XZero771679666304

He just uses that line to lure the vendors close enough to eat them.

Yeah, Houston is such a classless, poorly run organization. :roll: Tell that to Jeff Bagwell. Shameless.

In related news, none of my Hawk fan friends back in Iowa are taking my calls....

I think there is a distinct possibility none of them make it to the Final Four.

I don't like Clemens either, and I will always think of Clemens as a Red Sox and Yankee, not an Astro. I have never liked him because he seems arrogant and overbearing. The fact he is/was an Astro is nothing but an afterthought. In fact Clemens and the Astros management deserve each other, IMO. I would take him on the team, though I wouldn't pay him near what Houston paid him last year.

ORU has a legitimate shot in this game.

Yeah, that was really getting on my nerves, and I only got to see the last couple minutes of the game.

MSU better win today. Illinois didn't look that good, nor did Indiana or OSU, and Iowa and Wisconsin have lost. I hate the Hawks with a rabid passion, but I really wanted to see the B10 represented well.

Isn't Seton Hall in the Big East as well?

Williams may have a fraction of the skills but he probably figures more in the Cub future than Wood.Whether its pitching here or trade bait. Since you can't deal with the fact that he has never won more than 14 games,how about the fact that since 1998 he has pitched more than 175 innings or had over 30 starts twice. It's not a matter of dealing with Wood's win totals, but that wins may be the most useless stat in evaluating a pitcher. His health is a legitimate knock, but his win totals, particularly in '03, are far from a fault for him. All a pitcher can do is go out and shut a team down as best he can, it is up to his teammates to win the game. Saying certain pitchers "just know how to win" or "don't know how to win" is total BS.

The voters can vote for or not for anyone, and don't have to explain why. If they don't want to elect Bonds, Sosa or McGwire, they don't have to, even if it is just because of their suspicion. Unfortunately not everything is clear cut, and this book probably did cost Bonds a shot at the hall, for right or wrong.

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. Bingo. The same applies to the pitchers. Tim said it a few pages ago, and that's all I have been saying. The great players were great, but were godlike only by contrast to their peers, who were lousy. And handful of legends, a few greats, and a whole lot of mediocre players. A few big fish in a small pond. It isn't romantic, but it is true. How many players hit .400 anymore? Or win 30+ games? The talent level rising doesn't allow as much for anamalously high stats, like .420 batting averages, or 500 wins. Pitchers can't win that many because they can't pitch without rest against the increased number of quality hitters. Hitters can't hit over .400 because there are more good pitchers. It is harder for hitters to get locked in on pitchers when they see the half as much, and the average pitcher is twice as good. Babe Ruth hit more homers than the roster of entire teams. Do you think he could maintain that today? Hell no. If he came down to anywhere near the production of his peers (and NO ONE in todays game plays that far above the mean), he wouldn't have gotten a look at 714 homers. Could Cy Young win 511 games? No. Less teams, fewer quality players, fewer games. It was easier for the greats back then. And AGAIN, I'm not saying they could be good or even great in today's game. Just that they wouldn't be as great. It's late, and this argument isn't going to end anytime soon, so I am out.

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? Walker is a career .290 hitter, and I concede that Cobb may hit better than .300, optimistically somewhere dead even between his .366 and my original .290, probably around .325. If you moved Walker back in time, you could probably add .020 to his career average, which isn't as good as Cobb was. But the point is that the legends would not perform today at the same levels they did yesterday.

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. This is true, but the thing you seem to be glossing over about the good pichers of his time is that there were far fewer of them. Today, there are a lot more good pitchers, and as much as you study, you cannot maintain the intensity that allows you to hit .435 against a guy like Johnson as well for far greater periods of time. Today there are better pitchers, more great pitchers and you have to face them more often. Expecting a player, no matter how tenacious, skilled or studious, to transition from weak to strong competion while maintaining his performance is just unrealistic, IMO.

