[JustinD]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

I understand what you're saying and agree to a certain point.

On the flipside, it's just as annoying when certain fans declare the old-timers were so much better then the athletes today...because they weren't spoiled or soft, only played for the love of the game, ate rocks for breakfast, and smoked 3 packs of Camels a day.

I'm a boxing specialist and one of my pet peeves is fantasy fights between guys from different era's (Can John L. Sullivan beat Jack Johnson beat Jack Dempsey beat Joe Louis beat Muhammad Ali beat Mike Tyson, etc, etc.), and how into it some boxing fans and historians are. They will argue outcomes over the course of days. Write thesis's, articles, and books about it. They are mostly irrelevant arguments to me, unless you are comparing contemporaries to contemporaries.

This is one hundred percent my bigger peeve.

You can and should only compare contemporary athletes in a sport as the variables are far to large. In my mind there are far too great of differences even in a decade for some sports. This is due to media exposure, rule changes and internal demons that may or may not have be able to be exorcised that exposed to light would have kept them from ever starting.

It's apples to oranges... some would have made the cut but other unknowns with unvalued or unnecessary skills of the time would likely have dominated in a different time. This is what is left out.

Comparisons are all silly and wistful dreams for those refusing to acknowledge that the games of past, present, and future, in any sport; are not interchangeable.