Ok so Stephen A Smith said on ESPN today that he can't say Babe Ruth is the best baseball player of all time because he didn't play against black players. I really don't understand the logic of this point. Can someone explain it to me and who do you put in your top 5 of all time?

bigdaddy2003;1661505 wrote:Ok so Stephen A Smith said on ESPN today that he can't say Babe Ruth is the best baseball player of all time because he didn't play against black players. I really don't understand the logic of this point. Can someone explain it to me and who do you put in your top 5 of all time?

I get what he is saying, that you cannot know for sure how good someone was when their competition was cut in half. I disagree, but whatever.

Mine, excluding pitchers:

1. Ruth
2. Mays
3. Bonds (do not care he cheated...impossible to differentiate if we got into it)
4. Cobb
5. Aaron
6. Musial
7. Williams
8. Gehrig
9. Mantle
10. Pujols

As far as all time top 5, I don't know. Have to think on it.

As for the point, I'd hope he included hispanics in the "didn't play against black players" part, as they have a more prevalent piece of MLB now than blacks. But the point is that Ruth played in a segregated league where he wasn't necessarily going against the best possible competition. The best of one race, sure, but not the best overall.

Personally, I find it near-impossible to compare athletes of that far back to today's for a ton of reasons, that being one of them, to go with things like today's superior training and how the amount of pay athletes get now is far more of an inducement for people to want to make it big (as compared to back then, when the pay wasn't great and athletics were really nothing more than mild entertainment).

bigdaddy2003;1661505 wrote:Ok so Stephen A Smith said on ESPN today that he can't say Babe Ruth is the best baseball player of all time because he didn't play against black players. I really don't understand the logic of this point. Can someone explain it to me and who do you put in your top 5 of all time?

I dont think he played against many latin american players either, but I could be wrong.

Whenever I debate this and try to put someone above The Great Bambi (your killing me smalls) I just cannot wrap my head around the fact that he twice hit more HR's than some TEAMS did in the same season. Also played in the Polo Grounds what had short LF and RF fences but everything else was pretty far.

Heretic;1661511 wrote:As far as all time top 5, I don't know. Have to think on it.

As for the point, I'd hope he included hispanics in the "didn't play against black players" part, as they have a more prevalent piece of MLB now than blacks. But the point is that Ruth played in a segregated league where he wasn't necessarily going against the best possible competition. The best of one race, sure, but not the best overall.

Personally, I find it near-impossible to compare athletes of that far back to today's for a ton of reasons, that being one of them, to go with things like today's superior training and how the amount of pay athletes get now is far more of an inducement for people to want to make it big (as compared to back then, when the pay wasn't great and athletics were really nothing more than mild entertainment).

I usually ignore things like training, better athletes etc. I take what they did versus their peers and I think the only fair assessment is they would be doing the same thing now. Why would Ruths incredible power/hand eye coordination not ALSO be increased in the 2000s?? Its really only fair to look at what they did versus their peers of the time, as they were the ones who had the same things available to them.

The playing versus whites only is a decent argument. I happen to agree with it, just not with Babe Ruth. He put up numbers better than anyone to this day, so I tend to think if blacks and Hispanics had been in the MLB, he still would have put up those numbers.

Babe Ruth sucks. Puig is the best player of all time.

Laley23;1661516 wrote:I usually ignore things like training, better athletes etc. I take what they did versus their peers and I think the only fair assessment is they would be doing the same thing now. Why would Ruths incredible power/hand eye coordination not ALSO be increased in the 2000s?? Its really only fair to look at what they did versus their peers of the time, as they were the ones who had the same things available to them.

The playing versus whites only is a decent argument. I happen to agree with it, just not with Babe Ruth. He put up numbers better than anyone to this day, so I tend to think if blacks and Hispanics had been in the MLB, he still would have put up those numbers.

