Quote:
Originally Posted by ls7plus
The latter is a little like Roger Kahn, author of "The Boys of Summer," stating that Stan Musial was the greatest hitter he had ever seen. Well, in a word, no. Kahn saw Mantle and Williams, as well as Musial. Musial created 193% of league average runs created; Mantle, as stated, was around 215%, and Ted Williams tops them all (yes, including the Babe, at 240%) at 250% OVER HIS ENTIRE CAREER (a figure which was even better than Gehrig's best single season in 1927). Musial was certainly great, but claiming he was better is nothing more than saying he liked Musial better than the other two, since it is an argument that cannot be factually supported.
Case closed,
Larry
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To be a noodge, you are using specific qualifying stats for a 'type' of hitting (as it relates to run production) to prove somewhat of a generalization. Taken to the extreme, would you continue to use those same stats to 'prove' someone as a worse hitter if that someone came to bat 5000 time, had 5000 hits, but drove in no runs? I would argue that someone batting 1.000 over their entire career (assuming that career lasted more that a handful of plate appearances) would be the better 'hitter'.
I get what you are driving at, but I don't think one came claim to determine the best 'hitter' in the game without providing the qualifications as to what they mean by 'best hitter'. With that in mind, Kahn may still have been correct without understanding the qualifying characteristics of his claim.
Sort of like your dismissal of Mays defensive skills and merely focusing on 'hitting' as the qualifications of an overall 'player'. I'm not claiming you are right or wrong in who was the better player. Just that it isn't enough for proof in order to claim "cased closed".
