Oscar Charleston

This post is part of a series of my thoughts on historical baseball players that I find interesting. I was reading through Bill James Baseball Abstract the other night and found that he had Oscar Charleston ranked as the 4th greatest player of all time. The famous John McGraw, who knew a thing or two about baseball, once said that Oscar was the greatest he had ever seen play, even better than Ty Cobb. And McGraw saw them all play: Walter Johnson, Christy Matthewson, Honus Wagner, Cy Young, Tris Speaker, etc. This intrigued me. Who was this Oscar Charleston?

Oscar Charleston

1896-1954

Teams: Indianapolis ABC's, New York Lincoln Stars, Chicago American Giants, St. Louis Giants, Harrisburg Giants, Hilldale, Homestead Grays, Pittsburgh Crawfords , Toledo Crawfords, Indianapolis Crawfords, Philadelphia Stars, Brooklyn Brown Dodgers, Indianapolis Clowns

Career Summary: Charleston was an All-Star in the Negro Leagues in 1933-35. He was elected to the Hall of Fame by the special committee on Negro Leagues in 1976.

Oscar Charleston was a true superstar of the Negro Leagues. He was a cross between the hitting ability of Ty Cobb and, at 6-foot, 190 pounds, the body of Babe Ruth.

For a player of his size with his tremendous power, Charleston was also a skilled base runner and a threat to steal bases. Writers dubbed Charleston as “The Black Ty Cobb.” Those who played with him insist that Charleston was far superior defensively than Cobb and possessed far more power than the Georgia Peach.

With his tremendous speed, Charleston could play shallow centerfield and still have the ability to run down long drives. Many compared his style of defense to that of Tris Speaker.
“Charleston could hit that ball a mile,” Dizzy Dean said. “He didn’t have a weakness. When he came up, we just threw it and hoped like hell he wouldn’t get a hold of one and send it out of the park.”

Charleston had a legendary temper and became famous for his many fights with other players, umpires, owners and scouts. According to legend, Charletson ripped the hood off a Klansman and dared him to speak.

His career as a player and manager spanned 40 years. Available statistics show Charleston batted .353 in his career. He played in 53 exhibition games against white major league players and hit .318 with 11 home runs.

As a manager, he was tough and demanding and very protective of his rookie players. A look at the career of Oscar Charleston by year:

• 1896 - Oscar Charleston was born in Indianapolis.
  
• 1910 - Charleston joined the army when he was 14 or 15. Stationed in the Philippines, Charleston got a chance to play baseball and run track. (Records show he ran the 220-yard dash in 23 seconds.)
  
• 1915 - Charleston returned to his hometown and joined the ABC’s as a player. He had grown up as a bat boy for the team and now had the opportunity to star with the team. With his speed, Charleston was able to cover much of the outfield. During his rookie season, Charleston and another ABC’s player got into a fight with an umpire and Charleston was held on $1,000 bond. Charleston was suspended by the team owner.
  He wrote a letter to the public to apologize. “The fact is that I could not overcome my temper as often times ball players can not…. I consider the incident highly unwise.”
  
• 1916 - Charleston was a part of the ABC’s team that beat the Chicago American Giants to capture the Black World Series.
  
• 1920 - The Negro National Leagues are formed and Charleston returns to the ABC’s. Chicago American Giants owner Rube Foster returned Charleston to his first team as a way of balancing the power in the league.
  
• 1921 - Charleston led the league in hitting (.426), triples (10), home runs (14) and stolen bases (28), collecting 79 hits in 50 games.
  
• 1922 - He becomes player-manager for the Harrisburg Giants of the Eastern Colored League. He continues to serve as player-manager through the 1925 season.
  
• 1925 - Charleston led the Eastern Colored League with a .445 batting average and helps the Giants to a second-place finish.
  
• 1928-1931 - In two-year stays with Hilldale and Homestead, Charleston hits .347.
  
