Walter Johnson Vs. Christy Mathewson

[vintagerookies51]

Records in 1910 vs today...

1 Mile Run: 4:15 --> 3:47
100 m dash: 10.5 s --> 9.58s
High Jump: 1.98 m --> 2.45 m
Shotput: 15.54 m --> 23.56 m

With a century of improvements to training, technique, mechanics, etc. of course athletes are going to be better today. But alas, the oldheads of N54 have proven that the only athletic feat in the world that people have not improved at over the years is throwing a baseball because you could hear a noise as a WaJo pitch flew by.

I am a firm believer in that you need to compare how they dominated their era, though, so looking at stats it's hard to not call Walter Johnson the GOAT.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by vintagerookies51

Records in 1910 vs today...

1 Mile Run: 4:15 --> 3:47
100 m dash: 10.5 s --> 9.58s
High Jump: 1.98 m --> 2.45 m
Shotput: 15.54 m --> 23.56 m

With a century of improvements to training, technique, mechanics, etc. of course athletes are going to be better today. But alas, the oldheads of N54 have proven that the only athletic feat in the world that people have not improved at over the years is throwing a baseball because you could hear a noise as a WaJo pitch flew by.

I am a firm believer in that you need to compare how they dominated their era, though, so looking at stats it's hard to not call Walter Johnson the GOAT.

I agree that it's likely Walter Johnson and other pitchers of his era were not throwing as hard as pitchers consistently are today. However, there have been posts in this thread also talking about Nolan Ryan and Bob Feller throwing around 107-108 MPH. Are those to be believed? If so, they are both faster than what anyone has been measured at in recent times even though they were 50-70 years ago.