December 3, 2008
Now shipping The 2009 Hardball Times Annual is now available. You can read about it here, but just make sure you order it directly from ACTA today. 
Rich Barbieri John Barten Sal Baxamusa John Beamer Brian Borawski John Brattain Craig Brown Matthew Carruth Derek Carty Alex Eisenberg Mike Fast David Gassko
Brandon Isleib
Chris Jaffe Josh Kalk Chris Neault Dave Studeman Steve Treder Bryan Tsao Tuck! John Walsh Geoff Young And here's the full roster. StubHub is where fans buy and sell Yankees Tickets, Red Sox Tickets, White Sox Tickets, Mets Tickets and all other baseball tickets. If you are looking for World Series Tickets, ALCS Tickets or NLCS Tickets, you can find them at StubHub! More hot selling tickets include: Cubs Tickets, Astros Tickets, Dodgers Tickets, Angels Tickets and Detroit Tigers Tickets. Gear up for baseball season with Chicago White Sox tickets and New York Yankees tickets. LA Angels tickets, Houston Astros tickets, and Atlanta Braves tickets are hot sellers! You can get Boston Red Sox tickets, San Diego Padres tickets or Chicago Cubs tickets for your favorite baseball fan. Coast to Coast Tickets has the best MLB tickets like Minnesota Twins tickets, LA Dodgers tickets, Milwaukee Brewers tickets, New York Met tickets and St. Louis Cardinals tickets.
Or you can search by:
THT's Toolbox All content on this site (including text, graphs, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
The Greatest Of Them Allby John BrattainSeptember 02, 2005 He was as versatile as Pete Rose, but with a slick glove wherever he played. Indeed in a poll conducted in the early 80s among ex-Negro Leaguers and various experts on black baseball, Dihigo garnered votes both as the best outfielder and third baseman of all time. Ultimately he was voted to the first team all-time black all-star team as a second baseman. He was an ace pitcher, a switch hitting batting champion, and an MVP who often played every position on the diamond during games (although various sources disagree whether he saw time at catcher). As a pitcher he had superb control; as a hitter, he had incredible plate discipline. Those that saw him play remarked: "Dihigo was one of the greatest I ever saw. He was tremendous hitter, had great power, could hit for an average, everything." —Hall of Famer Roy Campanella, Brooklyn Dodgers “Dihigo was the best all around baseball player I've ever seen.”—Hall of Famer Buck Leonard "The greatest player I ever saw was a black man. He's in the Hall of Fame, although not a lot of people have heard of him. His name is Martin Dihigo. I played with him in Santo Domingo in winter ball in 1943. He was the manager ... I thought I was havin' a pretty good year myself down there and they were walkin' him to get to me." —Hall of Famer Johnny Mize, who played for the St. Louis Cardinals, New York Giants and New York Yankees He was inducted into four separate baseball Hall of Fames: America's, Cuba's, Mexico's and the Dominican Republic's—in baseball history he's the only player to hold this distinction. Granted, statistics are sketchy for the old Negro, Mexican and Cuban Leagues (although we have some which we’ll deal with later) but what is known is impressive. He was a lifetime .305 hitter with 142 home runs in 6119 AB. As a pitcher he went 261-143. These numbers don’t include the three seasons he played in Venezuela between the ages of 26-28. Not surprisingly he was known as “El Maestro” in Mexico and “El Immortal” in Cuba. Martín Magdaleno Dihigo was born May 24, 1905 in Matanzas, Cuba. He began his career in the Cuban Winter League in 1923 playing first base at age 18. Later that year he debuted in America as a second baseman for the Cuban Stars in the Eastern Colored League. Five years later he moved on to the Homestead Grays and spent time with the Philadelphia Hilldales (where he hit 18 HR, 21 SB while batting .386 in just 65 games and went 4-2 on the mound in 1929), the Baltimore Black Sox, and the New York Cubans. During his time in the Negro Leagues, there are records of DiHigo’s statistics for the 1923-31, 1935-36, and 1945 seasons. Topping the .300 mark six times in those 12 seasons, he hit .325 and lead the league with 11 home runs in just 40 games in 1926, and in 1935 he hit .333 and lead the league in home runs again, with 9 in 42 games. His overall Negro League numbers show a .295 career batting average and a 6-1 record as a pitcher in 1931. Dihigoalso played in Cuba from 1922-29 and 1931-46 for a total of 24 seasons. Like his Negro League history, the record of his Cuban career is sketchy, but for the seasons that were documented (1922-29, 1931, 1935-46), he topped .300 nine times and ended up batting .291. He was 93-48 as a pitcher from 1935-46. Other highlights from the Cuban part of his career:
Probably the best documented part of Dihigo’s career was his time in the Mexican League. During his tenure there, Dihigo played with and against such luminaries as Cool Papa Bell, Satchel Paige, Ray Dandridge, Leon Day, Josh Gibson, Double Duty Radcliffe, Willie Wells, Monte Irvin, Roy Campanella, and Lyman Bostock Sr. How did he fare against such competition? Here are his pitching totals—bear in mind that he was 32 years old in 1937: Yr W L ERA G CG IP H BB SO 1937 4 0 0.93 5 4 38.7 22 3 8 1938 18 2 0.92 22 16 167.0 104 32 184 1939 15 8 2.90 23 20 202.0 169 42 202 1940 8 6 3.54 17 8 109.3 106 48 65 1941 9 10 4.01 23 9 157.0 177 43 93 1942 22 7 2.53 35 26 245.3 244 77 211 1943 16 8 3.10 26 18 194.3 181 64 134 1944 12 10 3.14 31 18 212.3 207 88 90 1946 11 4 2.83 20 11 140.0 134 49 63 1947 4 2 4.37 10 3 55.7 77 13 16 Tot 119 57 2.84 213 133 1523.7 1422 465 1109 Not bad for an old-timer. However when he wasn't pitching, he was playing somewhere on the infield or outfield. How was he with the lumber during those times? Yr G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB AVG OBP SLG 1937 7 26 7 10 1 2 1 12 3 0 0 .357 .448 .643 1938 42 142 37 55 8 2 6 27 26 4 9 .387 .482 .599 1939 51 187 32 63 11 3 5 31 27 13 5 .337 .429 .508 1940 78 302 60 110 17 6 9 73 17 25 9 .364 .402 .550 1941 92 329 74 102 25 4 12 59 57 53 7 .310 .412 .520 1942 85 279 56 89 12 4 8 51 74 21 9 .319 .466 .477 1943 75 238 35 66 14 3 7 50 51 24 5 .277 .407 .450 1944 60 189 34 47 10 2 4 29 33 17 5 .249 .369 .386 1946 66 177 27 56 9 2 3 32 32 21 8 .316 .429 .441 1947 20 46 4 9 3 1 0 6 7 6 0 .196 .302 .304 Total 577 1917 366 607 110 29 55 370 327 185 57 .317 .420 .490 So based on a 600 AB season, DiHigo’s typical season would look like this ... AB H R 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB AVG OBP SLG 600 190 115 34 9 17 115 102 58 18 .317 .420 .490 ... which isn't too shabby for a player past his prime. Consider that between the Cuban and Mexican Leagues, Dihigo went 47-12 in 1938-39 at ages 33-34 and 36-19 in 1943-44 at ages 38 and 39. Considering Dihigo's age and level of competition, imagine what he must have been like in his prime—especially the undocumented three seasons he played in Venezuela between the ages of 26-28. Also, take note of 1938: .387/.482/.599 ... 18-2, 0.92 ERA, 167.0 IP ,32 BB, 184 K and 1942: .319/.466/.477 ... 22-7, 2.53 ERA, 245.3 IP, 77 BB, 211 K He almost walked (74) as often as he walked others (77). Another tidbit is that in his first year in Mexico, one of his four wins was the first no-hit shutout thrown in Mexican professional baseball history. As mentioned, numbers are sketchy but we do know the following about Dihigo:
As to the man himself, Dihigo was known as a fun-loving goofy man. An anecdote from Latino Sports Legends that illustrates this occurred when he was on third base during a game and yelled at the pitcher: "You balked! You balked!" He kept yelling this as he walked toward home while everyone stared at Dihigo as if he had suddenly lost his mind. The pitcher stood on the mound, ball in hand mesmerized. When he crossed home plate and cagily walked into the dugout the fans began to laugh and cheer. Dihigo played occasionally while serving as player-manager for the New York Cubans in 1945 and did likewise in Cuba and Mexico until the early 1950s, when he returned home to Cuba to stay. When Castro took power, Dihigo was appointed as Minister of Sports until he passed away in 1971 at age 65 and was buried in Cienfuegos, Cuba. Was Dihigo the greatest player of all time? He was probably the best all-around player to play the game. He was certainly the most versatile; indeed his talents may have been as unique as any player to ever grace the diamond. Wherever he played he was considered to be among the very best by those who saw him. Indeed, being inducted to Halls of Fame in four different countries speaks volumes as to his greatness. This much is certain—there will never be another quite like him. References and Resources Negro League Baseball Latino Sports Legends Nation Master Hickok Sports Wikipedia Negro League Baseball Players Association Baseball Library Tune in every Wednesday at 4:40 PM EST on ESPN 1450's The Mike Gill Show and Fridays at 5:40 PM on “The Locker Room with Kevin Williams” on Fox Sports Radio 1310AM and 1160 WOBM-AM where I'm a weekly guest. For a distinctive Canadian flavour you can read my coverage of the Toronto Blue Jays (as well as other baseball matters) at Sympatico/MSN Sports. Also be sure to check out baseball’s hottest blog as mentioned by the voices inside my head: The Progenitor of Severe Gluteal Discomfort. Please forward all flames, complaints, whining, accusations about my mother, inferences of habouring an Oedipus complex, demands to engage in coprophagy before shuffling off this mortal coil, and anatomically impossible suggestions here. Do you have a general question or comment for one of THT's writers? Send it in to our weekly mailbag We also welcome unsolicited op-ed pieces of approximately 500 words for consideration. We reserve the right to edit for length, clarity and consistency of style. Please include your whole name and location to be considered. If you have a comment about this specific article, please email the writer. Next Article: Whatever Happened to Ichiro?>> <<Previous Article: Ten Things I Didn't Know Last Week |