• 1930 - Charleston became a member of the legendary Homestead Grays. There he teamed with such Negro League stars as Smokey Joe Williams, Judy Johnson and Josh Gibson. The Grays won a 10-game championship series with the Lincoln Giants. The Giants featured Chino Smith.
  
• 1932 - Financier Gus Greenlee raids the Grays and moves Charleston and other stars to his Pittsburgh Crawfords. Charleston becomes the manager. The independent team finished the season 99-36 record and Charleston hit .363, second on the team to Josh Gibson.
  
• 1933-35 - Charleston appeared in three East-West All-Star Games.
  
• 1935 - Charleston managed the Crawfords to a Negro National League championship over the New York Cubans.
  
• 1941-50 - Charleston managed the Philadelphia Stars.
  
• 1945 - Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey formed the United States league as a way to evaluate black players for possible integration into Major League Baseball. Charleston signed on as a scout.
  
• 1954 - Charleston managed the Indianapolis Clowns to a league championship in his last season in professional baseball. In October of that year, Charleston suffered a stroke and fell down a flight of stairs. He died a few days later.
  
• 1976 -- Charleston was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Committee on Negro Baseball Leagues.

Shrek Sneaks onto American Idol!

So I flip on American Idol last night, haven't watched it at all this year, only to see Shrek dressed up as Whitney Houston! Not only that, but Shrek made it to the top 3! Unfortunately, Shrek (Megan Doolittle) was eliminated last night.

Interesting

The M's have the 4th worst ERA overall, and the #1 worst ERA in the majors with runners in scoring position.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/stats/byteam?cat=Situational&cut_type=39&conference=MLB&year=season_2007&sort=837

Tidbits

"Two or three guys can get hot, but the whole team? No," Batista said. "Something's happening."

Yes, Miguel, that "something happening" is called you getting shelled.

The right-hander lasted just 2 2/3 innings in his second start against New York in six days and said afterward that the Yankees hitters "had a good idea what was coming."

The Mariners will check out the video of Saturday night's game to see if they can detect something that Miguel Batista did to tip off some of his pitches.

To catch a thief: When Ichiro Suzuki stole two bases in Friday night's game, it marked the 34th time in his Major League career that he's swiped more than one base in a game.
He also extended his streak of consecutive thefts without being caught to 43, extending his own American League record. The Major League mark is 50, set by Vince Coleman from Sept. 18, 1998, to July 26, 1999. Ichiro hasn't been caught stealing since April 19, 2006.

And who will replace the mighty Julio Mateo?

http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070513&content_id=1963063&vkey=news_sea&fext=.jsp&c_id=sea

Are you ugly? It might be best that you blow yourself up.

Some Women See Escape in Their Martyrdom

TIME MAGAZINE -- MAY 14

Palestinian women who sign on to become suicide bombers often are driven by something other than a desire for vengeance against Israel. For many, terrorism offers an escape from dire circumstances -- the looming punishment for an extramarital affair, for example, or the prospect of an undesired arranged marriage.

"Palestinian women, far more than men, tend to choose self-sacrifice as an exit from personal despair," says Time's Tim McGirk. Since 2002, 88 Palestinian women have attempted suicide bombings; eight have succeeded. Like male suicide bombers, these women often are promised a special place in paradise for their martyrdom.

Many of the women are motivated like their male counterparts by a desire to inflict brutal revenge. In 2003, successful lawyer Hanadi Jaradat killed 21 Israelis and herself after Israeli soldiers raided her home and killed her brother and fiancé, both militants.

But in interviews with survivors, Israeli intelligence agents have identified some major differences between female and male suicide bombers. The women tend to be less introverted, older and better educated than the men. They also commonly receive less preparation and training for their attacks, ranging from days to weeks. That might explain why so many women backed away from pulling the trigger at the last moment. One teenager volunteered for suicide missions after she was forbidden to marry her boyfriend.

