Best/Worst wrong assertions, or flat out wrong "facts" you've seen in books or docs

[SteveJRogers]

This is strictly for the non-autobiographical pieces of work. Where the author just gets something so wrong or off base, or even something like it's clear where his/her biases lie.

Note, this is for the non-outlandish and wide scope stuff such as Jane Leavy apparently "outing" Sandy Koufax or the idea that Forever Blue was just an O'Malley propaganda rag. Basically nothing that would take this thread into tangents that don't belong in this thread!

Anyway, was just thinking of one in the Big Hair & Plastic Grass book that came out about baseball in the 1970s, and the author tries to tell the origin story of Tug McGraw's famous "YA GOTTA BELIEVE" war cry.

Well, he tells the facts right, but I have a feeling the author's biases towards "stuffy" 1970s era owners kind of shines through and no research on the actual event was done.

Well, from every place I've seen and heard McGraw say the story, M. Donald Grant was trying to give this real cornball pep talk, and McGraw had just come from a session with a sports therapist who was trying to get McGraw into a peppy and happy place (no doubt some chemicals were involved one way or another), and McGraw's jubilation was quite sincere. Hard not to believe that considering McGraw's post-win antics and general upbeat attitude towards life. Anyway, the aftermath was that Grant thought McGraw was mocking him with YA GOTTA BELIEVE, and Ed Kranepool went to McGraw and said "You realize you probably just wrote your ticket out of here" and of course McGraw would be gone by the end of the 1974 season.

Well, in this book, the story is the complete opposite. It's told as if McGraw was completely mocking Grant, and Grant sounding like he lacked any self-awareness and was a naive boob by thinking McGraw was genuine in his enthusiasm, and that's how Ya Gotta Believe ended up as the Mets' rallying cry.

Kind of clear that the research done was just the bare minimum facts, and adding the author's biases about stuffy owners and jocks who are always happy-go-lucky and joking all the time.

[EdTarbusz]

A few I can think of:

Jackie Robinson retired rather than accept a trade to the Giants. I think there are probably more bad facts and wrong assertations about Jackie Robinson and his career than any other player in baseball history

The banishment of the Black Sox led to the end of gamblers and game fixing in baseball.

Baseball segregration can be blamed on Cap Anson and KM Landis.

From a Cleveland perspective: Cleveland Stadium was built as a WPA project and was built to attract the Olympics.

[Dude Paskert]

I've read several times that Rogers Hornsby chose to not attend his mother's funeral just before the '26 WS, usually as evidence of what a creep he was.
The truth was the funeral was delayed until after the series and Mrs. Hornsby made it very clear before she died that she didn't want Rogers to leave the team at such a critical time. Hornsby left for Texas as soon as he could and was very emotional at the funeral. Rogers was a very cold, hard person, but the way the story has been twisted over the years is not fair to him.

[VIBaseball]

After looking into the subject, I've come to believe that contrary to what's often been written, racism was not the motive for Jeff Heath when he broke the bat that Willard Brown used to hit a home run for the Browns in 1947. I don't think it can ever really be proven, but I put the case for a different motive like this:

* In 1965, Hank Thompson mentioned Heath as one of five Browns who “went out of their way to make life easier for me and Brown.”
* Heath had given a positive report on Brown’s ability after facing him when Bob Feller’s All-Stars played Satchel Paige’s barnstorming squad in the fall of 1946.
* Heath was odd and superstitious and would not allow teammates to borrow his bats (the one Brown used had been discarded because its knob was broken).
* Browns road secretary Charlie DeWitt said that Heath would not have minded if Brown got a single, but he had "used up one of the bat’s home runs."

[GiambiJuice]

That McGwire and Sosa "saved" baseball after the 1994 strike.

That Babe Ruth "saved" baseball after the Black Sox Scandal.

Baseball would have survived and thrived without any of them.

