Posted on 04/03/2014 3:32:27 PM PDT by EveningStar
"Andre Dawson," Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully once said, "has a bruised knee and is listed as day-to-day. Aren't we all?" Yes, so use some of your remaining time constructively by identifying the player or players who:
(1) Won three batting titles by at least 44 points (two players)...
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
When Casey Stengel was asked by Groucho Marx, “who was the greatest player ever”.
The reply was “Tyrus Raymond Cobb, no one else was even close”.
How is it possible to ask so many questions and leave out the greatest player ever? He was also the first player to be elected to the Hall of Fame. He also had the highest lifetime batting average for players who played more than a few games.
A lot of great players emerged after that question was asked and answered.
Stengel was funny but wrong. Ruth is the greatest ever. Nobody is going to pick a singles hitter over the greatest homerun hitter of all time who also hit for average.
Honus Wagner is the greatest.
Yes, and he also was a great pitcher.
The fact of the matter is that Cobb, not Ruth, Wagner or Cy Young was the first inducted into the baseball HOF.
Best hitter: Aaron. Take away the 755 HR and he still has over 3000 hits. Best player: Mays.
Aaron was my athletic idol growing up. I kept his game by game stats one year (1964). It’s amazing how many two-hit games he had. He didn’t have a lot of three or four hit games and few no-hit games.
So what? There were probably a lot of old-timer voters who grew up during the inside baseball era of playing for one run and, like Cobb, hated the introduction of the power game by Ruth. And Cobb's team never won a World Series. Ruth's won four or five.
And nobody has managed to hit balls as far as Ruth...even in the steroid era. One guy named Bill Jenkinson wrote a book called “The Year Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs.” Jenkinson charted the balls Ruth hit during the 1921 season at the Polo Grounds. The Yankees played their games at the Polo Grounds which had a center field fence 490 feet from home plate. Pitchers learned real quick to pitch Ruth outside. Many times to have a chance to hit the ball, Ruth had to swing at “bad” low, outside pitches. He hit many 450+ fly ball outs to left-center and center. Jenkinson also charted Ruth’s longest career homers and researched other long shots by other famous sluggers. Nobody came close to Ruth’s longest homers.
Ruth was greatest home run hitter of all time? Steroids Bonds doesn’t count in my book but Aaron broke the Babe’s record.
Ruth was still a greater home run hitter than my boyhood idol Aaron. Ruth’s first six years in the majors he mostly pitched and hit in the dead ball era. For the same reason, Ted Williams was a better overall hitter than Pete Rose even though Rose accumulated a thousand more hits or more.
Aaron did it in far more games than the Babe.
Agreed.
A friend of mine’s Grandfather was buried at Forest Lawn. During the ceremony, his nephew kept turning around, from the grave site services, and looked behind him. When queried about it, he admitted he was transfixed by looking at Stengel’s final resting place :)
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