XZero771679666304

If this competition has taught me anything, it's the inevitability of slighting people you like. I have liked just about everyone I have voted against. Oh, the tragedy of it all.

If anything the dead ball era helped pitchers, not hitters. They used the same ball throughout most of the game. If a ball was hit foul the fans had to throw it back onto the field. I know, that part of my post was poorly structured/worded. My point was that pitchers of past eras had a decided advantage when compared to today's pitchers.

I think this falls into the category of the very obvious.

Gotta go with SSR.

Warp's cool, plus I'm an Illini fan.

Had to go with Balsa here. I can't stand Indiana.

Gotta go with Chocolate Milk for this alone. Besides, who doesn't like chocolate milk (besides the lactose intolerant)?

Pretty hardcore. I don't like the disrespect that I see some modern baseball fans showing to earlier era's in baseball, as if people back then didn't play the type of bang-bang, in your face, sport. Some say "well, they didn't throw as hard." That's bullcrap. Sure, some people with conditioning these days might be able to throw harder than some guy back then, but people on the most part threw just as hard. If guys out of 1A highschools in Podunk, Mississippi can throw 90+, then so could full grown men back then if they just had the talent for it. Hell, they obviously threw hard enough to kill a man, since Chapman got killed by Mays. I think some people just have rubber arms and they are born that way. Back then guys with weak arms would have been weeded out because of the stress and so the only guys who made it to the bigs and could deal with the stress of constant pitching were guys like Livan Hernandez or Zambrano or Randy Johnson. I could almost guarantee you that Zambrano could throw every third day. I know you're going to battle me on this (because you have before), but while I'll concede that pitchers back then probably threw as hard (a la Bob Feller), I just can't believe the hitters were as good on the whole. With the advances in nutrition, conditioning and sports "medicine", the average hitter now is much bigger, faster and stronger than even 20 years ago, not to mention 50. With new training techniques, even hand-eye is probably much better. This makes it more difficult for today's pitcher to maintain great stats, and while a pitcher in 1920 might have been able to produce on shortened rest, I find it unlikely in the extreme that they could do so against today's offensive beasts. Rather than your theory that weak armed pitchers were weeded out, I think great pitchers could get by with only a fraction of their stuff on a regular basis because the average batter really wasn't that great. And its counter intuitive; logic dictates that the overall talent pool todays is far, far greater than it was in the time of Cy Young, but somehow there aren't as many durable arms today? Add the dead ball into the mix. Another factor to consider is that there are more pitches available to pitchers today. Decades of innovation have seen new pitches developed, giving today's pitchers more weapons. And even so, modern hitters produce much more on average than the hitters of yesteryear. Now before you get too upset, let me clarify - I mean the average offensive player. If you look back over the years, you will find that there was much more disparity between the greats - Ruth, Cobb, etc. - and the rest of the league than there is between the stars of today and their peers. And while guys like Ruth and Cobb may have been able to produce at similar levels in today's league, they almost certainly would not have while indulging in the lifestyles they did when they were playing. While guys like Young, Walter Johnson and company would still have had to deal with awesome talents, there was a lot more chaff in between. Could Zambrano pitch every third day now? Probably. Would he be effective? Almost certainly not. The game is played on a different level than it was 80 or 70 years ago. Developments in science, as well as innovation and the influx of huge talent pools from Latin America, Asia and our own African American population have seen to that. Players today are bigger, faster and stronger. The balls are livelier, the parks smaller and the bats better. These are the main reasons that records like Young's 511 will stand.

Young's 511 will never be topped, simply because no one will get enough starts. A pitcher would have to average 35 starts over 23 seasons just to have a shot at it, and even then would be hard pressed to equal Young's 12 25+ win seasons, 15 20+ win seasons and 5 30+ win seasons. DiMaggio's 56 game streak will probably never be topped. Ripken's consecutive games streak is probably safe. Cobb's .367 career average will be bested at some point. Just a matter of time.

You should do yourself a favor and watch some Invader Zim. It's awesome.

I am an ex huge Bulls fan, if that counts for anything. I still root for the Bulls, but I just don't care much about the NBA anymore. FTR - I was a huge Bulls fan before it became "cool" to be a Bulls fan. I suffered through the losses to the Bad Boy Pistons teams, and was a amped as anybody when they won their first title in 1991. I was on a houseboat in Carbondale when they won, and threw myself in the lake with all my clothes because I was so ecstatic. Ah, good times. The game just hasn't been the same for a long while.

Surely we can find enough common ground to overcome this issue. Boomsticks, babes.... Plenty of positives to agree on.

For right or wrong, this vote boils down to Ryne Sandberg vs. KU for me. Easy choice.

Even though he callously voted against me, I have to go with bhogg because his favorite player of all time is Ryne Sandberg, as is mine. Such fine taste cannot be ignored.

The media has. Have Bulls not worked out PG's? Was there not conjecture about Kirk's efficacy as the orchestrator of the offense? I think Hinrich's inconsistency will be or has already been his undoing. I think it's a safe bet he will not be the Bulls' PG for much longer.

Even if the Bulls were to get Kobe, I think they'll still want to obtain a PG, since Hinrich seems to have fallen out of favor. I could see Paxson trading Gordon, Hinrich and another player for Kobe, then drafting Conley Jr. or Law with the 9th pick.

To blindly dismiss it as a possibility is just ignorant. Ivy league grads from Texas are never racist, right? No one is dismissing it altogether, but I think most would agree that it is only a very remote possibility. Derrek is a great guy, but saying racist remarks are the only thing that could cause him to react that way is just being naive.

Does that mean racist or just profanity? I rather doubt anyone is stupid enough to use racist language on the field or in the clubhouse. I don't understand why everyone assumes racism. Young has teammates of different races and it wouldn't make any sense to use a racial slur against a member of an opposing team. Chris Young is not John Rocker. I think we're just looking at some type of non-racist profanity toward Derrek Lee. I can't think of anything that would set Derrek off like that outside of bigoted remarks. In the heat of the moment it's easy for your true personality to come out. If he's a racist at heart it'd be easy to let one slip. He was nearly hit in the head, and Young seemed to be dismissive of that fact, and called him a name to boot. Derrek is only human, and not a saint.

Does that mean racist or just profanity? I rather doubt anyone is stupid enough to use racist language on the field or in the clubhouse. I don't understand why everyone assumes racism. Young has teammates of different races and it wouldn't make any sense to use a racial slur against a member of an opposing team. Chris Young is not John Rocker. I think we're just looking at some type of non-racist profanity toward Derrek Lee. Yeah, it's just the human tendency to want to demonize the enemy. Young probably said something nasty, but it's just over dramatizing to assume it was racist.

They were too close to each other for there to be any ambiguity.

Does that mean racist or just profanity? I rather doubt anyone is stupid enough to use racist language on the field or in the clubhouse. *cough*John Rocker*cough* That was in an interview.

Does that mean racist or just profanity? I rather doubt anyone is stupid enough to use racist language on the field or in the clubhouse.

BS. Did you not see the quotes in the paper? They threw at Lee because Soriano pimped his HR on Friday. All the work DLee did last year to get back, and this fool thows one on his wrist? DLee did what I would expect from a guy who just had 4 months in rehab flash before his eyes. If you are going to come high and tight, you better expect some action. He completely lost his cool, and it's gonna cost this team big when they need him most (right now). I'd think he'll appeal until Ward and Ramirez come back.

This isn't a good start for me, so I'll repost this, from the campaigning thread: