Hypothetical Question, could Ruth hit modern pitching

[Lucas00]

Originally Posted by rhettyeakley

So young kids that can hit 85-90+ in high school just didn’t exist back then? I went to high school in Maine and we faced Matt Kinney (eventually made the majors with the Twins) and he was routinely hitting 90+ then. Was there some training that a small town kid in Maine had in the 1990’s that was impossible in the 1910-30’s?

Did Something happen at some nebulous point in history that made humans able to throw faster?

I will never understand this logic.

In all honesty the competition was possibly higher back then due to the immense popularity of baseball. More kids played and discovered their natural gifts. The odds of a kid in 1920 discovering their natural ability to throw a baseball 90 mph is far higher than today.

You're talking most small towns in America were fielding full teams easily. And on top of that company and factory teams lined the streets.

If you were a Male in the 20th century between the ages of 15-40 you had a very high chance of being on a serious ball club.

The only thing separating today's players from back then is the time taken to train and practice etc. Sure they are more advanced today. But if we gave the slew of guys 100 years ago the bare bones of what we do today for training we would get slaughtered, their periods best vs ours. It would simply be a numbers game, and we would lose. We have the science today to win but it doesn't mean we are better at baseball.


This isn't even mentioning the sharp decrease in male testosterone in the last few decades.