Yes, Seamus, and Pumpsie wasn't much of a player at that. I had forgotten Yaz, who was, perhaps the least super of the super stars. I seem to remember that he won the batting crown, one year, with an embarassingly low number. But he was the pride of eastern long Island and how many players can claim that? In fact, I left out quite a few fine white players like Al Kaline, Rocky Colavito and Dave " King Kong" Kingman. (OK, Kingman is a bit of a stretch). My point was that a very high percentage of great players since integration would have been ineligable before. And, with that in mind, how can we assume that Josh Gibson wasn't a better hitter than Babe Ruth. It seems quite likely that he must have been. I'm not trying to belittle the Bambino. I'm only saying that Barry Bonds is not going to break Hank Aaron's home run record because Aaron never held the record. It was set by Josh Gibson and it would take Bonds another few years to top it. By the way, my hometown team's racial history is no better than yours. The Phillies took forever to break their line and chose, as their pioneer, the vastly forgetable John Kennedy. At least, the A's first player of color was a brilliant fielding firstbaseman, Vic Power. Connie Mack was a bigot of the old school who, in his fifty year tenure, had a total of no black players and one Jew (Lou Limmer).

         Mike