Old Timers vs. Young Bucks

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by howard38

I understand what you're saying, Ted, but a walk can also replace a hit and therefore lower batting average as well. There are other old-timers who batted near or over .400 who also had walk totals as low or lower than Brett, Carew and Gwynn. Al Simmons, Bill Terry and Harry Heilmann had fairly low totals and Nap Lajoie's were even lower than Sisler's.

dead ball era is an entirely different critter tho, the ball was rarely replaced in games, the spitter was legal, ball was hard to field, players would accept bribes not to field a ball correctly...etc there's a reason batting avg dropped after 1920 relative to the avg before then.