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Old 07-26-2008, 11:07 AM
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Default Best Baseball Player Depicted in T206 Not in the Hall of Fame

Posted By: Cy

You can check any stats that you want about Chase and make up your mind. But if you get any accounts of his playing ability from his contemporary players, he was considered the best, right up there with Wagner and Cobb (among his contemporaries' opinions). Many players have praised him in written articles and a few players stated that he was the best, in their own words, on the Glory of Their Times CD.

So he threw a game here and there. Let's get serious here. Many, many players cheated in that day. I just finished the book "Crazy 08" and there are a lot of references about cheaters across the board pre-1920. If you want to eliminate players from the Hall or even from consideration of being great because of cheating, then you need to toss Cobb and Speaker for sure. Joe Wood's first-hand testimony on the Glory of Their Times CD states without a doubt that they bet on games and it was not on the up-and-up. And the way Wood talked on the CD, this was common practice. So I would bet (Can I do this in this type of argument?) that Cobb and Speaker, and Joe Wood for that matter, bet on fixed games more than people want to believe. So should we disregard Cobb and Speaker from consideration of the best players in the game?

Having said this, I feel that Chase was probably the best of the non-HOFers in the T206 set and probably better than many of the HOFers. And if you are going to check his fielding stats, just think how good they would have been if he didn't throw any plays on purpose?

Cy

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