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? The complete blindness to logic in favor of historic romanticism is equally appalling. I said Cobb would be a .300 hitter today, and considering the repsective talent pools of the eras, that is giving Cobb credit. I said Ruth would probably hit 500 homers, and that is hardly disrespect. Williams would likely have been better than Cobb because the talent level late in Ted's career was on the rise, but not quite a .344 hitter. Yes, the numbers of all players prior to the 60's and 70's would significantly suffer in todays competitive atmosphere. The overall talent level is better, and there is no logical argument against that fact. The desparity in facilities and equipment are not nearly enough to negate that. When you stand out in a mediocre crowd and move on to more talented competition, you will have less success. Are great high school players always great college players? Are all minor league players great major league players? Like it or not, that is the kind of desparity there is between the talent level in the early stage of MLB and the talent level in MLB today. I appreciate your respect for history, but sometimes you take your reverence a bit to far. I think your borderline worship of Ty Cobb in this thread is proof of that. I am not disrespecting the legends, I am just thinking logically instead of romantically.

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'm not sure who I consider the best hitter of all time, but I would take Williams over Cobb every day and twice on Sundays.

Cobb hit .435 against Walter Johnson, who many consider to be the greatest pitcher in history...certainly a pitcher on par with ANY elite pitcher who is pitching today. Talent level doesn't matter when you understand how the game works. He clearly was able to understand how a hitter can defeat any pitcher. With all due respect, talent level does matter. You can have a complete understanding of the game, but when you are overmatched, you are overmatched. Did Cobb hit .435 for his career? No. If Johnson was so much better than his peers, shouldn't Cobb have had a career average over .435? What matters is the overall average. The average pitcher today is better than the average pitcher in any of Cobb's 24 seasons. It's easy to get amped up and focused when you are facing the elite, but it is far more difficult to maintain that intensity. So Cobb hit .435 agains Johnson (whether Johnson is as good as any of today's elite pltchers is highly debatable)? So what? His career average is 70 points lower. Now there a lot more talented Walter Johnson-caliber pitchers, and the rest of the pack is much better. Cobb was a great hitter, but he wouldn't have sniffed his .366 average today.

Todays players are not more gifted. However, there are a lot more gifted players in the show today than there were in Ruth and Cobb's time. If the league were open to blacks and the world talent pool in first 50 years of MLB like it is today, there would have been a whole lot more statistical parity.

I think Cobb would have hit higher than .300. Todd Walker hits .300 for goodness sakes. With Cobb we are talking about the greatest pure hitter in the history of the game. This man wrote books about the science of hitting. The player today that I see who most resembles the way Cobb played is Ichiro. People often say that it seems like Ichiro is playing with a tennis raquet...he just places the ball where he wants to. Cobb also received the same type of praise during his time. When Ruth came along and the press was hounding Cobb because they suggested to him that the reason he didn't hit homers like Ruth is because he couldn't, Cobb went and hit 4 straight home runs...having proved his point he went back to hitting his slap singles and drag bunts and perfectly placed doubles. Talent level. Ty Cobb didn't face the pitching he would today. Ty Cobb was a great hitter, but let's not get too romantic here. He might well hit better than .300, but he wouldn't win many batting titles, IMO.

What new pitches?? And besides, how does saying "alot of innovation" has occured since then help your argument? All you are doing is handicapping the modern players by saying that they have advantages that the old guys didn't have. If you sent them back in time, they wouldn't take their advantages with them. There are more pitches today than there were in the 1920's, you know that. Plus, the pithces that there were have been refined. But that whole issue is a side to the talent pool issue, which there is no logical argument against. In all of my research concerning the deadball era for my thesis and personal enjoyment, i've come across every pitch we have now, except the slider, which didn't officially come about until the 1950's-60's. If a ball can be thrown a certain way by a human hand, it's naive to think that someone in the past wouldn't have already figured out how to throw it. Satchel Paige had like 8 pitches he threw and Walter Johnson had several different types of fastballs. I understand the talent pool argument, and i'm not going to argue against that because that argument DOES make alot of sense. However, exceptional talent is exceptional talent and Cobb, Speaker, Hornsby, Williams, Wagner, Ruth, they all had exceptional talent, and give these same people all the benefits that modern players enjoy, and they would AT THE VERY LEAST be playing. Tree said Cobb would have "done nothing" and no player before 1940 would be playing on a modern team. Okay, I can agree with that. I think Ty Cobb would have been a .290 - .300 hitter today. I think that Babe Ruth would have hit 450-500 home runs. I contend that about 90% of big leaguers in 1940 wouldn't have a roster spot today. Sure, the legends would be good today, but not what they were.

