Quote:
Originally Posted by nat
* Acknowledging that they faced weaker competition since baseball was still segregated.
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I might argue that point to a degree. While baseball was not integrated, there were far less teams to populate. And it gets murkier from there...cross country travel, dilution of the talent pool from other sports. Bottom lining it there is just no way to know, but I suspect these things have a way of evening out.
I am pretty sure that the biggest stars then would be among the biggest stars now. I think the very lowest 25% of the mlb players in the deadball era would not come close to playing now, but more due to modern scouting and development techniques.
One of the beauties of baseball is you truly can't say. I remember reading similar conversation with some old football players on how their team (a championship team of the 1950s) would fare against modern teams. Of course a couple of the guys pipe up with, "They might beat us, but we'd give them a game. We were tough as nails." then somebody piped up," They's kill us! They outweigh us by 100 pounds per man and their defensive tackles are as fast as our receivers and backs."
But with baseball, you never know. A ball is a ball. A bat is a bat. The complexity of the sport is a great equalizer across the years.