Integration, Ruth, and Cobb

In relation to my column last week on measuring the increasing level of play, Cyril Morong alerted me to this post on Beyond the Boxscore that attempts to quantify the affects of integration. The method he uses centers on replacing a certain percentage of the worst players in the pre-integration era (1906-1946) with better players as the pool from which players were drawn was increased thereby pushing out the worst performers.

The end result is Ruth with 678 homeruns and Cobb with a batting average around .354 although it should be noted that this assumes that integration was a given from the start and did not ramp up slowly.