{"id":30988,"date":"2016-08-06T22:17:21","date_gmt":"2016-08-07T02:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/?p=30988"},"modified":"2016-08-10T14:33:49","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T18:33:49","slug":"negro-leagues-db-update-1941-nnl-nal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/06\/negro-leagues-db-update-1941-nnl-nal\/","title":{"rendered":"Negro Leagues DB Update: 1941 NNL & NAL"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the second year in a row, the Negro Leagues\u2019 best player, Josh Gibson<\/a>, played in the Mexican League instead of with the Homestead Grays. For the standings<\/a> at least, it didn\u2019t matter as Homestead<\/a> finished first for the fifth consecutive year. The Grays were a very veteran team by 1941. Thirty-three year old first baseman Buck Leonard<\/a> was the MVP of the NNL, with an AVE\/OBP\/SLG of .354\/.477\/.696 in 198 Plate Appearances. The pitching was led by also thirty-three year old Ray Brown<\/a>, who went 11-5 with a 2.85. Most amazingly, the \u201c10th man\u201d in the lineup, forty-five year old third baseman Jud Wilson<\/a>, hit .444\/.515\/.633 in 106 PA\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Just as in 1940, 2nd and 3rd place in the NNL belonged to the Baltimore Elite Giants<\/a> and the Newark Eagles<\/a>. With Josh Gibson out of the league, the best NNL catcher was Baltimore\u2019s nineteen year old Roy Campanella<\/a>, who hit .345\/.418\/.644 in 100 PA\u2019s. Left fielder Bill Hoskins<\/a> hit .367\/.413\/.669. On the mound veteran Bill Byrd<\/a> was 8-3 with a 2.02 ERA for Baltimore. In contrast to Homestead, Newark had an extremely young team. Twenty-two year old short stop Monte Irvin<\/a> hit .401\/.450\/.639 in 169 PA\u2019s while twenty-four year old Leon Day<\/a> moved away from regular pitching, splitting his time between centerfield and second base, and hitting .320\/.367\/.524.<\/p>\n

Over in the Negro American League, the Crawfords franchise was now completely gone, while the Cleveland Bears moved south to become the Jacksonville Red Caps. But at the top of the league<\/a>, it was once again the Kansas City Monarchs<\/a>, who like the Grays had the league\u2019s best overall record for the fifth year in a row. And while the Negro Leagues were missing one big star in Gibson, they got one back, with Satchel Paige<\/a> returning to the Monarchs after several years of injury and contract issues. The thirty-five year old Paige overall went 5-0 with a 2.15 ERA in 37 innings and struck out a league leading 25% of batters faced. But Paige wasn\u2019t the Monarchs\u2019 best pitcher \u2013 that would be Hiton Smith<\/a>, the \u2018relief pitcher\u2019 who went 7-0 with a 1.42 ERA in 50 innings. Smith also batted .435\/.480\/.609 in 26 PA\u2019s. Right fielder Ted Strong<\/a> hit .325\/.456\/.602 while center fielder Willard Brown<\/a> batted .321\/.378\/.550.<\/p>\n

The Birmingham Black Barons<\/a>, who finished second, were beginning to build a good, young team to challenge the Monarchs. Twenty-three year old first baseman Lyman Bostock<\/a> led them with .378\/.410\/.541 at the plate.<\/p>\n

Notable Missing:<\/strong>
\nJosh Gibson \u2013 Mexican League
\nBus Clarkson<\/a> \u2013 Mexican League
\nLuis Tiant<\/a> \u2013 Mexican League
\nSammy Hughes<\/a> \u2013 Mexican League
\nTurkey Stearnes<\/a> \u2013 Retired
\nWebster McDonald<\/a> \u2013 Retired
\nFrog Redus<\/a> \u2013 Retired<\/p>\n

Notable New:<\/strong>
\nDave Barnhill<\/a>. Barnhill was \u2018rookie of the year\u2019 although he was a veteran of the lower level, barnstorming\/clowning teams. Homestead signed him after he led the 1940-41 Puerto Rican League in strikeouts.<\/p>\n

The bulk of our data for the 1941 season comes from Larry Lester, Wayne Stivers, and the Negro League Researchers and Authors Group.<\/p>\n

Up next: The 1942 NNL and NAL, 1943 NNL\/NAL, the 1937 NAL, the 1926 NNL, plus the 1919\/20 and 1921\/22 Cuban leagues.
\n<\/p>\n

\"Kansas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the second year in a row, the Negro Leagues\u2019 best player, Josh Gibson, played in the Mexican League instead of with the Homestead Grays. For the standings at least, it didn\u2019t matter as Homestead finished first for the fifth consecutive year. The Grays were a very veteran team by 1941. Thirty-three year old first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,16162,4235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-negro-lgs","category-top-stories"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30988\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}