Isao Harimoto
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Re: Isao Harimoto
[ Author: Guest: Jim Albright | Posted: Jan 9, 2004 2:53 AM
]
From what I can gather, the consensus is that Charleston was the best Negro League outfielder, and on that basis, I'd choose him as the Negro League comparable.
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Jim Albright says Harimoto is the elite of the elite in (in order) career hits, batting average and walks. And he had a lot of power. This would sound like he could most correlate with Cobb or Speaker, but Harimoto didn't play in Japan's "deadball era." So even though Cobb and Speaker had power, they're not high on the career homer list, so I'm not sure that would be the best correlation.
Well, then we must be thinking of Ted Williams - except looking at Harimoto's career line shows that he had 319 stolen bases - which doesn't sound like a ton until you realize that, I believe, Japan has only one pro yakyu player with over 600 stolen bases. So Harimoto could motor, but Ted Williams was a statue on the bases.
There are still four major leaguers that won't quite have the batting average to match, but they have everything else. Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Frank Robinson have exceptional hit, walk, and homer totals, but Hank Aaron has the best relative batting average (compared to the league), so that will be my closest correlation.
I guess the closest Negro League correlation might be Oscar Charleston or Christobel Torriente.
[Admin: It looks like yet another Texas based ISP attacked my server about 11:15 PM on Wednesday night (JST). The IP address belongs to a James Stakelum located in Irving, Texas. From what I can tell, he does database administration. I think the robot he wrote to gather all of my data (pure speculation) didn't have a high enough "niceness" factor and used up all available sockets too quicly, then didn't release them.]