OleMissCub

Ummm....so? Newsflash: 1918:An overwhelming majority of American troops want out of France and Belgium. Representing the minority, one doughboy who voted to stay was quoted as saying "Ya, i like eating rats and living in trenches full of mud. Pooping without getting shot by a sniper isn't so bad, it's actually quite fun. I don't mind it here" 1943: An overwhelming majority of American troops want out of North Africa 1944: An overwhelming majority of American troops want out of France 1945: An overwhelming majority of American troops want out of the Pacific Islands. 1951: An overwhelming majority of American troops want out of Korea In both World Wars would troops wanting out be at the expense of accomplishing the goals or would they be wanting out after the goal was accomplished? Like Vietnam, I think the Iraq War runs parallel to wanting out before the task has been completed rather than getting it done and out ASAP. It says 25 percent of soldiers in Iraq want out immediately. I'd imagine that in Vietnam the percentage wanting out immediately was probably more than triple and was probably nearly unanimous considering the complete lack of an attainable objective and the conscripted status of the soldiers. I would think that most of the soldiers in Iraq think we should leave within a year because they probably feel that they are not needed anymore when viewing the successful elections being held and finally the successful training of the NIA and the ICDC. I'm still not quite sure why that poll was posted on this forum in the first place and i'm not sure what argument it advances as far as attempting to place Iraq in a historical context.

Ummm....so? Newsflash: 1918:An overwhelming majority of American troops want out of France and Belgium. Representing the minority, one doughboy who voted to stay was quoted as saying "Ya, i like eating rats and living in trenches full of mud. Pooping without getting shot by a sniper isn't so bad, it's actually quite fun. I don't mind it here" 1943: An overwhelming majority of American troops want out of North Africa 1944: An overwhelming majority of American troops want out of France 1945: An overwhelming majority of American troops want out of the Pacific Islands. 1951: An overwhelming majority of American troops want out of Korea

Agreed. Indeed, the only "sorta" similarity I can see between the two is that Vietnam divided in 54 after an insurgency defeated the French. However...we ain't the French....hopefully.

Comparing Iraq to Vietnam and ESPECIALLY WWII is ludicrous. When we lose 13-18,000 soldiers per YEAR, most of whom are drafted, then maybe we can compare to Vietnam. When we lose 2-3,000 soldiers a DAY, then we can compare to WWII. The answer is NEITHER

Problem is Venezuela and DR are in the same starting bracket, so should be some early fireworks.

I don't think the Dominicans are the obvious choice. Their lineup may be better, but I think the US certainly has the better pitchers. Venezuela might even have better pitchers than the Dominican.

thank you for getting this thread back on track

Fenway is historic and all that, but it's uncomfortable as hell and covered in bat/bird poop The ones i've been to that I like alot, other than Wrigley - Camden - Miller Park - Minute Maid - Coors Field Fenway and Yankee stadium are way overrated...I enjoy the history of them, but they just aren't great venues to watch a game, in my opinion.

But let's examine the flip side of those pitching stats: hitting stats. If pitchers were not throwing as hard as they do now, one would think that more people back then would hit for higher averages. Pitchers had very low ERA's back then. Indeed, I would credit most of this to the style of ball that was played back then, which I would almost classify as looking more like modern softball than modern baseball i.e. slap hits, drag bunts, etc. However, like someone mentioned earlier, if you study up on deadball baseball, like reading books like "Eight Men Out", Stump's "Cobb" or Creamer's "Babe", you'll see that players thought more about contact than perhaps players now. In Cobb's book "My Life in Baseball", he talks about his plate discipline. I think the majority of players back then, knowing that hitting the hell out of the ball was going to accomplish very little, spent the majority of their time attempting to make solid contact, rather than free swinging. Look at someone like Ichiro, who averages 64 K's a year, and the way he swings. Basically he looks like he's using a tennis racquet up there, the same holds true if you look at how Gwynn played. He averaged an amazing 29 k's a year. His entire strategy was based on contact and placement. I think it's so tempting for a player today to look at those fences only 330 feet away and want to put one over and get a quick run...back in the day, when the outfield fences were 400-500, the thought probably rarely entered their minds and so they focused purely on contact hitting.

