amarant - There are just too many variables that we each could point to in order to make our point. Because of that, I don't see how we could justify rewriting the record books.

You made mention of Cy Young. It's not fair to him to suggest his record is invalid because he had 40 starts and 300 innings a season. This was the norm. To that end, the hitters should increasse their chances of success becuae they are facing tired pitching. I think many of the single-season batting average records would support that notion. So if Young could still win that many games in that environment, he should get some love. Also don't forget that the ballpark pendulum of that time was swung toward the side of larger parks. This kept homers down, but gave more area for players to get hits (Most triples in a season: www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/3B_se...). Just too many variables to formally debit Cy Young, and credit someone else.

As far as appreciating players is concerned, I think that's apples and oranges. I think a lot of players can be appreciated in their markets and in baseball circles, without holding records. John Smoltz is a great example. Greg Maddux was another. The latter didn't need speed, but movement was what won him games. So perhaps Walter Johnson, who threw an inferior ball 91 mph, could still have figured out a way to succeed in today's game. If Bill and Ted could have done their project on baseball, then we'd know.

As far as the lament over Maddux and his ERA, I'm going to get uber baseball dorky here. Quoting only the ERA, win total, home run total, or average is a thorny issue. As we agreed, there are too many variables. Instead of the crusade being to change the who holds the records, or having multiple sets of records, we should find better ways to assign meaning to them.

Here is the single season list of leaders in ERA+ www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/earne... You could argue that Maddux had the 4th and 5th best seasons of any pitcher ever. I would have to agree, but again, we shouldn't debit wins from Cy Young's account because of it.

This discussion is well worth the price of admission. I have been involved in baseball as a player, coach and fan for six decades and this argument is moot. I learned baseball from my father who was forty years old when I was born and could still bring the high heat when he was fifty five. He played throughout Arkansas and Oklahoma with the great Arky Vaughn, Ted Bench and many others that he described as ball players. He was born in 1912 and lived for baseball. He would scoff at the notion that pitchers are better in todays game then in his day. He saw Nolan Ryan and could name two dozen pitchers from his early years who threw as hard with no disrespect for Mr. Ryan or any player from any era. A ball player was a ball player to him. Records in baseball are nothing more than standards as to how the game should be conducted no matter the era. Not all are meant to be broken but rather enshrined.

You make good points there. Nice rebuttal. Most would be disrespectful to my views that historical players for the most part wouldn't be relevant. I do think that Mantle, Gehrig, Williams and several others would still have great careers, but I just don't believe their numbers would be so high. I just don't think records like Cy Young's 511 wins or his 7356 innings pitched are actually milestones. The guy started 40 times or more 11 times in his career. He eclipsed 400 innings 5 times. Its also what you said as well about how the dead ball rule effected power numbers and everything. How good were the players he could have faced. How monumental are those 2 records. I mean the guy also lost 10+ games 18 times in his career and 15+ 13 times. By your own admittance his numbers such as ERA were held down by the fact that rules prevented the power from being up. So why gauge him as being the best pitcher of all time? I am not going to completely write history off as we do have 30 teams with a 25 man active roster. Which means there are 750 players in the majors at any given time. During expanded rosters there are 1200. And then teams also then have AAA, AA, High A, Low A, and Rookie teams. So just a rough estimate of using the 25 man roster rule that would mean there are more than 4500 players playing ball. I will say that some of the legends of baseballs past would still be relevant but I seriously doubt many players that played in the up until 1920 would have the same success they had playing in todays game. I did kind of mis-state the steroid idea. The steroids definately added power to the swings, but also did it not aid in the pitchers throwing harder? Did baseball not tighten the baseballs up making the ball fly farther and allow them to be hit harder during the same time period? For the Adam Dunn and Prince Fielder remarks. Look at the fact that they don't hit .300 for a clue there. Look at the fact that these guys had more opportunities to study the game, study the pitchers, grow up learning to hit for power. With all the stats you dig up, can you tell me what the average speed of a fastball was when Ruth was hitting home runs and batting .300. Can you tell me how effective the AL's top pitchers could be when some of them were starting consecutive games, helping boost their innings and starts to unreachable numbers. You don't see someone like Tim Lincecum start both games of double headers. Players have built themselves up in todays games to levels that really push their bodies to extremes. You don't even see pitchers come back and finish after long rain delays.

This is said of Walter Johnson:

"Although a lack of precision instruments prevented accurate measurement of his fastball, in 1917, a Bridgeport arms laboratory recorded Johnson's fastball at 134 feet per second, which is equal to 91.36 miles per hour. It was virtually unique in Johnson's day."

I will make a note that this measurement is based on 1917 technology but I would not go as far to say that they were more than 1 mph off and that could go either way. There was a long debate about who threw harder between he and Smokey Joe Wood and many consider Wood to have thrown harder. But 91 mph. Pitchers get clobbered with speeds like that. I will also venture to say that modern day breakthroughs in physics have helped pitchers develop pitches that can break more effectively.


Okay, with all this said we each have our opinions. But its like you stated in one of your blogs:

"one has to say that the greatest era of Saturday Night Live was the era that was on when they were fifteen."

You then used this to go into how we remember sports. And I see the reasoning here. I look at the 90's Atlanta Braves pitching rotation as the best rotation to ever be in MLB. However with my way of thinking, that means that the pitchers today would be a slight bit better, but I think what all the historical stuff comes down to is what the person remembers the most. Most older people from which we have received the majority of media from kind of push the greats of their day over on us. I think a lot of the older people will defend older era players as younger players will be most likely to defend the newer age players. I know this whole thing is completely objective defending on your views. But I also think that the newer pitchers should have some way of being remembered. I say set a record book for a certain date in history and have a records kept from certain times. Maybe a Dead Ball Era book. then a Live Ball Era record book and then maybe one around 1950 and for players overlapping somehow figure a way out to include all their stats in one book. Like say a player began in 1945 and played until 1960 give their records to the newer record book as that was where the majority of their career has been played out. That will help certain players out who have been great. I mean lets use my favorite pitcher of all time for example. Greg Maddux, he has the most wins for any pitcher who pitched in any game after 1965. His career 3.16 era is a great ERA and yet he is buried in that category under countless names you have never heard of. Only 5 pitchers in front of his 13 all time in innnings pitched, pitched remotely close to the time he pitched. He honestly looks to be the last pitcher to pitch 5000 innings in a season. As no one is within 2000 innings of him that doesn't appear that their retirement is inevitably close.

I guess my point is that the game is changing and the greatness of certain era's need to be recognized. You have people like Maddux who appear to have long dominant careers who can run the risk of being forgotten. If you create record books based on certain era's or at least for certain stat categories. I mean the batting average for the most part seems to average out. The ERA seems to be steady to a certain degree. I mean what happens 20 years from now if you take your grandchildren to a game and look up at the stands and see (using Braves as an example) the number 29 retired. Your kid asks why it is retired. (lets say his career numbers go nowhere). 210 wins, good numbers but not impressive. 154 saves okay number but not great. First if you take certain eras and divide them up, you will see how great his 210 wins are, the saves will still not be registered anywhere near the top but you can also still say that he is the first player in baseball history and his 210 wins in this era will still be quite good. The ERA numbers of this era would benefit as MLB has made the game more offensive to get more fans in and thus caused players to have higher ERAs as a whole.


Anyways its all still objective but it makes for a good debate.

I think once you turn 30, you see things more maturely.

I used to read "20 something" and said "Hey!" Being 30, I'm now that old guy aren't I?