the Babe
 

In major league history,, only 5 left-handed pitchers have ever compiled an ERA of under 2.00 runs while pitching over 300 innings in one year 2-in pre war
Rube Waddell & The Babe,,,in pos war Koufax, Carlton and V.Blue, so his pitching prowls were up there with the greatest ever!! no need to say anything
about his hitting,, most complete baseball player!! with not even a close 2nd.

Come on, it's still Ty Cobb and won't change no matter how many polls are taken.

Joe

It's been done more often than that. Carl Hubbell, Wilbur Wood (the same year as Vida Blue) and Hal Newhouser all did it. Probably some others as well.

Greatest Player?
 

In the Pre-War era... I'd go Josh Gibson or Babe Ruth...

But Willie Mays was the best ever.

Ruth was awesome. But he played in a segregated league.
Mays was a baseball genius... playing in the most perfect era of baseball, ever.

Ed Walsh could have received some consideration. The man threw nearly 3,000 innings and had a career 1.82 ERA.

I'm still trying to figure out how in 1910 Walsh threw 369 2/3 innings, struck out 258 batters, had a 0.820 WHIP and a 1.27 ERA, and went only 18-20!

But for the best player, after some careful consideration, I had to vote for Ruth. The guy could have gone down as one of the all-time greatest pitchers, and he was an even better hitter.

Cobb was the greatest all around player of all time. Not just pre war. Babe Ruth was the most dominate player of all time. There is a difference.

Ty Cobbs character prevents a lot of people from seeing just how great he was.He may not have been the best person but no doubt he is the best ball player I'm my mind.

The pre-1917 Sox were known as the Hitless Wonders. He didn't have much run support to win games.

Without question Ty Cobb..not even close.

He's the fiercest most complete player to ever play the game. He DOMINATED the era that he played in. His all-time highest batting average will never be matched.

COBB!

I suppose that if the question is limited to the majors, I'd go with Ruth very narrowly over Cobb. If the question is the best baseball player of that era, I think it is Oscar Charleston. He was a combination of Ruth, Cobb, Speaker and Mays as a player. IMO, he wins best ever, and he was certainly better than Gibson.

I have to agree with Kenny ... That Oscar would take it... If majors, would have to be Ruth.

According to your peers on this vintage board you are a multiple of 4x wrong :). At approximately 16% for Cobb and 65% for Ruth, I would say without question it was Ruth.....again, according to our members.

Leon,

Aside from being a HOF PITCHER, I firmly believe Ruth's stand-alone greatness is confirmed by the FACT that he actually out-homered virtually all of the TEAMS in the league during the early 1920's!!! I will always look at that statistic as one of if not THE most unfathomable feats in Major League history. Babe Ruth will forever stand "above the game" itself!

Joe T.

Joe- I always remember that same statistic. And I also remember that he was one of the very best pitchers while he was pitching early in his career.

Interesting results from this poll.

Absolutely no surprise looking at the results....

Cobb and Ruth are king, best of the best, with no other comparable players in my opinion.

...it isn't even a contest.

Agree about Mays, but wasn't the original poll asking who was the greatest player of the pre-war era?

Josh Gibson
 

Actually, I just voted for Josh Gibson, the only guy who can compare with the Babe in my opinion. I remain unconvinced that the Negro Leagues were equal to the major leagues, but even if you discount his 215 OPS+ a little, if you factor in that he was a catcher, that's more impressive than Ruth. Leaving aside pitching at least.

"Ruth broke the HR record 4 times! and won only 1 MVP."

For a while there was a rule that a player could win the MVP award only once. I don't know if that was holding Ruth back, but it might have been.

Not only did Ruth change the game, but he saved baseball after the Black Sox scandal. I think Cobb was two and Wagner three. Unfortunately, we will never know how Gibson would have done in the majors but because he never played there I cannot consider him.

I notice only one pitcher on the original list. In terms of pitchers I would list the top 5 as:

Johnson
Grove
Young
Mathewson
Alexander

Kid Nichols had a short career but certainly deserves to be on any list of pitching greats. He started at the same time as Cy Yound (1890) and had more wins than Young in that decade. I believe he ranks number one in WAR/year played.

