dimensions: here’s the Polo Grounds field – you can mouse over the years to the right side of the field diagram to see how it was laid out at different times.
Which park has the shortest distance to hit a home run in centre field? What is an approximate average? How would it differ, in distance, to left or right field?
Fenway is 390’
MLB instituted some rules on field size in 1958: a minimum of 325 feet to left and right fields (which is effectively the minimum distance to the foul poles), and a minimum of 400 feet to straight center field. Those rules, of course, are only applied to ballparks built after that date (though the only remaining parks which predate the rule are Fenway Park and Wrigley Field), and there have apparently been some waivers granted to newer parks.
The rule gets rid of some of the quirks that the old “jewel box” ballparks were known for, like the short foul lines in the Polo Grounds (and in the Los Angeles Coliseum, where the Dodgers originally played after moving west).
The Wikipedia entry on ballparks lists all of the current MLB parks, and their dimensions; sorting on that, the answers to your questions are:
Left Field Line: shortest is Fenway (310’), longest is Wrigley (355’); average is around 330’
Right Field Line: shortest is Fenway (302’), longest is Wrigley (355’ (typo: it’s actually 353’)); average is, again, around 330’
Center Field: shortest is Petco (396’), longest is Comerica (420’); average is a smidge above 400’
Nitpick of nitpicks: Wrigley is 353’ to right.
Typo on my part! You are correct. Fixed and noted.
Wikipedia has a good page covering this:
The shortest distance to center field in MLB is at Fenway Park (home of the Boston Red Sox), with a distance of 390 feet (118.9 meters). The longest distance is at Comerica Park (home of the Detroit Tigers), with a distance of 420 feet (128 meters). The average distance is 403 feet (122.9 meters).
Left and right field are usually shallower than center field, although the deepest part of the outfield isn’t always in straightaway center field. The deepest part of Oracle Park (home of the San Francisco Giants) is right-center field, at a depth of 415 feet (126.5 meters), as opposed to straightaway center field, which is at a depth of 391 feet (119 meters). As far as I know, every MLB park is deeper to straighaway center than to the left and right field power alleys, and the left and right field corners are always shallower than the power alleys.
For shortest ever, you have to go back to 19th Century Chicago. Lakefront Park in 1883 & '84 – only 300 feet to center.
Thank all of you for your answers. I do realize many of these questions are Googable or Wikiaccessible. But not all of them, and their answers often lack the anecdotal flavour, colour and depth of affectionados - who generally enjoy showing off their knowledge of the obscure - especially baseball fans.
Anyway, the difference between 480’ and 400-420’ is, in practice, immense.
Indeed, and apparently only five players ever hit a home run into the center field stands in the post-1923 Polo Grounds, and only three of those were during MLB games (the fourth was in batting practice, and the fifth was during a Negro League game).
That said, the center field dimension is a bit less relevant for home runs, as power hitters are typically pulling the ball (righty hitters pull the ball towards left field, and lefties towards right field). It’s the dimensions in left and right field - the foul lines, and the “power alleys” - which are more likely to come into play for determining home runs versus long fly outs.
Strange that you would say something so vociferiously that flies right in the teeth of the facts.
Ashburn regularly had assist totals in the mid-to-high teens, with a high of 23. His issue defensively was that he patrolled behind a fly ball staff, led by Robin Roberts (fly/groundball ratio of 0.7), but he was a very good defensive CFer even after you adjust for that.
The much-maligned Baker Bowl (home of the Philadelphia Phillies until 1938) had a distance of 408 feet to the center field clubhouse. Of course, it was only 272 feet down the right field line (later extended to 281, topped by a 40 foot wall with 20 feet of fencing on top of that). The N.Y. baseball writers had a field day (sorry) making fun of the right field dimensions, but there was a period in which both the Giants and Yankees played at the Polo Grounds, where the distances to the left and right field foul poles were 279 and 258 feet respectively.
At the original Baker Bowl (which burned down in 1894*) it was 500 feet to left field.
*a number of wooden baseball parks burned down in the early days, and collapsing stands weren’t unknown. It could be hazardous to be a fan then.