Posted By:
Gilbert MainesJeff,
No intents offended.
But your statements are way O/T in an O/T thread.
By and large, the expertise which most of us bring to bear here includes baseball and baseball cards. If you want to discuss what makes a looney tick, may I suggest one of those psychodoodle boards.
Regarding the basic O/T thread: I was a NY Giants fan in the 1950s. As such, I came to think that Mays was a top man in baseball. But not the top. There was the guy in St. Louis who would hit a scortching line drive every at bat. Many falling for extra bases. And he hit for average, about one out of three. As good as the Man was, Williams was a cut above. Or two.
Mays was a showman, a tremendous ballplayer for sure, but a bit theatrical. He would, for example, choose a baseball cap which was too big for him, so that he could run out from under it, simulating tremendous speed (which was not all phoney, by any means), just not quite as good as he would put on. He had lots of tricks, he was coached by the experts; who too were very good, but not quite as good as they would put on either. And they fine tuned the routines for decades before MLB woke up.
But there was nobody close to Williams who I ever saw play. He hit for avarage too. Over .340
He hit for power too. He is one of the few in the elite >600 sluggers club consisting of Greenberg, Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx, Williams and now Bonds. If Bonds can keep it up. Actually, I hope Bonds can bring up his average back to .300, because he is the only member of this group to be under that mark. But Bonds' career is not yet over. He could still drop under a 600 slugger in his quest to set a HR mark that ARod and others may have difficulty achieving.