Oscar Charleston
Oscar Charleston was one of the greatest ball players ever. These are not my words. Hall of Fame hitting machine Honus Wagner said, “I’ve seen all the great players in the many years I’ve been around and have yet to see one any greater than Charleston.” Chicago Defender wrote that Charleston was the best player in the world, even better than Ty Cobb. Other newspapers started to call him the colored Babe Ruth; this is the major-league player to whom Charleston was most frequently compared during the 1920s.
Charleston played for 18 years in the negro leagues and nine seasons in Cuba during those years. He played a lot of baseball, but negro league seasons were much shorter than the 154 game seasons played in the White major league. Currently, a regular season is 162 games. During his later years, post 1932, Charleston took the role of player/manager.
Books could be written about Charleston’s baseball career. Allow me to point out a few highlights and accomplishments of the “Black Babe Ruth.” According to the Baseball Hall of Fame website, Charleston ended his career with 916 games played, 1,207 hits, with a batting average of .364 and 853 RBIs. It may not seem like impressive numbers but let me put it in context for you. Over 18 years, Charleston averaged 50 games played and averaged 67 hits per season. That’s more than a hit per game. Apply that ratio to today’s 162-game season and Charleston would have averaged 213 hits per season totaling 3,834 hits placing him third all-time behind only Pete Rose and Ty Cobb. When using this same mathematical equation with RBI totals, Charleston would surpass current leader Hank Aaron’s numbers by 421.
Charleston was so good, in 53 games versus white teams he batted .318 with 11 home runs. Competition from the mound wasn’t soft either. Charleston’s adversaries were three very notable Hall of Famers pitchers: Walter Johnson, Bob Feller, and Lefty Grove. He batted over .300 for 14 of 18 seasons and over .400 in three seasons which resulted in three Batting Titles and three All-Star nominations. However, his most extraordinary achievement is his three Triple Crowns (led the league in batting average, HRs, & RBIs at the same time) in 1921, 1924, & 1925. Only Ted Williams and Josh Gibson reached this impossible feat twice. Charleston did it three times!
Charleston was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1976.
https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/Charleston-Oscar
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/oscar-charleston/
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/charlos99.shtml
