+1. And I agree that King Kelly was just a big as star as Anson, so I don't see why Anson should be singled out as being more important to the development of baseball.

Totally fair.

While Kelly may not have been in as many newspapers, I believe all the rest of this applied to Kelly in his day.

To me, Jim Creighton was the first star player and Kelly the first superstar. That said, I don't fault anyone for putting Cobb on their "3 most important" list. I do believe that there should be a 19th century player on the list though. For me that would be Anson for (both good and bad) reasons others have stated.

I would think Cobb's place is earned because there was no one like him until he arrived. Every 19th century player paled in comparison to Ty Cobb. No one had ever considered someone could be as good as Cobb was until you saw Cobb.

He was simply the best player who ever lived until Ruth hits his prime and there have been very few players of his caliber since.

It's interesting, Thayer denied it, but Casey sure has that Kelly swagger, doesn't he?

I agree that Cobb is a top 2 player of all time. I guess that's the thing though - "most important" vs. "first superstar" vs. "greatest" are all different questions, to me at least.

I would say that Cobb played an important role between moving away from the old game and moving toward the new game that arrived with Ruth.

Cobb is still 4th all time in WAR and 2nd in hits. If Ruth never existed Ty Cobb takes his place. That puts him in the Top 3 in my mind.

There have been so many incredible players that in order to select my picks, they had to do more than just be incredible on the field. As in something gargantuan. Ruthian. Hell, he's his own adjective! Ruth changed the way the game was played from his time onward. He brought fame and more fans to the game on a global spectrum than absolutely nobody before or since has remotely come close to rivalling, and I don't see it happening again.

Naturally, Jackie and Branch Rickey make the cut for me because of their place in history. There wasn't anything more important for North American society vis a vis baseball than the Rickey/Robinson Experiment. The poster who said that they could share a spot might be on to something, but these are not hard and fast rules! ;) I gave them each a spot. No big deal.

For baseball diehards, some of your other choices are understandable to people in our circles, but they would be mean nothing to an outsider. Lowering the mound by a few inches? Laughable and meaningless to practically anyone you'd ask who wasn't a baseball nut. Even challenging the reserve clause really wouldn't phase an average non-fan. If they know the name Cobb, chances are it's more because of his supposed racism. Ask them about Babe, or about Jackie, and they'll undoubtedly be able to give you some info as to why they were meaningful. Jim Creighton? Pfft. I guarantee you there are many people on this very board who don't even know who he is.

Okay, but the question was who was the most important in our opinion, not in the opinion of a casual fan/the public.

True, and that was me explaining my opinion.

Creightons significance is his that he is primarily responsible for changing the game into a contest centered around the pitcher versus the batter rather than the batter versus the fielders. This is a titanic shift, the game could have developed very differently. The question is significance, not fame or likes or superstars. I would amend my list to include Doc Adams over Rickey, that was a great choice.

Please don't get me wrong; I appreciate Creighton.

Mark, I think you are missing the point. Anson's racism cost hundreds of great ball players the chance to compete at the major league level. That affected them financially, physically and emotionally. No matter what Anson did with a bat it can't, at least in my mind, overcome the harm he caused to the game.

It is undisputed Anson was an avowed racist, and that is shameful. But I'm not sure I see the connection between that fact and the view that Anson's racism prevented ballplayers of color from competing at the major league level. The color barrier was formally adopted after the Civil War at the 1867 National Association Baseball Convention, long before Anson became a noted figure in baseball. And it continued long after he had left the game.

At least three African-American men played in the major leagues before Anson refused to let Chicago play a team with a black player: William Edward White, whose light skin color allowed him pass as white, played one game for the Providence Grays in 1879; Moses Fleetwood Walker, an openly Black man who played for the Toledo Blue Stockings of the American Association between May 1 and September 4, 1884; and his brother, Weldy Walker, who played five games with the Toledo club between July 15 and August 6, 1884.

"Regrettably, Anson used his stature to drive minority players from the game. An 1883 exhibition game in Toledo, Ohio, between the local team and the White Stockings nearly ended before it began when Anson angrily refused to take the field against Toledo’s African-American catcher, Moses Fleetwood Walker. Faced with the loss of gate receipts, Anson relented after a loud protest, but his bellicose attitude made Anson, wittingly or not, the acknowledged leader of the segregation forces already at work in the game. Other players and managers followed Anson’s lead, and similar incidents occurred with regularity for the rest of the decade. In 1887, Anson made headlines again when he refused to play an exhibition in Newark unless the local club removed its African-American battery, catcher Walker and pitcher George Stovey, from the field. Teams and leagues began to bar minorities from participation, and by the early 1890s, no black players remained in the professional ranks."
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/cap-anson/

Anson certainly played a role for refusing to play a game against a black player, but the some of the claims made in this thread (such as 3 and 49) are highly dubious. The 'gentleman's agreement' predated Anson with rare exception and continued without any exemptions for decades after he left baseball (and a quarter century after the man was dead). Even if one insists on treating the past as if it is the present and a vehicle in which to expect 2023 values and castigate those in whom we do not find them, Anson's responsibility for 80 years of baseball history seems to be overstated beyond what the ascertainable facts support.

