Who is the greatest player of the Pre-War Era?

[tedzan]

Originally Posted by BobC

All due respect, the World Series alone is a nominal factor, at best, in determining how good an individual player is. Baseball is a team sport, and regardless of how good an individual is, they cannot single-handedly propel a team all by themself to always win.

Obviously, I cannot attest to stories about Ruth by his team-mates. I can attest to comments regarding Mickey Mantle by his team-mates which I've personally heard from (such as
Tommy Henrich, Yogi Berra, Don Larsen, Johnny Sain, Charlie Silvera and my hometown nearby neighbor Phil Rizzuto) all of which talked about how Mantle's everyday performance inspired the team to play the game better. This same type of inspiration has been suggested in books written about Babe Ruth's influence on his team-mates during the years 1920
to the early 1930's.

Originally Posted by BobC

And glad I gave you a laugh, but in all seriousness, that Cobb actually led the majors in home runs one season was the salient point I was most trying to get across. The fact that it was known he was not trying to hit home runs, as you aptly pointed out by his use of a choked-up batting grip, yet he still was able to lead the majors in that category one season during the height of the deadball era, points to Cobb having an ability that was ahead of most all others of his contemporaries. At least till the end of the deadball era. perhaps a better question would be how come no one else hit as many as Cobb that year he won the Triple Crown?

Come on Bob, for you to use such an anecdotal example during the Dead-Ball era regarding HR's which were subsequently ruled Ground-Rule Doubles is ridiculous. But if you insist,
on bringing up this "Triple-Crown" example of Cobb's, then I have to remind you that Ruth hit 11 HR's in 1918, and 29 in 1919 in the Dead-Ball era.

Actually, you are "grasping at straws" by using such a weak example to make your argument that Cobb was better than Ruth. I find this very disappointing. And, my discussion with
you ENDS here.....PERIOD.


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by tedzan

Obviously, I cannot attest to stories about Ruth by his team-mates. I can attest to comments regarding Mickey Mantle by his team-mates which I've personally heard from (such as
Tommy Henrich, Yogi Berra, Don Larsen, Johnny Sain, Charlie Silvera and my hometown nearby neighbor Phil Rizzuto) all of which talked about how Mantle's everyday performance inspired the team to play the game better. This same type of inspiration has been suggested in books written about Babe Ruth's influence on his team-mates during the years 1920
to the early 1930's.





Come on Bob, for you to use such an anecdotal example during the Dead-Ball era regarding HR's which were subsequently ruled Ground-Rule Doubles is ridiculous. But if you insist,
on bringing up this "Triple-Crown" example of Cobb's, then I have to remind you that Ruth hit 11 HR's in 1918, and 29 in 1919 in the Dead-Ball era.

Actually, you are "grasping at straws" by using such a weak example to make your argument that Cobb was better than Ruth. I find this very disappointing. And, my discussion with
you ENDS here.....PERIOD.


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

Ted,

I never said Cobb was better than Ruth. I'm also not grasping at straws and merely pointing out how you seemingly laughed at Cobb and put down his Triple Crown performance in comparison to Ruth's 1923 season. It is not an apples to apples comparison you were making and points out all the problems in trying to compare players from different times and eras, and Ruth and Cobb clearly are in playing in different eras due to all the aforementioned changes that occured before and after Ruth went to the Yankees.

The fact that you would laugh at something that Cobb accomplished and Ruth couldn't is just appalling to me, especially when I know how much you care for the T206 set, of which Cobb is such an integral and important part. No one is right or wrong in any of their opinions as to who was best because there is no way to prove it one way or another. But of all people on here, I thought with your experience and wisdom you would be of a more open mind and absolutely understand the differences in the rules and how the game was played and changed over time, and how that makes for senseless arguments 100 years later as to who was the best.

And what does Mantle and his teammates have to do with Ruth? If you are implying they both inspired their teammates to be the best possible players and thus win championships with them, okay. But you do realize they both had great teammates to begin with, and Mantle and Ruth alone did not insure victory? In fact, isn't inspiring players to do their best and win what teams hire managers to do? It is well known that Ruth wanted to manage in the majors, especially for the Yankees. And he had some options and chances to maybe manage during his last few years in the majors, but seemed to squander and sabotage them all by his actions. He ended up not managing anywhere, which according to your thinking makes no sense because he was apparently so good in always gettting his fellow players to do their best to win, which is exactly what a Manager is hired to do. If that were truly the case, then why didn't he have multiple teams knocking on his door to manage them? Was all of major league baseball wrong and only you are right?

Or what about all those 1931 managers who were polled and said that they would rank Cobb and Wagner higher than Ruth. And I don't think you can really count McCarthy's picking Ruth as #1 as necessarily legit since he was managing Ruth at the time, and if it ever got back to Ruth he'd picked someone else at #1, who knew how Ruth may have reacted. And that list of people polled even included Walter Johnson, who apparently had Cobb, Wagner, and even Joe Jackson all ranked ahead of Ruth. But what would Walter Johnson know about how good of a baseball player someone may be, right?

Asking who is the greatest of all-time in any sport is a trick question with generally no perfect and/or single answer. The biggest problem is there will never be an agreed upon definition of what "greatest of all-time" actually means and stands for, especially when dealing with team sports. I was merely providing some factual, statistical information to show how Cobb stood in relation to things done by Ruth, and to illustrate how there can be things that people sometimes forget or miss in such comparisons. I had interpreted your comment regarding Cobbs' Triple Crown season as you feeling it was a joke to even think of comparing it to one of Ruth's seasons because of his "bigger" overall numbers. And by dispaging Cobb, you do indeed disparage everyone else in 1909 because he was arguably the best offensive player in the majors that year. I wasn't really looking for a reply from you, but had you come back and said you were not intending to dismiss Cobb's accomplishments and were not making fun of his Triple Crown in light of Ruth's accomplishments and realized the differences in how the game had changed so drastically between those two years, I would have apologized for misinterpreting your meaning. But based on how you did respond, it seems fairly clear what your intent was all along, and that truly saddens me.