Talk:1942 Negro World Series

Winning pitcher for game one

The article says that Matchett was credited as the winning pitcher of game one, but the way wins are normally assigned, I'd have thought Paige should have been the winning pitcher. Assuming he pitched five full innings, he still would have been the pitcher of record when KC scored the go-ahead run in the top of the sixth. Is there a source that says that Matchett was the winning pitcher? BRMo (talk) 23:11, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Officially, Matchett was given credit for the win in all contemporary accounts, and it was stated in a couple of news stories afterward that Paige was still in search of his first victory over the Grays (he had lost a game and gotten a couple of no-decisions during the regular season. He was not removed for a pinch-hitter -- just relieved because he was tired, and probably would have been regardless of whether a run was scored in the sixth -- and I think that would still be the ruling today. He simply came out of the game and was replaced, and probably would have done so without the run in the top of the inning.

I cover the 1942 series in greater depth -- and Game one in particular -- in a similar article on the Baseball Reference Bullpen: [1]

Hope this helps. -- Couillaud (talk) 17:30, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks – I just wanted to make sure it matched the sources. I think under the current rules, Paige would have been credited with the win (since he completed five innings and was still the pitcher of record when the go-ahead run was scored), but the rules for crediting wins probably were different then. By the way, I'm in the process of revising the Satchel Paige article (trying to get it up to "Good article" status), and am currently working on the Kansas City years. Please feel free to edit or improve it. BRMo (talk) 03:09, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

An old Total Baseball encyclopedia included a chronology of changes in playing and scoring rules. It appears that the modern rule for assigning wins to pitchers (minimum of 5 innings for starters; last pitcher before the team took the lead for the last time) was adopted in 1950, with a few tweaks since then. Unfortunately, Total Baseball doesn't explain what rules were used for scoring pitcher wins before 1950. My guess is that the official scorer was given the discretion to decide whether a starting pitcher had pitched long enough to be credited with a win. BRMo (talk) 13:52, 19 August 2010 (UTC)