Two Day Research Job 1: Were African American players in the majors between 1947 and 1952 hit by pitch more often than white players?

Here is a new feature for the site, simply for personal enjoyment.

Currently, I am reading a biography of Roy Campanella, and within this excellent book is an assertion that comes up frequently. This assertion is that the first black players in the majors after 1947 were hit by pitches more often than anyone else.

            Just looking at the leaders, this seems to be the case. In 1947, Jackie Robinson was hit 9 times, the second most in the National League. In 1948, Larry Doby was 3^rd in the American League while Robinson led the NL. Doby tied for the AL lead in 1949 while Robinson was second. Campanella himself was hit in his first major league plate appearance in 1948 by Ken Trinkle of the New York Giants. I decided to dig a little deeper, and found some interesting things about the road of the black ballplayer in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

            From 1947-1952, Jackie Robinson was hit by pitch 52 times, more than any other National League player. Based on the league average of HBP per at bat, Robinson would have been hit 17 times. More importantly, here rates of HBP of Robinson and the rest of the Dodgers

Year	Robinson HBP	Rest of Team HBP	Robinson AB/HBP	Dodgers AB/HBP
1947	9	20	65.6	232.95
1948	7	11	82	432.1
1949	8	25	74.1	192.2
1950	5	22	103.6	220.2
1951	9	35	60.9	141.2
1952	14	21	39.1	226.1

            In these years, the Dodgers featured a team with several black players: Robinson, Campanella, Sandy Amoros and pitchers Dan Bankhead and Don Newcombe. Let’s consider the percentage of the HBP that the Dodgers African American players racked up compared to the % of the Dodger plate appearances during the season:

Year			# of AA	A.A. Plate Appearances	AA HBP	HBP/PA	Rest of Team	Rest of Team PA	Hbp/pa
1947			2	706	10	70.6	19	5419	285.2
1948		2		646	7	92.2	11	5083	462.1
1949	3			1313	11	119.3	22	4860	220.9
1950	3			1217	7	173.8	20	4869	243.4
1951	4			1320	14	94.2	30	4894	163.1
1952	4			1261	17	74.1	18	4807	267.0

            In three of these years, the African American Dodgers were hit as often or nearly as often as the rest of the team combined. Larry Doby integrated the American League in 1947 with the Cleveland Indians, and by 1949 the Indians featured four black players: Doby, Luke Easter, Satchel Page and Minnie Minoso. Here is a table for them 1947-1952

Year	#of African Americans	African American Plate Appearances	AA HBP	PA/HBP	Rest of team PA	Rest of Team HBP	PA/HBP
1947	1	33	0		5942	14	424.4
1948	2	525	5	105	5676	19	298.7
1949	4	740	9	82.2	5228	14	373.4
1950	2	1232	16	77.0	4848	22	220.3
1951	4	1102	14	78.7	4845	13	372.6
1952	3	1107	5	221.4	4953	15	330.2

            This looks somewhat familiar to the Dodger table, especially 1950 and 1951. Why anyone would want to hit Luke Easter (6’4 240 lbs) is beyond me, but anyway.  Overall, let’s consider the HBP rate of black players from 1947 to 1952 with the rest of the major league baseball.

Year	African American Players	% of Players in MLB	African American Batters HBP	% of MLB HBP
1947	5	0.9%	10	3.1%
1948	5	0.9%	13	3.8%
1949	9	1.6%	21	5.6%
1950	9	1.6%	37	8.5%
1951	18	3.3%	67	14.9%
1952	18	3.2%	60	12.4%

            Black players in these years were hit by pitches at a higher rate than white players. Part of this is most likely racism, part of it  (Minnie Minoso and Jackie Robinson to a point) was the importance of getting on base in any way possible to score runs. Minoso led the AL in HBP nine times between 1952 and 1961.

           

Using www.baseball-reference.com, I looked up who hit Robinson, and after 1950 had play by play information. In 1947, pitchers hit Robinson nine times. Four of these were by the Pittsburgh Pirates, who were second in the league to the Brooklyn Dodgers in pitchers hitting batsmen. Beanball wars? Most likely. The only suspect here is a pitcher named Mort Cooper from the Boston Braves. According to the Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers, Morton had outstanding control. He was the ace of the staff of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1942 and 1943. He hit only two batters in 83 innings in 1947, both Jackie Robinson. In Cooper’s defense, his pitching line in 1947 against the Dodgers was not very good. Cooper in 1947 just wasn’t very good:

	W-l	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	ERA
Vs BRO	0-3	19	21	17	15	11	5	7.11
Vs Lg	3-7	64 1/3	78	41	35	15	21	4.89

            And this seems to be the pattern, especially after 1950, for pitchers who hit Jackie Robinson. They were getting bombed by the Dodgers, and took out their frustration on the symbol of integration. Consider July of 1951, where Robinson was hit in two games. Both times the beaning came within four pitches of a Brooklyn home run. In 1952, Robinson was beaned on June 21 after Pee Wee Reese and Andy Pafko homered in the 8^th against Pittsburgh.