[epaddon]

#1-That Don Zimmer cost the Red Sox the AL East in 1978 because of his grudge against the so-called "Buffalo Head" players that he'd gotten rid of or wouldn't use any longer. This myth has revealed more about the political biases of the various writers who like to set up a "Counterculture rebels vs. Establishment" dynamic to this argument that it ignores a lot of salient facts. Such as (1) Fergie Jenkins, one of the "Buffalo Heads" didn't know how to pitch well in Fenway (2) Rick Wise, another, was traded for a better pitcher in Dennis Eckersley (3) Bernie Carbo played himself out of town because of his own antics, something he admitted in recent years and (4) Bill Lee stunk so bad in a critical stretch that the idea he would have been the Red Sox savior by starting instead of Bobby Sprowl in Game 4 of the Boston Massacre is ludicrous. If Bill Lee had just won ONE of his starts in that 0-7 stretch, there is no playoff!

#2-Related to #1 is the strange mythology that tries to rate the trade of Bill Lee for Stan Papi as the equivalent of Sparky Lyle for Danny Cater if not the sale of Babe Ruth. This too is rooted in the "Counterculture vs. Establishment" dynamic and they love to hype Lee's 16 wins for Montreal in 1979 as if that cost the Red Sox a pennant. Granted that Stan Papi did nothing for the Red Sox, this silly argument fails to take into account that Lee's spot on the staff was taken by Steve Renko who won 13 games, and also the fact that Baltimore ran away with the division that year meant that the Red Sox weren't going to win even if they still had Lee. Then, Lee had two more not so great years in Montreal and then played himself off the team and out of baseball with his me-first attitude.

#3-That the 1986 Mets failed to become a dynasty because Frank Cashen traded Kevin Mitchell for Kevin McReynolds and didn't resign Ray Knight. The former is cited many times and it's simply a case of people saying Mitchell was a better clubhouse leader than McReynolds. But that has nothing to do with why the Mets didn't win a pennant in 1988, a year when McReynolds was a legitimate MVP contender, and they came within one game of a World Series. How would having Mitchell over McReynolds change Game 4 of the 1988 NLCS, the turnaround game caused by Davey Johnson failing to take Gooden out in the 9th inning? This is a classic case of what happens when writers like to use false intangibles as their be-all explanation rather than focus on the actual GAME action that said more about why a team failed to win, especially if we're talking about a team like the 1988 Mets that was just one game away from getting a pennant.

[epaddon]

(Duplicate deleted)

[SteveJRogers]

#1-That Don Zimmer cost the Red Sox the AL East in 1978 because of his grudge against the so-called "Buffalo Head" players that he'd gotten rid of or wouldn't use any longer. This myth has revealed more about the political biases of the various writers who like to set up a "Counterculture rebels vs. Establishment" dynamic to this argument that it ignores a lot of salient facts. Such as (1) Fergie Jenkins, one of the "Buffalo Heads" didn't know how to pitch well in Fenway (2) Rick Wise, another, was traded for a better pitcher in Dennis Eckersley (3) Bernie Carbo played himself out of town because of his own antics, something he admitted in recent years and (4) Bill Lee stunk so bad in a critical stretch that the idea he would have been the Red Sox savior by starting instead of Bobby Sprowl in Game 4 of the Boston Massacre is ludicrous. If Bill Lee had just won ONE of his starts in that 0-7 stretch, there is no playoff!

#2-Related to #1 is the strange mythology that tries to rate the trade of Bill Lee for Stan Papi as the equivalent of Sparky Lyle for Danny Cater if not the sale of Babe Ruth. This too is rooted in the "Counterculture vs. Establishment" dynamic and they love to hype Lee's 16 wins for Montreal in 1979 as if that cost the Red Sox a pennant. Granted that Stan Papi did nothing for the Red Sox, this silly argument fails to take into account that Lee's spot on the staff was taken by Steve Renko who won 13 games, and also the fact that Baltimore ran away with the division that year meant that the Red Sox weren't going to win even if they still had Lee. Then, Lee had two more not so great years in Montreal and then played himself off the team and out of baseball with his me-first attitude.

