January 4, 2021
COMPARING PLAYERS A CENTURY APART
When I was a kid back in the early 1950s and starting to devour all I could about baseball history, there were a few things that were looked upon as pretty much certainties at the time. One was the all-time team. Back then, I could rattle off the names very quickly. The outfield was Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker and Babe Ruth. Around the infield you had Lou Gehrig at first, Rogers Hornsby at second, Honus Wagner at short and most often Pie Traynor at third. It was either Bill Dickey or Mickey Cochrane behind the plate and the likes of Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Cy Young and Pete Alexander on the hill. That was that. Sure, there was room for debate, but these were the first greats I read about, all already long retired by then.
But what about now? More than a full century has passed since some of the above greats were gracing the diamond with their dynamic skills. Today the so-called all-time team is no long set in any kind of stone. Maybe Ruth and Gehrig are still anointed the best at their positions, but now even Cobb is sometimes questioned, as is Wagner, who some historians still say could have been the greatest to ever play the game. Hornsby is rarely seen as the all-time second sacker despite his .358 lifetime batting average, two triple crowns and the amazing achievement of averaging .400 over a five-season span. Modernists point to Joe Morgan as perhaps the best ever at his position. Others may say it’s Roberto Alomar or even Robinson Cano. Mike Schmidt often is tabbed at third and Johnny Bench behind the plate.
Sure, there are plenty of modern greats. It’s easy to rattle off a slew of them – Musial, Williams, DiMaggio, Mays, Aaron, Mantle, Clemente, Jeter, Schmidt, Gwynn, Pujols and Mike Trout, to name just some. Many like to say that the old players from the Dead Ball Era and through the 1930s can’t compare to the modern superstars since athletes are generally bigger, faster and stronger than their earlier contemporaries. They also say the pitching today is much better once you eliminate the early superstars like Johnson, Mathewson, Alexander, Lefty Grove and a few others.
But are we comparing players from years gone by with today’s stars in the right way? The analytics boys have even gone so far to assign today’s stats to players who, back in their day, were only interested in batting average and won-lost records. But today that strangely muddled stat called WAR (Wins Above Replacement) is often used as a benchmark. And some say flat out that star players from the early days wouldn’t even make it in today’s game.
I’ve had this discussion, or argument, a number of times with other longtime fans. My theory is that players of today can’t really be compared with, say, the Dead Ball Era stars for several reasons. Number one is that no one alive today saw them play in their primes. And the eye test should still mean something to everyone but the number crunchers. Secondly, the game was different in many respects, including bad fields, fields that weren’t exquisitely manicured like the ballyards of today. You could never count on a sure hop. And have you seen the gloves they had to play with? No way could they make running catches where the ball sticks in the webbing. Fielders had to use two hands. Then there were the bats, usually heavier than today and with thicker handles. And players had to use their own wits to get and keep in shape. Add to that the limited knowledge of nutrition that often made hot dogs and beer a staple.
In my estimation, to compare players from bygone eras you have to do two things. Learn as much about the individual players from the past as you possibly can. Then use your imagination to transport that player into the modern game with today’s fields, modern equipment, training methods and nutrition. How much of a better shortstop would Honus Wagner have been playing on today’s fields with a modern, large glove? How would Cobb have fared using his guile and a modern bat to control where he wanted to put the baseball or defeat a shift? In today’s homer-happy game would an in-shape Babe Ruth still be the best of the bunch. I think he would.
The other argument is that guys who played pre-1947 didn’t really play against all the game’s greats because players of color were banned from the majors. There’s definitely some truth to that, but great players will always be great players and had there been no color line there would just be more players about whom to speculate.
And here’s one to think about. Walter Johnson, who pitched from 1907 to 1927, is credited with 3,509 strikeouts, the first pitcher to reach the coveted 3,000 strikeout mark. Today he has the ninth-most strikeouts in baseball history. But those pitchers passing him all pitched in eras when more and more players were striking out more often. In Johnson’s day there very precious few K’s compared with today. Could you then forget about the numbers and say Walter Johnson was the greatest strikeout pitcher in the history of the game? Think about it.
Of course, this is an endless debate. You can’t even go to the videotape, or the film, for that matter. All you can do is go back to the literature, find out what players of that early time had to say about their game, and then use your imagination to put them on the field today. There can be no real answer, but it’s sure a fun exercise to try.
Bill Gutman
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