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Old 04-16-2007, 07:18 PM
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Default How Great was Jackie Robinson?

Posted By: Jason

When talking about Jackie I think that there are two oft forgotten things that need to be considered when his greatness

1. He totally changed the style of play in the majors- up through the mid 50's there were TEAMs that would only steal 50 bases per year- Jackie change the pereception of the stolen base and base running as a offensive weapon (or at least dusted off a weapon that had been disguarded in the 1930's

2. More importantly I think when people look at his greatness that have to remember that contempoary accounts all seem to says that baseball was his 3rd or 4th best sport behind football basketball, track (some even through in tennis) therefore when you think of him it really isn;t fiar to compare him to Maz or Morgan- compare him to Jordan (Jordan when he was playing minor league baseball).

add on all of the extra pressure from being the first and somke underrated defensive skills (see Bill James essay which suggestes that he had great defensive stats when you consider the manner in which great positioning can make you look less spectacular when infact you are making more plays then you should) and you can easily see that he ranks right up there.

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