#3-That the 1986 Mets failed to become a dynasty because Frank Cashen traded Kevin Mitchell for Kevin McReynolds and didn't resign Ray Knight. The former is cited many times and it's simply a case of people saying Mitchell was a better clubhouse leader than McReynolds. But that has nothing to do with why the Mets didn't win a pennant in 1988, a year when McReynolds was a legitimate MVP contender, and they came within one game of a World Series. How would having Mitchell over McReynolds change Game 4 of the 1988 NLCS, the turnaround game caused by Davey Johnson failing to take Gooden out in the 9th inning? This is a classic case of what happens when writers like to use false intangibles as their be-all explanation rather than focus on the actual GAME action that said more about why a team failed to win, especially if we're talking about a team like the 1988 Mets that was just one game away from getting a pennant.

I get that feeling from reading that book I mentioned in my original post as well. Especially since I like his Facebook site for the book, and he is always wishing players from the decade "funky birthday wishes" even if I'd wager good money that the player in question would give the author a funny look if the author said so in a face-to-face meeting.

[m8644]

#1-That Don Zimmer cost the Red Sox the AL East in 1978 because of his grudge against the so-called "Buffalo Head" players that he'd gotten rid of or wouldn't use any longer. This myth has revealed more about the political biases of the various writers who like to set up a "Counterculture rebels vs. Establishment" dynamic to this argument that it ignores a lot of salient facts. Such as (1) Fergie Jenkins, one of the "Buffalo Heads" didn't know how to pitch well in Fenway (2) Rick Wise, another, was traded for a better pitcher in Dennis Eckersley (3) Bernie Carbo played himself out of town because of his own antics, something he admitted in recent years and (4) Bill Lee stunk so bad in a critical stretch that the idea he would have been the Red Sox savior by starting instead of Bobby Sprowl in Game 4 of the Boston Massacre is ludicrous. If Bill Lee had just won ONE of his starts in that 0-7 stretch, there is no playoff!

#2-Related to #1 is the strange mythology that tries to rate the trade of Bill Lee for Stan Papi as the equivalent of Sparky Lyle for Danny Cater if not the sale of Babe Ruth. This too is rooted in the "Counterculture vs. Establishment" dynamic and they love to hype Lee's 16 wins for Montreal in 1979 as if that cost the Red Sox a pennant. Granted that Stan Papi did nothing for the Red Sox, this silly argument fails to take into account that Lee's spot on the staff was taken by Steve Renko who won 13 games, and also the fact that Baltimore ran away with the division that year meant that the Red Sox weren't going to win even if they still had Lee. Then, Lee had two more not so great years in Montreal and then played himself off the team and out of baseball with his me-first attitude.

#3-That the 1986 Mets failed to become a dynasty because Frank Cashen traded Kevin Mitchell for Kevin McReynolds and didn't resign Ray Knight. The former is cited many times and it's simply a case of people saying Mitchell was a better clubhouse leader than McReynolds. But that has nothing to do with why the Mets didn't win a pennant in 1988, a year when McReynolds was a legitimate MVP contender, and they came within one game of a World Series. How would having Mitchell over McReynolds change Game 4 of the 1988 NLCS, the turnaround game caused by Davey Johnson failing to take Gooden out in the 9th inning? This is a classic case of what happens when writers like to use false intangibles as their be-all explanation rather than focus on the actual GAME action that said more about why a team failed to win, especially if we're talking about a team like the 1988 Mets that was just one game away from getting a pennant.

Agree completely on the last one. There's alot of reasons why the 86 Mets failed to become a dynasty. Included in those reasons......Keith and Gary simply getting old and their production on the field never really being replaced (Magadan could hit obviously, but he wasnt Keith offensively or defensively)........Not having the deepest bench in the league anymore after about 87-88.........the late 80's crop of prospects not having the same success as the previous few years (guys like Jefferies, Lyons, Miller, etc).......the 86 team getting very lucky with having an almost injury free year (except for Mookie missing the first month and Carter missing 2 weeks, the team was pretty much fully healthy all season), the seasons that succeeded 86 were not so fortunate in that department).........obviously ill-advised trades like a very flawed Juan Samuel for Dykstra and McDowell.......McReynolds declining quicker than the Mets thought certainly didnt help in the later years like 90 and 91, but it's hardly near the reason why the mets never won again......As for Ray Knight, I get that his personality and leadership qualities helped, but he did absolutely nothing after 1986 except be one of the worst hitters in baseball in 87 and 88. No amount of leadership would have offset him being such a terrible hitter those 2 years, and considering we replaced him with one of the best hitters in baseball in HoJo, the defense rests your honor.