interesting. if only it were true AL - Lajoie, Cobb, Speaker, Collins, Knight, Oldring, Easterly, Murphy NL - Magee, Campbell, Hofman, Snodgrass, Wagner, Lobert, Bates, Devore, Konetchy, Schulte I was going off my stats on page 5, that were AL only, i should have made that clear. You don't need to be snide in every debate we get into. I'm just going off my personal experience where I've seen plenty of kids without the benefit of mechanical training manage an 85+ fastball. Also have seen quite a few over 90+. On the high school team I coached last year we had 1 kid who could hit 92, and he was 5'9. Our no.2 averaged at 86. My basic point is to say that if those few people who were exceptionally natural athletes in their own time like a Cobb (who was once considered for an olympic track spot), Wagner or Johnson, it would only make sense that they would greatly benefit from modern technology and strength training, and thus be at least on par with our top tier players athletically. Like i've pointed to previously, these guys weren't very small, Cobb was 6'2, 200, Johnson 6'1, 200. Give them our modern benefits and there should be little doubt that these natural athletes would be just as good athletically as our people now. That we can agree on, and regardless what one things of their competition level, this is the reason why people like Cobb, Wagner, Lajoie, Speaker, should be respected. Clearly they had something going for them if they were able to hit over .100 points higher than the league average.

Cobb would agree with you, in 1960, he wrote: "The great trouble with baseball today is that most of the players are in the game for the money and that's it, not for the love of it, the excitement of it, the thrill of it. " he sounds exactly like every bitter old player ever indeed he does. However, I think he was pretty much true to what he said there. He was offered 100,000 to bail on the tigers and join the renegade Federal League, but decided to stay with the Tigers and keep receiving his 30,000 a year he was getting at the time. However, he did die one of the wealthiest ballplayers in history, but nit had nothing to do with his ballplaying days. When he was about 21, during the offseason he was playing golf in Atlanta and this guy he met at the golf course kept pestering him to buy stock in his upstart product, finally Cobb gave into the man's request just to shut him up. This stock he bought into turned out to be Coca-Cola.

Cobb would agree with you, in 1960, he wrote: "The great trouble with baseball today is that most of the players are in the game for the money and that's it, not for the love of it, the excitement of it, the thrill of it. "

The fact is, if you looked at the stats I showed earlier, less than 10 players in 1910 had batting averages over .300. So either the hitters were really crappy or the pitchers were actually good. When did I say it's wise to send someone out there for 300+ innings? They did it back in the day out of necessity, and they either blew their arm out or they were able to maintain their health. I never said that's a wise thing to do, I don't think it is. I was just saying that's how it was back then: either you had the rubber arm or you didn't pitch. Again though, your argument about them not throwing very hard is silly. Like i've said a million times, a human body is a human body. It hasn't miraculously changed in the past 100 years. People threw a ball just as hard, threw it just as far, ran just as fast. No doubt modern strength training helps makes someone of average strength become someone of good strength, but it shouldn't make that much of a difference. If certain high schoolers with no mechanical training or weight training are able to throw a ball 90+ then so could someone back then. Carl Mays clearly threw hard enough to kill Ray Chapman in 1919.

What, you think pitchers back then threw 80mph or something? When I was in high school, I faced lanky redneck kids who never touched a weight in their lives who could throw 90mph or higher. A human body is a human body, training or no training. There are high schoolers all across the country who have no problem hitting at least 90mph, and they have no serious training at all. Some people can pitch that hard naturally and some can't. Just like some people are naturally fast and others aren't. Here are some examples of 300+ inning pitchers who you've probably actually seen film of and can testify that they didn't just lob the ball up there Bob Feller - 1946 - 371 ip, 1941 - 343 ip Steve Carlton - 1972 - 346 ip Gaylord Perry - 1973 - 344 ip, 1972 - 342 ip, 1970 - 328 ip Denn McClain - 1968 - 338 ip Sandy Koufax - 1965 - 335 ip Nolan Ryan - 1972 - 332 ip, 1973 - 326 ip Ferguson Jenkins - 1974 - 328 ip, 1971 - 325ip Juan Marichal - 1968 - 328 ip There is a theory that i've read in a Deadball-Era book about old timey pitchers and their massive amount of innings. Basically, it suggested that there are some people who can naturally throw huge amounts of pitches and have a quick recovery time for their arm. Other pitchers cannot do this. People like our beloved Kerry Wood, with all his arm troubles would have not been able to hack it as a pitcher back then because his arm would have exploded and there were no ways to fix a pitcher. Some people are just physically able to sustain massive pitching workloads and some are not. Durings Cobb's career years, only 24 times in a season did a pitcher throw for over 350 innings. 5 of these seasons were by Grover Cleveland Alexander, 4 of them were Walter Johnson, 4 were Ed Walsh, and 3 were Mathewson. So 16 of the 24 350ip+ seasons during Cobb's career were pitched by 4 men. So your suggestion that pitchers routinely piled up massive and abnormal amounts of innings is just wrong. A 350ip+ season was then, like today, an anomaly.