I have a very hard time seeing an evidentiary based argument as to how he cracks the list for this.

Here’s who I deem most important..obviously the “2” everyone already mentioned and…


Cy Young: 511 wins, 7,356 IP, 815 games started, 749 complete games, 25 1/3 hitless innings. Few of these records may never ever be broken. MLB has an award named after him for the top pitcher in both leagues. I feel a slot of importance should go to Young.


Babe Ruth
Jackie Robinson

The Philadelphia Royal Giants helped too.

I think when we are talking about most important, we have to ask "If I had to tell the tale of baseball to a stranger and could only mention three players, who would they be?"

I have no argument against the Big 2 mentioned earlier - Ruth and Jackie. Both had immense impact on the game, on and off the field. But if we look back, Jackie's debut in 1947 was 76 years ago and the game of baseball has undergone some pretty significant changes in those 76 years. To me, the biggest was the introduction of free agency in the 1970's. Curt Flood started down that path, but he only only cracked the wall, he didn't bring it down. It was Catfish Hunter, on New Year's Eve of 1974, whose contract with the A's was voided enabling him to sign with whatever team he desired. There were some more legal maneuverings after that, but Catfish was officially the first free agent. That was the first big change in the balance of power in the majors and would set the stage for where we are today with player's salaries.

So my Top 3 Most Important are:

Babe Ruth
Jackie Robinson
Catfish Hunter

Yeah but did Catfish himself do anything special to achieve that status? It was Marvin Miller, no? And Flood who had staked out the territory by being willing to defy the status quo.

Ruth
Jackie


98 Sosa/McGwire- it's cliche but I think every grandma in the US knew that race was happening. It captivated the whole country and by many accounts triggered Bonds into making a decision to dive head first into PEDs. His seasons that followed were cartoon like.

Does that mean that Pete Rose will be eligible to play again?

3
 

After Ruth and Jackie Robinson, one possibility for a distant 3rd is Matty. Back in the 19th century, ballplayers were a pretty rough bunch. Mathewson was a good looking, very clean cut, college man who didn't pitch on Sundays. He made baseball seem more respectable to lots of people, and he did alot to make NYC crazy about baseball at the start of the 20th century.

I like the way you think!:)

Might as well let him and Joe Jax in the Hall, when you have sportscasters keeping you updated on the betting line the Horse has clearly left the barn.

Important. In my lifetime, Aaron's lead up to and breaking the Babe's 714 is tops. But is anyone in my lifetime making this list of 3 ?

Can't go wrong with choosing Jackie Robinson and all the importance that brings to the table.

My instinct then goes to Cobb and Ruth.

Ruth, Robinson, Mantle

Ruth, J. Robinson, Cy Young...
.

Jackie
 

Well since Leon posted a card. I see Jackie as one of the most important as well.

Harry Wright
Babe Ruth
Jackie Robinson

Cobb
Ruth
Jackie

The Kelly vs Anson debate is interesting. I don't see a single way in which Kelly was more important than Anson. Anson predated Kelly and lasted longer than him and was by nearly every metric the superior ballplayer and the 1st to get 3000 hits. I think people are looking for someone to replace Anson due to his dubious place in history but he was Kelly's better in every way on the field. One could argue maybe Harry or George Wright could be a more significant 19th century representative, but not Kelly.

While I agree that Anson had a longer and much more successful career than King Kelly, I don't know if that means he was more important to baseball. Kelly helped popularize the sport as much as anyone and was more innovative.

From his SABR bio: In Slide, Kelly, Slide, a biography of Kelly, author Marty Appel quotes early baseball historian Maclean Kennedy about Kelly’s baseball prowess. Kennedy saw Kelly play, and wrote, “There was never a better or more brilliant player. Colorful beyond description, he was the light and the life of the game. … He was one of the quickest thinkers that ever took a signal. He originated more trick plays than all players put together. … As a drawing card, he was the greatest of his time."

There is a reason why he was the first $10,000 player--owners knew his draw at the park would made it a good investment.

In 1889 a song called “Slide, Kelly Slide,” sold millions of copies of sheet music. Later, in 1892, when early recording techniques allowed for songs to be reproduced, “Slide, Kelly Slide” became America’s first hit record and remained popular into the 1920s.

