Final Project Proposal
Data Cleaning
I don’t anticipate having that much cleaning to do, as I tried my best when putting the dataset together to have uniform rules for how the data was formatted, but there are some things I need to touch up on. For example, I pulled data about the players from different sites, which led to some of the players having their hometown having abbreviations for the state where as some have the full state spelt out.
Research Questions
I’m still formulating an argument for this project, but I think when I begin to answer my own research questions, I will find my argument organically. As baseball and basketball are important aspects of American culture, I think it’s important to look at each of the league’s efforts to integrate as it intertwines sports, culture, race, and politics.
- What was the percentage of black players in each league?
- Did MLB or the NBA have a higher percentage of black players?
- What was the percentage of other minorities in the leagues
- Were teams from certain areas of the country more likely to have integrated rosters?
- Did teams handicap themselves in terms of roster inclusions?
- What factors pushed each league toward integration?
- What effects did integration have for the leagues in terms of public perception?
Goals for Data Visualization
- Graphs to demonstrate percentages of black players in each league
- Graphs comparing MLB and NBA
- Potential mapping if questions about regions lead to interesting points
- Interactive Charts to be able to click on teams and see percentages of minority players
Timeline
April 2-16: Attempt to figure out what visualizations work best for the data
April 9: Wireframe due
April 16: Present ideas to friends and non-history people for advice
April 23: Have a clear idea of what visualizations are going to be included in the final project
April 30: Draft of essay
May 7: Complete visualizations and essay, seek feedback from peers
May 7-16: Finish tweaking project
Secondary Bibliography
Baseball’s Great Experiment by Jules Tygiel Beyond the Shadow of the Senators : The Untold Story of the Homestead Grays and the Integration of Baseball by Brad Snyder
Beyond the Shadow of Senators by Snyder
Breaking Barriers: A history of integration in professional basketball by Douglas Stark
Basketball-reference.com
Baseball-reference.com n
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One Comment
Maeve Kane
For the final write up, you’re going to need to do an extensive methods section on what data you collected, how, and from where, with full Chicago style citations. You also need full citations for your bibliography here and in the final product. The bibliography here is very sloppy.
Some of your broader questions are probably answered in the secondary literature of the history of sports, eg what percent of each league was black, how many other minorities were represented and when. The footnotes in Snyder, Tygiel and Stark should lead you to other works and you’ll need to do a context section on what work has already been done in this area.
Since there’s been so much traditional work done in this area, you’re going to have a stronger project by focusing on a few teams in depth with eg your question about regional differences. As mentioned in class, depth and detail on a few teams will be more interesting than a broad, shallow focus on many teams.
MLB especially has had a number of non-US born, non-white players, so make sure to differentiate between players of African descent born in the US and elsewhere, since those communities have different experiences of race.