Suicide bombing can be a way to make up for social shame. Militants had convinced Wafa Samir al-Bliss that her disfiguring burn scars meant she would never marry and "was better off as a martyr." In the end, her suicide belt failed to detonate.

Palestinians in Gaza say that Reem Riyashi, who carried out a suicide bombing in 2004, had had an affair with a senior Hamas official. When her husband found out, she was reportedly offered suicide bombing as a chance to avoid the death sentence she risked if her affair became public.

No Satisfaction: Why WhatYou Have Is Never Enough

WALL STREET JOURNAL
Jonathan Clements
May 2, 2007; Page D1

We may have life and liberty. But the pursuit of happiness isn't going so well.
As a country, we are richer than ever. Yet surveys show that Americans are no happier than they were 30 years ago. The key problem: We aren't very good at figuring out what will make us happy.
We constantly hanker after fancier cars and fatter paychecks -- and, initially, such things boost our happiness. But the glow of satisfaction quickly fades and soon we're yearning for something else.
Similarly, we tell our friends that our kids are our greatest joy. Research, however, suggests the arrival of children lowers parents' reported happiness, as they struggle with the daily stresses involved. Which raises the obvious question: Why do we keep striving after these things? Experts offer two explanations.

• We aren't built to be happy. Rather, we are built to survive and reproduce. We wouldn't be here today if our ancestors didn't struggle mightily to protect and feed their families. The promise of happiness, meanwhile, is just a trick to jolly us along. "This is an incentive scheme for the benefit of our genes," argues Boston money manager Terry Burnham, co-author of "Mean Genes." "It's a very fundamental trick that's played on us, this lure of perpetual bliss." Don't like the idea that we're hoodwinked by some hard-wired set of ancient instincts? Blame it, instead, on societal beliefs. Working hard and raising children may not make us happier. But these beliefs keep society functioning -- and those who embrace them prosper and end up passing these values onto their children.

• We're bad at forecasting. Consider a study by academics Daniel Kahneman and David Schkade. They asked university students in the Midwest and Southern California where they thought someone like themselves would be happier -- and both groups picked California, in large part because of the better weather. Yet, when asked how satisfied they were with their own lives, both groups were equally happy.
  "When you're thinking about moving to California, you're thinking about the beaches and the weather," says Mr. Schkade, a management professor at the University of California at San Diego. "But you aren't thinking about the fact that you'll still be spending a lot of time in the grocery store or doing chores. People emphasize differences that are easy to observe ahead of time and forget about the similarities."
  When we predict what will make us happy, we're also influenced by how we feel today. If we buy the weekly groceries just after we've had lunch, we will shop much more selectively. The downside: A few days later, we will be staring unhappily into an empty refrigerator.
  Maybe most important, we fail to anticipate how quickly we will adapt to improvements in our lives. We think everything will be wonderful when we move into the bigger house. We don't realize that, after a few months, we will take the extra space for granted.
  Experience should help us avoid repeating such mistakes. But it doesn't, in part because we don't accurately recall how we really felt, says Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert, author of "Stumbling on Happiness." One example: We work devilishly hard to get that next promotion, because we're sure it will leave us elated. We forget that, when we last got promoted, it was a bit of a letdown. With any luck, just knowing we are susceptible to these pitfalls will help.
  But you might also try a reality check, Prof. Gilbert says. Suppose you think you will be happier if you move to a small rural town, adopt a child, or quit your job and become a high-school math teacher. Don't rely on the opinions of people who live in small towns, have adopted kids or become teachers. Instead, spend some time observing these folks -- and see whether they're happy.
  Becoming a teacher "sounds quite romantic," Prof. Gilbert says. "But hanging around high-school math teachers may quickly disabuse you of that notion."
  

Hitchens on Tenet

This is an interesting editorial on former FBI director George Tenet's attempt to blame the Bush administration for the CIA's intelligence mistakes:

http://politics.slate.msn.com/id/2165269/nav/tap1/