Babe Ruth was the greatest player ever by far. When you combine his batting statistics with his pitching record no one comes close. The one statistic that amazes me was that in 1921 he hit more home run than any team combined. In today's game to accomplish the same feat a player would have to hit more than 200 home runs in a season. After Ruth, I would rank Cobb and then Mays. Rounding out the top ten would be Johnson, Aaron, Wagner, Williams, Gehrig, Musial and Mantle. For the next nine DiMaggio, Mathewson, Hornsby, Foxx, Speaker, Alexander, Grove, Frank Robinson and Young. For number 20 it could be Schmidt, Collins, Lajoie, Clemente, Bench or even Bonds.
You may ask why is Wagner ranked so high, because there really is no other shortstop near him at the game's most difficult position with the possible of catcher.

Agree on Nichols. He is very high on the all-time WAR stat. I don't know all the metrics that go in to it, but it seems to churn out the right names. Eddie Collins and Alex Rodriguez are also high on the list, the other names are the ones most would guess.

When Babe Ruth faced the best Negro League pitcher Satchel Paige, he hit a 500 foot home run off him. Ruth would have dominated any competition. Josh Gibson on the other hand struck out on 3 pitches after Paige intentionally walked 2 guys to face Gibson. Ruth is easily the greatest hitter ever.

Bill James ranks Honus Wagner #2. Although Wagner wasn't the hitter that Ruth was, he was the best hitter in the NL from 1900-1912 and was a gold glove level fielder at the most difficult position, shortstop. James has Willie Mays at #3.

+1 Agree that is an amazing Stat that Ruth himself hit more home runs that most entire teams in the league for several years early in the 1920's. No one has ever been that dominate compared to the rest of the League

PLus added his pitching acumen and no one is even close

Babe Ruth
 

" Who is the greatest player of the Pre-War Era? "

Why is this poll limited to just the "Pre-War Era" ?

BABE RUTH is the greatest in Baseball in any era....19th Century, Pre-WWII, Post-WWII.

I believe in Divine Intervention.....George Herman Ruth was considered an "incorrigible" youngster; and, Brother Matthias at St. Mary’s
Industrial School straightened him out. And, introduced the young Ruth to Baseball and showed him how to play the game.

Then, when the game of Baseball was in serious trouble after the 1919 World Series, the Good Lord, in a dream, inspired Miller Huggins
to persuade Col. Jacob Ruppert (Yankees owner) to acquire Babe Ruth from Boston in December 1919.....and, the rest is history.



https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...abeRuth149.jpg . https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...beruth49_1.jpg


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TED Z

T206 Reference
.

So you're condensing the careers of two guys who combined played for over 40 years into one at-bat each. That doesn't prove anything at all.

As I said, I haven't seen any unbiased studies proving that the Negro Leagues were equal to the major leagues. But it's clear that they were at least high minor league quality. Roy Campanella, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Luke Easter, Monte Irvin, Larry Doby, Satchell Paige, and others all played in the Negro Leagues at the same time as Gibson.

Gibson led his league in home runs 11 times, and for his career had an OPS+ of 215. Bill James in his 1985 abstract estimates that a player moving from AAA to the majors would retain about 82% of their offensive production. I think the true number for the Negro Leagues would be between 82% and 100%. 90% seems reasonable to me. That would result in a career OPS+ of 194, four points higher than Ruth.

Part of this is just me being contrarian. I'm not certain of how good the Negro Leagues were, just having fun arguing.

I think it is fruitless and unfair to try to compare baseball players from different eras, especially wildly different eras. Comparing guys from the 1800s, when they pitched from 45 or 50 feet away and players didnt wear gloves, to guys playing today, just seems unreasonable. Its like asking which mode of transportation is better, the wagon or a Porsche. When it was either take a horse/wagon or walk, the wagon seems like the best idea ever. But now, if I offered you either a wagon or a Porsche, you'd probably take the Porsche, if time was any kind of consideration.

The game of baseball was completely different in 1905 than what it is today. Mostly because humans are different and they have evolved, alongside technology. Babe Ruth is amazing, but did he ever actually face any lefthanded pitcher who threw what is accepted today as a slider? He wasn't facing lefties throwing 96-98 consistently with 88-91 mph sliders.

Equipment was different, the game was played differently, and players were not built like they are today. Matty was 6'1/195, WaJo was 6'1/200, they were two of the most dominant pitchers of their era, and by today's standards, they'd be undersized righties.

