Originally Posted by Hankphenom
Yes, but I do think that pitcher effectiveness, including the fastball, might just be the closest you can get in all of sports. And in my research, I did pay a lot of attention to the opinions of people who experienced the game close at hand in the "Golden Era" and were still doing that several generations later, into the 1980s, in fact. While certainly not dispositive, and allowing for some generational bias, you have to listen to them. And I don't think I ever came across any of the old timers who claimed that Nolan Ryan was faster than Johnson, not one; or Ryne Duren; or Sandy Koufax; or Herb Score; or Bob Feller (who was always the first to say he thought that Johnson was the greatest pitcher ever and also the fastest); or Lefty Grove; or Dazzy Vance. Who knows what they would have to say about Clemons, or Pedro, or Randy Johnson, or Chapman, etc.? The string runs out when all the old guys are dead. One thing we know for sure is that one of these days, if not already, someone will come along who throws harder than Johnson did. That's guaranteed. Records are made to be broken, as the saying goes, and Walter has lost a lot of them over the years. I can hear him now, saying, "Well, that's just fine," in his Kansas twang. But Larry Ritter didn't name his book "The Glory of All Times" for a reason. To be "The Glory of Their Times" is all any of us could ask for, and those guys knew they were the luckiest sons of bitches ever born, to be where they were doing what they did. That will always have to be enough for them--and for us.
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