...but I do want to point out that among the many anti-batting average articles in Baseball Magazine was an absolute classic called “What the Records Cost Me,” written by Cactus Gavvy Cravath, a Deadball Era slugger who led the league in home runs six times in the seven years from 1913 to 1919. He also led the league in runs scored once, in walks once, in RBIs twice, in slugging twice, and in OPS+ three years in a row from 1913 to 1915. His 24 home runs were the “modern” record until Ruth came along.
But, of course, nobody really cared about any of that because batting average ruled the times. And Cravath never led the league in batting average.
“Very likely many people will look upon what I am going to say as the crabbing of an old fossil,” Cactus Cravath wrote (undoubtedly in the words of F.C. Lane. “It makes very little difference to me, however, what they think.”
Well, that wasn’t true. He obviously did care. Cravath believed that he should have been better respected (and better paid) as a player, but wasn’t because everybody kept looking at batting averages instead of player value.
More: “There is a certain charm about the phrase ‘.300 hitter,’ which seems to appeal to the crowd. If a man is a .300 hitter he is a star. … I am not a statistician myself. I claim no ability to advise a system of batting averages which would be perfect or anywhere near it. But I do think that batting averages should do more than record the mere frequency of hits. They should do something to record the quality of hits. I do not even suggest that the present system should be discontinued. But I do claim that some system ought to be put in operation which would indicate a player’s actual batting ability as expressed in the length as well as the number of hits made.
“It is the real batter, according to my way of thinking, the man who wins games with his bat, who is being discriminated against by the present system.”
Cravath proceeded to explain why he, and not Jake Daubert, should have won the Chalmers Award in 1913. (The Chalmers Company would give a car to the best hitter in the league, as expressed by the highest batting average.) Jake Daubert hit .350 to Cravath’s .341. But Cravath hit 19 homers to Daubert’s two, drove in 128 runs to Daubert’s 55, and outscored him 78-76. What Cravath really was suggesting was some kind of slugging percentage, and he was smart to suggest it — he outslugged Daubert by 145 points.
“Someone will say I am complaining because I didn’t get the automobile,” Cravath wrote. “True, I think I earned it, but that isn’t the main thing.“
The whole article is actually about FC Lane, an early baseball Sportswriter who despised batting average and thought all hits are not created equal. In fact, he pegged modern day Linear Weight values for each type of hit almost exactly like Pete Palmer derived 50 years later. The article is well worth the read, and can be found here.
My favorite FC Lane line
He made the point that if someone has a 50-cent piece, a quarter, three times, four nickels and three pennies, we would say he has $1.28 and NOT that he has 12 coins. (“Anyone who offered such a system would deserve to be examined as to his mental condition,” Lane wrote — he did not suffer fools.)
Hat tip to Sean S for making me realize how perfect this was for ATB!
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