I understand that there are statistics like ERA+ and OPS+ that adjust for era, but I don't think they can truly adjust and allow for direct 1 to 1 comparisons. The mound was different, park dimensions were a lot different, and the players themselves were a lot different. I mean, there were no night games until 1935. I think its easy to compare WaJo and Matty and Plank and Cy Young to each other, or Wagner to Eddie Collins. I think its a lot harder, and pretty pointless, to compare Mike Trout to Ty Cobb.

Different games, different eras. Just my $0.02

Generally speaking, I completely agree with this. Hence, the reason it was limited to Pre-War.

+1 Agree

But it is baseball and we always compare players and teams across different era in baseball
It is part of the Allure of baseball and the history of baseball that makes it fun but also endless debates.
WE all use different criteria, we use different stats, we use the same stats but use it differently.

Cobb was actually a big dude. Had he come along later, developed different hitting style more tailored to the long ball, wonder how it would have worked out.

I vote for the Babe, I may be a little biased.
Just love the pitching pose!!!

What were Josh Gibson's career stats vs. Satchel Paige? Paige was a major league talent. The best I could find he hit .000 against him. People like to throw out that prewar MLB stars weren't that great because they didn't play against Negro League stars. If those stars couldn't hit Paige, how would they have done against Walter Johnson, Lefty Grove, ect?

I disagree with your assertions about the Negro Leagues. Only 8% of MLB today is African Americans. In 1960 when every team was integrated it was only 9%. Even a decade later it was less than 15%. It peaked at 18.7% in 1981. If the Negro Leagues were at the same level as MLB, that number would have approached 50%. Especially after expansion in 1961-62 and 1969. I believe the level of play was far below that of MLB and even AAA. The top level of players were of MLB quality but the vast majority were not.

Wagner

As a kid I would have said Ruth... I didn't see them play. I did read Mr Ritter's book, The Glory Of Their Times, listened to the album, and have repeatedly listened to the CD's that have more material. I've read old, contemporary articles in old Baseball Magazines. Again and again, from the minds of the people that played with Ruth, Cobb, Young, Mathewson, Johnson, Jackson, Lajoie, and the rest, the player that rises to the top is Honus Wagner. Branch Rickey knew a right smart about baseball, he says Wagner. Sam Crawford played beside Cobb and he says it was Wagner. I'm inclined to believe the many who were there and oughta know.

Aaron was a great player, but he didn't have much of an impact on baseball in the Pre War era. Neither did Mays. Pre-War.

Exactly. This is what makes it fun. In this case, particularly the definition of "greatest."

My vote went to Ruth. I've read some good arguments for Wagner and Cobb but, in the end, to my mind they don't overshadow the case for Ruth. Maybe it's just how I think about greatness....

Sadly, we will never really know about the Negro League players. I'm not an expert, but I suspect that Oscar Charleston and Josh Gibson (and Martin Dihigo) would have excelled in the majors, not just survived there but been star players. There's really no way to know if either of them could have matched the babe, but since (to my mind) no one else in that era did, I think the inconclusive result should go in Ruth's favor.

Also, for what it's worth, with respect to NL players vs Satchel Paige for a few at bats, etc., I don't think we can draw much in the way of useful conclusions. There just isn't enough data. If we were able to make those extrapolations, then the greatest Pre-War player might be Eiji Sawamura....

Many, many, (MANY!) years ago, a college friend, who was an outstanding logician, answered this question thusly:

Babe Ruth was the greatest player who ever lived, because if someone asks you who the greatest player who ever lived was, and your answer ISN'T Babe Ruth, your first job is to explain why your answer isn't Babe Ruth.

I can't improve on that.

Alan

At first, I thought it was a trick question... :p

The question wasn't who most transformed baseball.... It was who was the greatest pre-war player. You said it yourself, Cobb did things better than the players around him. Isnt that the definition of "best"?

More than most on the list, Ruth benefited from the end of the dead ball era.

Considering that Wagner and Cobb played most of thier career when conditions were harder for batters and they have greater all around stats/skills... Cobb and Wagner are clearly ahead of Cobb. I know the modern romanticism is all about Ruth...but that doesn't make him the best.

For me, the list goes Cobb, Wagner then Ruth.

