How many of those players from previous eras, if dropped into today's world when they were young, would excel in today's game, given the levels of training we have today? You give some of them the access to what today's players have access to and you have to wonder. I think someone like Ted Williams would still stand out.
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Old school 1983 (04-05-2020)
They had the heart and desire to be great at their sport. Give them access to have what today's players have and I have no doubt they would've taken advantage of it and been at the top of the sport close to what they were in their day.
When comparing greatness, I believe you have to measure where they stood against their peers during the same era and if they were #1 then, they are pretty much equal to who ever is #1 now. Top 10 then, equal to Top 10 now. If they possessed only the training and other things from then and got transported to now, no. And if you took Mike Trout now and only gave him access to those things players from the 60s had, he'd be up there with Willie Mays and such, but not necessarily better.
Now with that in mind, notice that the older a sport becomes, the less any one person can dominate. Babe Ruth wouldn't have stood above all today in the same manner he did then. Jim Brown would've still been great, but there probably would've been valid arguments if he played today. The newer a sport is, the bigger the gap there is between player one and player two and player three and so on but when a sport has been around long enough, it's not as cut and dry.
Last edited by foster15; 04-03-2020 at 10:26 PM.
Last edited by Bob Sheed; 04-03-2020 at 10:39 PM.
"Lemonade requires a significant amount of sugar. Otherwise, you've just made lemon juice."
Anyone who was good then would be good now. The differences, both physical and athletic-ability, come down to things like nutrition, medicine, and training. The best athletes would still be among the best athletes, if they were dropped off as small children and brought up with the same kinds of things the people of today were.
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When you don't understand the argument in the slightest that's being made, this is how your posts turn out.
Old school 1983 (04-05-2020)
I was leaning the other way on this, considering the unfairness of taking things out of historical context, but you make a convincing argument, dougdirt.I absolutely can and forever will judge the players pre, roughly 1960 when all teams were integrated to a decent amount, because they absolutely without question were playing against far lesser competition than their counterparts were after that. It's not about Ruth not having to hit 102 MPH. It's about Ruth, and all of the other dudes, not having to play against the best baseball players as a whole within the United States/Venezuela/Mexico/Puerto Rico/Dominican Republic. Ruth was playing, daily, against guys who in a non-segregated world, who would have never played Major League Baseball. They would have been playing minor league baseball. But instead, they were white, so they got to fill out rosters with spots that otherwise would have been given to players that were much better than they were. And that lasted until about 1960. I mean for crying out loud, the Cincinnati Reds didn't have their first African American player until Chuck Harmon in 1954 - a full SEVEN YEARS after Jackie Robinson made his debut. I'm not going to pretend that they weren't playing against a bunch of watered down competition.
Last edited by malcontent; 04-03-2020 at 11:31 PM.
Everything is perfect, but there is a lot of room for improvement. --- Shunryu Suzuki-roshi
Imagine playing in a league where the marginal players are replaced by Jackie Robinson, Frank Robinson, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente and Bob Gibson.
But what if those "marginal" players were Tom Bradys or Joe Borrows who didn't have the option of playing professional football in 1927? Actually one of baseballs' biggest problems today is top high school athletes especially Afro Americans are opting to pursue football/basketball careers and not even consider baseball. Teenage boys in the DR/Cuba do not have that option thus they play baseball. Which dilutes the baseball talent pool more - excluding players of African descent or top athletes of all colors not even getting into the pool?
I am in NO way suggesting that in 1927 there were not many Afro Americans players who would have been superior players to white players then in the Majors.
Last edited by jimbroznan; 04-04-2020 at 08:23 AM.
Chip R (04-07-2020)
Could we make similar arguments regarding hockey before the iron curtain fell vs now with all the eastern European players in the NHL? Heck, most sports now pull from a larger pool of available players.
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Old school 1983 (04-05-2020)
Taking things out of historical context is pointless and defeats the purpose of the exercise, which is comparing teams different eras. The more recent team is always better in absolute terms so no need to talk about it we can end the thread now. But keeping it in historical context is where the interesting conversation is, so that’s the one to have. Also, the integration thing wouldn’t even change that. If you took just the white players from the 2020 Reds they would still stomp the ‘27 Yankees.
Nothing to see here folks, the comparison of the '27 Yankees to the Big Red Machine has been proclaimed null and void.
She used to wake me up with coffee ever morning
cumberlandreds (04-06-2020),RFS62 (04-09-2020),westofyou (04-05-2020)
https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-a...-Babe-Ruth-eraThe average fastball for all of the roughly 75 or so starting pitchers from, say, 1927 would be around 80–86 mph. Put those guys in today’s game and they would not last more than a couple innings. Ever. Period.
And I'll go one further, just to completely invalidate dougdirt's segregation over-emphasis.
Take every league from 1927. MLB, Negro Leagues, all of them. Make an all-star team of the best and brightest from 1927.
Those guys don't stand a chance against the 1982 Reds, much less the 1975 Reds.
The only thing even remotely valid in dougdirt's stance here, is that segregation is a bad thing. Not exactly a news flash, and again, not at all applicable to the topic at hand.
"Lemonade requires a significant amount of sugar. Otherwise, you've just made lemon juice."
Phoenix2 (04-05-2020)
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