[pstein]

Just off the top of my head:

Ty Cobb was a racist
The 1948 Braves consisted of "Spahn and Sain, then pray for rain"
The DH was a positive thing
The 1961 Yankees were a "great team".

[TonyK]

O. P. Caylor's assertion that the reason there were no blacks in the majors during the 19th Century (except for the Walker brothers) was they were not good enough. His strongest arguments were if major league teams felt blacks were deserving then they would have signed them, and the Irish were naturally suited for baseball while blacks were not.

[Hofpostcardcollector]

Casey's "Can anyone play this game" quote when it's really "Can anyone play this here game?"

The latter really makes more sense if you know about Casey

[abolishthedh]

Two general comments must be made. First, there are very few occasions over the course of my life where a major decision to change jobs, leave a lover, change residence or change life goals could be traced to a singular cause. Most life change events had multiple causations, and I would be surprised if ballplayers would be any different. Once I reached late middle age this point of view was easy to sustain.

Second, my favorite baseball book from my youth was Leo Durocher's Nice Guys Finish Last. This was long before I discovered Roger Angell. Since youth, I have learned that Durocher never actually said "Nice Guys Finish Last". The phrase was paraphrased from a sportswriter he knew. Durocher was known to spin his tales as his memory recalled, and would get some facts incorrect. I still don't hold that against him, because it made for very entertaining reading.

Should an author view events as having single causation, I wouldn't hold it against the author and let it get in the way of being entertained.

[Death to Crawling Things]

Just off the top of my head:

Ty Cobb was a racist
The 1948 Braves consisted of "Spahn and Sain, then pray for rain"
The DH was a positive thing
The 1961 Yankees were a "great team".

Wow, I have NEVER come across a book that said anything positive about the DH. Cant remember the name, but it was some book going through the different periods. There were only 2 things the author tore into a rant on, segregation and the DH. And he seemed more enthusiastic tearing into the DH.

[Captain Cold Nose]

I have a hard time believing JD Salinger went into seclusion because the Dodgers left Brooklyn. But it is such a romantic notion. And what was Shoeless Joe but a story about love and romance?

[ol' aches and pains]

I have a hard time believing JD Salinger went into seclusion because the Dodgers left Brooklyn. But it is such a romantic notion. And what was Shoeless Joe but a story about love and romance?

For that matter, I have a hard time believing that the shades of old, departed ballplayers emerge from an Iowa cornfield at night. I just sort of treat the whole thing as fiction, including anything pertaining to Salinger.

[Captain Cold Nose]

For that matter, I have a hard time believing that the shades of old, departed ballplayers emerge from an Iowa cornfield at night. I just sort of treat the whole thing as fiction, including anything pertaining to Salinger.

It was ok as long as they were batting correctly.

[Death to Crawling Things]

It was ok as long as they were batting correctly.

Yeah, that kind of made it hard to watch. (and I wasnt too fond of them getting Moonlight Graham's debut year wrong by a generation)

[Death to Crawling Things]

For that matter, I have a hard time believing that the shades of old, departed ballplayers emerge from an Iowa cornfield at night. I just sort of treat the whole thing as fiction, including anything pertaining to Salinger.

I do have to admit I almost want to see baseball ghosts playing in the field, while the aliens make crop circles (you never know aliens might like deadball-era baseball )

[Death to Crawling Things]

Wow, I have NEVER come across a book that said anything positive about the DH. Cant remember the name, but it was some book going through the different periods. There were only 2 things the author tore into a rant on, segregation and the DH. And he seemed more enthusiastic tearing into the DH.

I take it back, I think he did make one positive comment about the DH. It helped Al Kaline to 3000 hits.