Perception of pre war baseball players vs other sports

[puckpaul]

To me, baseball just hasnt changed that much, so the comparisons are still valid.

I know hockey pretty well, and hockey in the first twenty years was a very different sport. There was no forward passing allowed for a long time. No curved sticks. No goalie masks (not needed, with no forward passes and that equipment, pucks not raised much). But since it was popular and continuously played as the NHL since the 20’s, there is great respect for the “best” of those days as being relevant. And there is a continuous linkage over time from early superstars overlapping with subsequent generations (morenz and shore take you to Dit Clapper then to Richard and Howe and Howe gets to Gretzky!). Baseball has a similar lineage.

Football and Basketball do not have that, so those are really treated with a huge emphasis on modern.