#1 Ruth
#2 WaJo

Yeah, I can't really see how the answer would be anybody but Ruth. He destroyed pretty much every hitting record - other than average. He had an OBP over .500 five times. FIVE different seasons he was on base more often than not. And had four other seasons of .486 or above. He was on base nearly 10% more often than Cobb (.474 vs .433) AND slugged 35% higher than Cobb (.690 vs .512). AND he had 3+ outstanding seasons as a pitcher.

I'm a big fan of Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner but Ruth is so far out in front of both of them, they're fighting for 3rd place behind him*.

* - to be honest, I'd probably put Rogers Hornsby ahead of both Cobb and Ruth, too. Averaging .402 over a 5-year stretch while hitting for power tops anything Wagner or Cobb did.

In fairness to Wagner and Cobb, they slugged a lot lower than Ruth because they were hitting a dead ball and Ruth was hitting a juiced ball. I know I am one of the few that considers parks, but Ruth had a hitters friendly park 314 to right 385 to right center. Wagner 360 to left 462 to left center and 400 to left and 450 to center.

Amazing how many members didn't see 'Pre-War' in the poll's title.

Are we ALL home-skooled?


.

This!

And remember that the rules changed in 1921 so that balls were changed when they got dirty or worn or damaged. That combined with a "juiced" ball and smaller parks helps to explain some of Ruth's success.

Have a look at this comparison of Cobb and Ruth's stats. https://mlbcomparisons.com/babe-ruth...bb-comparison/

Except for the categories influenced by being a home run hitter, Cobb wins on almost all counts. That says to me that if you take away the benefits that Ruth had (fresh balls, juiced balls, parks etc) then Cobb is clearly the better player. Put it another way, if Cobb played ball from 1918-1938, his stats would be even better!

Ruth most definitely transformed baseball but that doesn't make him the best.

As an analogy, I'm a huge Beatles fan. They changed music when they came along. Like Ruth, they were the right people at the right time. But would I say that they were bigger musical geniuses than Mozart? Nope.

Ruth came along at the absolute perfect time for his skills and style. This timing allowed him to become the larger than life player we all know and grant him title of best ever. What if Ruth came along 20 years earlier, or 20 years later - while still would have been awesome, probably not quite as awesome as it was. Ruth blossomed at the single biggest change ever to occur in the entire history of baseball.

The transition from Dead Ball era to Live Ball era makes it so very difficult, if not impossible to lump all Pre-War players together.

Stats aside, lets look at what the baseball community thought of the top players when the first Hall of Fame voting happened.

1. Cobb - 222 votes
2, tie. Ruth - 215 votes
2, tie. Wagner - 215 votes
4. Mathewson - 205 votes
5. Walter Johnson - 189 votes.

The largest percentage difference in voting was with Mathewson over Johnson.

Does this mean Cobb was better than Ruth - we don't really know, but overall the votes would put the feather in Cobb's cap. Same with Matty vs. Johnson.

Ruth hit 49 homers during the dead ball era while playing small parts of 3 seasons, half of another, and 80% of another. It took Cobb 10 seasons to do that - 7 full seasons plus parts of 3 others. Ruth led the majors in slugging and OPS both seasons he played in the outfield during the dead ball era.

While he may not have ended up with 714 homers if they hadn't changed the ball, there's no reason to think he wouldn't have continued to dominate. Look at 1919 - his first full season as something resembling a full-time outfielder and he set the single season home run record. Hitting a dead ball.

Yes, the HOF voting had Cobb ahead of Ruth. I'm not sure I'd put a whole lot of stock in that. Voters were picking from every player ever and Ruth had just retired. Plus, let's be honest, there were a lot of voters with bias against the modern style of play, favoring the high average and steals style of Cobb.

Bottom line, Ruth was a better hitter than Cobb even in the dead ball era.

The dead ball era concluded at the end of the 1918 season. That year Ruth hit 11 total home runs - one per every 28.8 at-bats.

The next year, 1919, Ruth hit 29 home runs - one per every 14.8 at-bats.

Yes, Ruth may have been the better hitter. However, the OP was "who was the greatest player." Hitting aside, looking at all the other things that go into making a great player, Cobb might have the nod.

Hi Eric
It was great meeting you at the Philly Show this weekend, and we did have a very interesting conversation.....especially on this topic.


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TED Z

T206 Reference
.

Baseball Reference and Wikipedia both disagree with you. They, like everything else I've read over the last 40 years, put the end of it being the start of the 1920 season.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Deadball_Era

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead-ball_era