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Posted By: jay behrens

I get the feeling that many of you don't understand what was important in 19c baseball, especially from 1871-1894. Feilding was as absolute premium and the stars of day were not the batsmen, but the top fielders. The rules were written to highlight and feature fielding. Once the mound was moved back, pitching and hitting took center stage and fiedling started to take a back seat as to how a player was rated.

Basing you opinion on how great an early player was based soley on his hitting stats is going to give you a false idea as to who was great and who wasn't.

Jay

I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.