Sure I'll try and find it for you!

Indeed, I think in the end, it's all relative.

What does that prove? All it proves is that athletes now have better shoes, tracks, equipment and physical training. Again, by pointing out "how much better" people are today does nothing except make a point that the really good back then, would have been EXCEPTIONAL given today's advancements. The only reason so many athletes are such good specimens these days is their training. The human body hasn't changed in the last 100 years. It's striking to me that some people are so willing to discredit the athletes of yesteryear. If anything they should be admired MORE for being able to succeed as they did, without the benefit of modern advancements.

you'd be surprised about Cobb's views on black ballplayers. The thing to understand about him is that he didn't just hate blacks, he hated ALL people. Was he a racist? Of course he was and an unashamed one at that. However, he did attend many Negro league games and was indeed impressed with their skill. There is of course a famous incident where Cobb and the Tigers played 12 exhibition games against a Negro team and Cobb sat out for several of those games. Some sources say it's because he didn't want to be overshadowed by the greatness of the black players. However, he did hit .370 in the 7 games he played and I chalk his not playing some of the games to his sulky and selfish nature. If he was pissed off about something he would just sit out for a week during the regular baseball season in protest and sulk. He was really a massive douche-bag. However, shortly before his death he was asked what players he liked in the bigs and he said "Mantle, Henry Aaron, and Ernie Banks, they play like we used to, and I like that." Throughout his career he served as a freelance journalist for many papers and sports journals, and in 1923 he wrote in The Sporting News: " It matters not what branch of mankind the player sprang from with the fan, if he can deliver the goods. The Mick, the Sheeney, the [expletive], the Dutch and the Chink, the Cuban, the Indian, the Jap, the so-called Anglo-Saxon--his nationality is never a matter of moment if he can pitch, or hit, or field."

Dude, but those pitchers only threw like 40 mph! And they only had like one or two pitches. :roll:

I showed statistics earlier that showed that in 1910 and 1915 there were less than 20 people in all of baseball who had over .300 averages. Either the pitchers were good or the majority of players weren't worth a dang.

Ah, but c'mon, I was one year off. That's not so bad off the top of my head. I should have remembered though, that 1909 was the great Wagner v. Cobb series. http://www.vintagecardtraders.org/virtual/pc796/pc796-07.jpg

Ah, I see, so if we transplant Todd Walker with his .305 average back in time, then he'd be a Ty Cobb? He'd win over 10 batting titles?

Not to nit pick but I consider Ted Williams the best hitter of all time. even so, he had a good mentor. Cobb actually got mad at Williams often times and thought he swung for the fences too much. Cobb had a serious dislike for home runs, he thought they cheapened the thrill of the game. Wouldn't that make Williams a better hitter because he hit more homeruns? His average didn't suffer and he hit home runs. I think that makes him better than Cobb. That was why I put Gehrig and Ruth ahead of Cobb also. I never said Cobb was a better all-around hitter than Williams. Clearly Williams or Ruth are the best all-around hitters of all time and that's why i put them higher on my list than Cobb. Cobb is just the best pure hitter ever, in my opinion. And as much as this man knew about the science of hitting, I refuse to think that he'd be overmatched by any pitchers today. He was intelligent enough to hit any pitcher back then, and I have no doubt he'd study up and do the same today.

The complete lack of appreciation for how good players were in the past is appalling sometimes. Are you going to make that same argument against Ted Williams? You gonna say that Williams wouldn't sniff a .344 average today? Or what about Stan the Man, I don't guess his lifetime BA would be .330 today?

Not to nit pick but I consider Ted Williams the best hitter of all time. even so, he had a good mentor. Cobb actually got mad at Williams often times and thought he swung for the fences too much. Cobb had a serious dislike for home runs, he thought they cheapened the thrill of the game.