A baseball note on the movie "42"

A baseball note on the movie "42"

The movie is generally accurate and is worth a watch, especially if you love baseball and/or American history, but I have to nitpick one element.

At one point ol' Red Barber is up in the broadcast booth near the end of the 1947 season and announces that Robinson had 27 stolen bases with NO "caught stealing."

This was a major error on the part of the filmmakers and their researchers. True, the baseball record books show no caught stealing for Robinson in 1947, but they show no "caught stealing" for ANYONE in the National League in 1947!

Is this because the NL catchers of that era really sucked?

No. It is because "caught stealing" was not an official NL statistic until 1951.

However, Retrosheet has been working on assembling various stats that were not kept officially in earlier times, and they have concluded that Jackie Robinson actually led the league in "caught stealing" in 1947 (actually tied with his teammate Pete Reiser). He stole 29 bases and was caught 11 times, which is a decent ratio, but not a distinguished one. The following year his steals dropped to 22 and his caught stealing increased to 14, a rather poor ratio by today's standards, but good for that era. The 29 stolen bases in 1947 did lead the league by a mile, and represented a revolutionary achievement during an era when the stolen base was almost a forgotten element of the game. The second place guy in the NL (Reiser again) had only 14!

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His base-stealing achievements were overstated in the film, but Robinson's overall achievements don't need to be overstated. He was a helluva ballplayer.

In that rookie year, Robinson also led the league in sacrifice bunts by a mile (28 to the next-best 18). He was also second-best in HBP and second-best in runs scored. He was the rookie of the year.

Later in his career, he won a batting championship, and he led the league in OBP in a different year.

In 1949, he led the league in batting average and stolen bases while managing to knock in 124 runs and winning the NL MVP.

He never struck out more than 40 times in a season.

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Robinson would be a legitimate Hall of Famer even if he had not been a groundbreaker of any kind. He was essentially the same player as Paul Molitor, a legit HOFer, except that Molitor was able to play in the majors at age 21 and Robinson was not, for reasons we all understand (war and discrimination being the big two).

Like Molitor, Jackie could play any position on the field except catcher. He was a first baseman in 1947. He won his MVP as a second baseman. He played SS in the Negro leagues. When the team needed a left fielder in 1953, Robinson filled in. When super glove man Billy Cox was injured, Robinson filled in at third base.

As for their production with the stick and legs, here's Molitor and Robinson side-by-side per 162 games:

extra base hits: Molitor 37-7-14, Robinson 32-6-16

stolen bases: Molitor 30, Robinson 23.

runs-rbi: Molitor 108-79, Robinson 111-86

ba/obp/slg: Molitor .306/.369/.449, Robinson .311/.409/.474

adjusted ops: Molitor 122, Robinson 132

The key difference between them resolves in Jackie's favor: Jackie walked more and struck out less. With that exception, any of Molitor's seasons could be inserted into Jackie's career, and vice-versa, without anybody noticing unless they have all the stats memorized.