Niche Set Collecting, an example

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Posted By: Dave Rey

I stand by my statement that pitching and hitting records compiled before the mound was moved to 60 feet should be disregarded in context and relationship to modern baseball.

Certainly not ignored or erased, but disregarded in the conversation about "the most" or "the least" of any sort of batting or hitting record.

Once the pitching rules became, for all intents and purposes, standardized -- aside from the banning or allowing certain pitches or variations of the strikezone or mound heighth -- then all bets are back on as far as the record book goes.

Because baseball is recorded in statistics, we can pretty handily do contextual comparisons. When the context is disrupted by easily observed artificial absurdity, like the Lake Front Park home run binge, then we should disregard the validity of records created in that specific context.

I love 19th Century baseball history more than most folks -- so I'm in no way advocating that we disregard it or any other portion of baseball history, Gil. I do advocate looking at history in context so we can better understand it.

As an example, we consider Andrew Carnegie one of the richest men in American history. His fortune was about $400 million, I believe, which wouldn't even make him the richest man in most major American cities today.

But, in the context of his time, he was super-wealthy.

In the context of his time, Tris Speaker was a tremendous power hitter, but his homerun totals, when looked at in the context we are used to today, are pedestrian.

It's all about context.