Quote:
Originally Posted by ksabet
It's funny because we romanticize old legendary players it's sometimes hard to figure out where they truly stand in history.
Wagner is almost unanimously considered the greatest shortstop and against his contemporaries (which IMO is how it SHOULD be judged) there is no doubt. But was he really better than Ripken or Jeter if you put him on today's field?
It's something we will never know but I i have always been curious how Ruth or Foxx or Mathewson would have fared against modern players.
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This is why comparing greats across generations is so very difficult. To be accurate, you can only rank them within their own time. Babe Ruth would have had to be in better shape to be productive, Walter Johnson may have only been 'moderately fast' by today's standards. On the other hand, what if the old-timers had had all of the training and nutritional advantages that today's stars have....you could go back and forth forever about this...and I believe we will...part of the allure of the history of the game. '...a haunted game in which every players is compared to the ghosts of all those who came before.'