Further from his SABR bio: "Kelly did as much as any other player to popularize professional baseball in the nineteenth century. His popularity transcended the game and became part of popular culture. He had a large effect on the game. It was said that half the rules in the baseball rulebook were rewritten to keep Kelly from taking advantage of loopholes. He played the game with gusto and looked for every edge he could get to win, and his teams won eight championships in 16 years. We are not likely to see a player like King Kelly again."

Could make a strong argument for mantle. So many worship him to this day. Obviously his king of the hobby.

I agree with this. It boils down to what metric one is using. From the perspective of popularizing the game, IMO Kelly had more of an influence than Anson.

Regarding Joe Jackson- his exclusion from the hall of fame is a huge part of his fame and notoriety. At this point, considering he and likely all his immediate next of kin and everyone who ever saw him play are dead, his legacy may actually be better preserved/honored by keeping him out and keeping the legend of the black sox scandal alive and well. Moreover, his career was cut short because of the ban. Who knows what he would have done with a full career. The continued exclusion validates that (not sure that’s the right word, but I hope you get my point that putting him the HOF would discount what his career would have been had he had a full career).

Thus, at this point, I think it would almost be wrong to Joe to put him the HOF; it would dilute or alter his legacy which is rightly and currently larger than the typical tier 1 HOFer

Ryan, your reasoning sounds a lot like what I think about the declaration that the Negro Leagues are Major Leagues and the inclusion of Negro League statistics in the official record. No, the Negro Leagues were not Major Leagues - they were created because Blacks were excluded from the Major Leagues, that is the whole point. Posthumously pretending they weren't doesn't help them, and it shouldn't assuage anyone's conscience either. And cobbling together a few box scores to pretend we know how many home runs Josh Gibson hit in 1938 doesn't help his legend either, it diminishes it. We are better off accepting that they were excluded, that it was unjust, and that we will never really know how good they were or what they could have accomplished.

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I thought this was interesting: https://www.sportworldnews.org/boxin...e-final-top10/

Reflecting on this some more I think to be one of the three most important players your fame needs to transcend the sport. You have to be known to people who know nothing about baseball. To me that makes it clear that it is Ruth, Robinson and DiMaggio. While players like Mantle, Mays and Cobb were great, they really weren't household names outside of baseball. DiMaggio may not has been as great as Mays but he was certainly better known.

Interesting take. "Tom Brady has won multiple Super Bowls and established himself as one of football's most iconic faces. His professionalism and consistency inspired many young players and helped make football one of the most popular sports in America." As if Football wasn't 'one of the most popular spots in America' decades before Brady.

I completely agree with your thoughts and immediately felt the same way when the question was first posed. I don't think DiMaggio qualifies at this point in the game, however. If we had been asked this question 50-75 years ago, sure, but Joe D's potential place on this list has faded with time. Ruth and Robinson simply can't be argued to me. I chose Branch Rickey as my third because there would be no Robinson without him, and he was a player himself. I didn't mind letting him in on that technicality simply for the sheer magnitude of what he did later on.

It just dawned on me: has nobody mentioned Ted Williams?! He led a uniquely remarkable life in and out of the game. He might be a contender.

And just think how even more popular football will become now that Travis Kelce is linked to Taylor Swiftypants.

Brian

The cute thing is to make a name for them, as a couple. Like Brangelina.

I nominate "Traylor" for these two.

It's hard to argue with that list, although my similar list that first came to mind was:

Cobb
Ruth
Clemente

You make a good point. For a long time DiMaggio's link to Marilyn Monroe, not to mention Mr Coffee and the Bowery Savings Bank, kept him a household name. However, since his passing his fame has faded somewhat. It is really a testament to Ruth and Robinson that their fame continues. I don't think Rickey should be on the list--very few in the general public know of him. I also don't think the Cobbs and the Wagners of the world ever deserved to be on the list. Perhaps the answer is that three was an arbitrary number and there is Ruth and Robinson and then no one else close.

Overall responses on this thread seem to support that (although I haven't done an actual tally). A poll would be interesting...

Ruth-There can be no one else at Number 1
Jackie Robinson
Mickey Mantle-he was the 1950's and who's post war cards bring the most money. He's and icon and folk hero.

Agreed. Seems near unanimous that Ruth and Robinson are 1 & 2 (I think in that order).

Regarding 3, I think it has to be either Cobb or Mantle.

While there are others who were important (Ricky) and/or bigger than life in their time (King Kelly), if asked to name 3 players who stopped playing before 1980, I think your average person would say Ruth, Robinson and then either Cobb or Mantle; maybe Mays or Aaron.

101%

King Kelly
Ty Cobb
Babe Ruth