How do you rate the Negro League greats when discussing the history of baseball?

[packs]

Originally Posted by z28jd

Players from Latin America now get with trainers at an extremely early age and they are playing an extreme amount of baseball against the best players. That happens at an early age because they can sign at 16 years old and agree to deals as young as 14 years old. Those trainers take 30-40% of their bonuses, so they put money into those kids to help them get better. There's nothing like that happening in the U.S.

I think what you're seeing now in the Dominican actually helps prove my point. They play a lot against the best players and everyone plays baseball there. In the U.S., a recent nationwide poll said that just 9% of the 18&under crowd considered baseball to be their favorite sport, which is a continuation of the decline of the sport. Fewer kids are also playing baseball, despite the population of the country on the rise. That means it is harder for kids to get games going and the best players are spread thinner, so they are playing against mediocre talent coming up, except for the few baseball hotbeds still around.

There is a clear decline in the quality of play in the majors and minors because of that, but there are also more young international players coming up that are top talent, which helps make up for the decline. If MLB right now was just American-born players, the level of play would be even worse than it is now.

I'd also point out that MLB was not all white Americans at any point in its history. That's the same thing people who use the segregation crutch say about Ruth, but minimal research disproves.

Your post asked a rhetorical question about how many Negro League players would have been considered elite when people bring up the point that Ruth didn't face all players.

I don't think you can refute what I said about playing against white males when the sentiment came from your post.

I disagree with what you said because I think talent is talent and it's always present. I don't see any reason to discount a player like Alejandro Oms or suggest he was anything other than a great player. Why? Because elite players have always been present whenever a sport is played. That's why I brought up Latin American players who grew up without any real advantages at all but were elite anyway. I wasn't just talking about today.