What new pitches?? And besides, how does saying "alot of innovation" has occured since then help your argument? All you are doing is handicapping the modern players by saying that they have advantages that the old guys didn't have. If you sent them back in time, they wouldn't take their advantages with them. Yes they would. Isn't the argument that if you sent Ty Cobb as he was into today's game he wouldn't be very good, and if you sent Pujols to 1912 he'd shatter records? Pujols would have a size and power advantage, that's about it. You give him crappy cleats, a lumpy field to play on, gravel and rocks as an infield on which to field his position, no scouting reports, a distorted black blob of a baseball hurtling towards him, a uniform that hasn't been washed in weeks, and a tiny crappy glove, and I doubt he'd shatter any records. He'd do extremely well because Pujols is someone who "understands" the game and has some amazing natural ability, much like a Cobb or Williams. On the contrary, as good as a Cobb or Honus Wagner was when they played in all those dreadful conditions, you give them all the amazing benefits that today's players have and I think given their mental knowledge and natural ability, they would do very well. "When I began playing the game, baseball was about as gentlemanly as a kick in the crotch. " - Ty Cobb, 1960 Pujols would also have the advantage of having made it to the bigs by succeeding against a stronger level of talent, and having put his numbers up against better overall pitching. Unless of course you are arguing that Pujols would go back in time never having played an inning of baseball.

What new pitches?? And besides, how does saying "alot of innovation" has occured since then help your argument? All you are doing is handicapping the modern players by saying that they have advantages that the old guys didn't have. If you sent them back in time, they wouldn't take their advantages with them. Yes they would. Isn't the argument that if you sent Ty Cobb as he was into today's game he wouldn't be very good, and if you sent Pujols to 1912 he'd shatter records? Yes it is. The argument (as I understand it) is if you transplanted respective players, indepent of pysical conditions and equipment. New and refined pitches are an innovation of skill, not an issue of substandard equipment. Those skill innovations, as well as the relative talent levels of the eras, are why today's players have an inherent adavntage, IMO. Their competition is better and more skilled. Remember, skill and raw talent are two different things.

What new pitches?? And besides, how does saying "alot of innovation" has occured since then help your argument? All you are doing is handicapping the modern players by saying that they have advantages that the old guys didn't have. If you sent them back in time, they wouldn't take their advantages with them. There are more pitches today than there were in the 1920's, you know that. Plus, the pithces that there were have been refined. But that whole issue is a side to the talent pool issue, which there is no logical argument against.

I don't need to give any specific reasons to show that some modern players might not do so hot back in the day. The whole argument about "they wouldn't do well in modern times because conditioning and technology is better" doesn't work at all if you are trying to make the argument that classic players wouldn't do well in today's world. Because what we have in modern times are more BENEFITS. Exposing these legends to the benefits that modern baseball has would only serve to make them better, not worse. On the contrary, it's a much easier argument to make that players now would do worse back then because of the DETRIMENTS and the loss of these benefits that they would have to endure to have played back then. Added benefits can only serve to make one better, case in point the latinos who grow up playing with milk carton gloves. That argument makes sense, but you seem to be ignoring the fact that today's players compete against a much stronger pool of talent. Joe average in 1925 might be an A-baller today. Even if you bring the deficiency of conditions and equipment into the argument, it still doesn't balance out with the absolute saturation of the MLB talent pool that has taken place in the past 40 years or so.

If you transported players like Pujols and ARod back in time, they would be elite. While the facilities and equipment were substandard when compared to today, a lot of innovation has taken place since then, such as new pitces, etc. Plus logic dictates that the average player today is better than the average player 60 years ago.