Which pre-war stars could play today?

[sayhey24]

Have to agree with all the posters that they would all be top flight stars in today's game. I'm actually surprised that anyone would think otherwise. Can you imagine what Ruth, Gehrig, Crawford and Hornsby would do against expansion era pitching? Very good points made too about the top athletes all playing baseball back then, and how much stronger pitchers were then.

One point that should be made in fairness to the other side of the argument is that pre-war players were not competing against African American and Latin American players.

Greg

[FrankWakefield]

This thread is obviously on the wrong board, 'cause it looks like everyone is pretty much in agreement, even me. Can't have that here!

Mentioning Lincecum reminds me of what I thought when I first saw him pitch. If you cut the hair you have an old fashioned ballplayer. He leans a bit to get the delivery point higher, has old arm extension, stride, pivot, follow through... he looks like he should be in flannel, with sweat soaked sleeves. The kid is from a previous generation, or three, in style. A stout-hearted pitcher, as mentioned in that poem at the beginning of a chapter in The Glory of Their Times.

[D. Broughman]

Tinkers to Evers to Chance on artificial grass. I would love to see the look on there faces the first time the ball came to them

[Orioles1954]

Due to systematic racism and the lack of an international pool of talent, we have to take that into account when determining just "how great" the players of the pre-1947 big leagues were. There's NO doubt that football and basketball players of today are eons better than their peers, not so sure about baseball though....that's what makes it so great.

[tbob]

Satchell Page would be the best pitcher in baseball.
Page, Grove, Alexander and Johnson would make the Phillies 2011 staff look like pipsqueaks.

[Shoeless Moe]

Jimmie Foxx & Josh Gibson would do some serious damage, Gehrig & Cobb too!