Posted By:
CyI have been giving this a little thought myself. I realize that many people on the board want to think that the players of the 19th and early 20th centuries were better than the ballplayers of the last 30 years. But it seems to me that it probably isn't true.
I have a baseball card from the 1961 Topps set that tells how Walter Johnson pitched 3 shutouts in 4 days.
Three shutouts in four days! Now tell me how bad were the ball players back then if he could do that? Can you think of anyone who could do that in the last 40 years against the teams that are around now? He would never have a chance. No pitcher could make it through all three games. Even if his arm could take it, the stuff on his pitches would be hammered by the modern player after a game and a half, no matter how good he is.
Another argument that is brought up that modern baseball is weak is the fact that the pitching is diluted. But, back in the "good old days", being a relief pitcher meant that you were a scrub. And most teams only had two, maybe three solid starters. So how many good pitchers could have been around? The fact is that for these pitchers to pitch so many games throughout many years, they had to have played against very weak overall batting. Of course there were standouts, Cobb, Speaker, Wagner, etc. But when one compares these stars to the remaining players, how good did they have to be? How good does a player have to be to be viewed as a star when he played against a team was shut out by a pitcher that pitched his third game in four days.
It is a wonderful thought to think that these players were the absolute greatest. But just like other sports, they probably couldn't hold a candle to the modern player. I know the arguments. The ball is juiced. Fields are smaller. The jokes made that Ty Cobb could have batted .321 at age 70. But if anyone does believe that it is way too easy for the modern hitter these days, then you have to agree on one thing. Greg Maddux would be the greatest pitcher of all time, bar none. If hitting is so easy these days, much easier than back in the early 1900's, then with Maddux's numbers of the 1990's, he is easily the greatest pitcher of all time. You can't have it both ways. If the hitting is too easy today, then today's great pitchers are much better than their earlier counterparts.
If you compare the 1930's to the past 10 to 15 years, you will note a very close correlation to the brand of baseball. The offense went up almost exponentially and the pitching was not strong at all, except for a few stellar players of that time. If you do compare these eras and you think that the modern player is overrated, then let's take away the merits of many of the stars of that era, Foxx, Gehrig, Cochrane, etc., because the style of ball was nearly identical to today's ball.
I also don't understand how one can argue so vehemently that Cobb was the greatest player of all time without ever seeing him play. That is like saying that a particular PSA 10 card is the finest looking card of all without looking at it, but stating this fact merely because of the number of the grade on the holder. I believe that Clemente was the greatest player of all time. I saw him play many times and even though others (Mays, Mantle) may have had better numbers during the same era, I am not going to let the facts sway my opinion.
I believe that Cobb, Wagner, Ruth etc. were great players. But frankly, the competition that they were up against was not that keen. The players, overall, weren't that keen. We have all heard stories of players who played ball merely because they didn't want to work on a farm or in a steel mill. Imagine a high school grad coming out of high school and deciding then that he wants to play ball because there are no satisfying jobs. He wouldn't have a chance in the world if he just decided then to start to play baseball. But back then, it happened all of the time. Once again I pose the question, how good could these marginal players be?
The fact of the matter probably is that if the truly best players of all time were put on the greatest team, by talent and not by numbers, it would be very difficult to place anyone on the team that didn't play after 1950.
Thanks for this thread. I always enjoy thinking about this and writing a message about it allows me to ponder it even a little more stringently.
Cy