Who was the best center fielder of all time?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by itjclarke

Speaker's assist numbers are ridiculous, but I think they're really tough to compare with current OF stats. Playing much of his careeer in the dead ball era (and in some small ballparks as mentioned earlier) allowed him to play a much shallower CF than modern day outfielders. I think it was probably not that uncommon for a CF to get an assist on a standard force out a 2nd on an otherwise clean line drive to center. I think runners were also more aggressive in stretching singles into doubles and doubles into triples, allowing for more assist opportunities. Mays by all reports had an absolutely cannon of an arm, and playing in the modern era has very respectable even high assist total for a center fielder.

Small parks everywhere isn't exactly what I meant. Fenway was small and playing there let Speaker play a different sort of centerfield. Most other parks of the time were enormous. Huntingdon avenue grounds were 350 down the LF line, and between 530 and 635 to center. Distances down the lines of around 350-360 weren't unusual even in parks built in the same era as Fenway. And center was often 440+ with some places still being in the 500 foot range. With spectators allowed on the field at times, a line drive that got past a fielder was bad news, often a home run. In Fenway Speaker could play shallow, and with the leftfielder also playing shallow, backup was close enough to matter.

League park was also on the small side especially to right. That might have let him play more towards left, maybe cutting off some angle for righthanded batters.

But he still had to be fast enough for the typical large parks.

It would be interesting to see how many of his OF assists were at home after 1912.
What's also interesting is that looking at the stats there wasn't a big jump in assists between the years before 1912 and 1912 and after. So maybe what I've always heard is wrong?

Steve B