Yeah. I think Ruth was a special case. When a person single-handedly is providing more power than entire teams, he probably is going to do pretty good no matter who he is going against.

sleeper;1661517 wrote:Babe Ruth sucks. Puig is the best player of all time.

Well, that explains why he's riding the pine in an elimination game today!

Screamin' A. being Screamin' A.

Heretic;1661526 wrote:Well, that explains why he's riding the pine in an elimination game today!

He's injured.

sleeper;1661530 wrote:He's injured.

Too much sand in his vagina?

Laley23;1661509 wrote:I get what he is saying, that you cannot know for sure how good someone was when their competition was cut in half. I disagree, but whatever.

It wasn't even cut in half, the black population was about 15% of the total. If you compare today's game vs. Ruth's, MLB has expanded by 87.5%, so the talent is much more diluted. Pitching is much worse today due to 5 man rotations and expanded use of the bullpen. In Ruth's day, you only had 32 starting pitchers in the AL, so you faced top competition much more often. In today's game, you have 75 starting pitchers in the AL, then you get into bullpens much earlier in games to face even more watered down pitching. Another thing that made it harder in Ruth's day is that most of the old ballparks had much larger outfields, so it was much harder to hit HR's.

thavoice;1661531 wrote:Too much sand in his vagina?

Mentally injured.

No order.

Ruth
Bonds
Musial
Williams
A-Rod

sleeper;1661517 wrote:Babe Ruth sucks. Puig is the best player of all time.

The Jason Derulo of Major League Baseball.

NY must have had a better angle than they had on TV on the Carpenter tag!

I agree that a player should really only be compared relative to their contemporaries.

My top 5, in no particular order, and based on talent at the peak of their careers (with the additional condition they couldn't have been a "few year wonder"):

Ruth
Bonds
Pedro Martinez (his turn of the century seasons were some of the most dominant single seasons in history, and at the height of the steroid era) http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=y&type=1&season=2014&month=0&season1=1900&ind=1&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=15,a
Mays
Cobb

Ruth
Bonds
Williams
Mays
Gehrig

HTF do any of you jacktards put Bonds on any kind of honor roll? Sick bastard ruined baseball. And putting A-Rod on such a list is just laughable. It goes as follows and I'm smarter than the rest of you...

Ruth
Wagner
J. Robinson
DiMaggio
Mays

Ruth is easily #1, especially if you consider his pitching stats with the Red Sox. He was nasty. I was wondering how he was MVP only 1 time, but apparently during that time you were ineligible for MVP if you already won in a previous season.

If Pujols gets to 600 Hrs and 300 hits, is he a top 5 all time player?

like_that;1661611 wrote:Ruth is easily #1, especially if you consider his pitching stats with the Red Sox. He was nasty. I was wondering how he was MVP only 1 time, but apparently during that time you were ineligible for MVP if you already won in a previous season.

If Pujols gets to 600 Hrs and 300 hits, is he a top 5 all time player?

The top 15ish players are all damn close IMO. He is already in that class, so it depends on how you rank guys. Is he better than Gehrig, just because if career numbers? Gehrigs career was obviously a short one, maybe he is even higher if it was prolonged. For me, I look at your prime and how long it lasted. Albert isn't gonna change much in my eyes. Top 10 is nothing to laugh about though.

like_that;1661611 wrote:Ruth is easily #1, especially if you consider his pitching stats with the Red Sox. He was nasty. I was wondering how he was MVP only 1 time, but apparently during that time you were ineligible for MVP if you already won in a previous season.

If Pujols gets to 600 Hrs and 300 hits, is he a top 5 all time player?

I don't think that puts him above Mays when you consider base running and defense....could jump him ahead of Gehrig on my list but I'm really only good at ranking NFL referees.

Bonds and A-Rod put up numbers that are almost unmatched. It said at the very beginning, forget the "roid era" and trying to compare players from era to era. Top 5 players...ever. I'd say both Bonds and A-Rod, especially Bonds, are right there.

Heck, A-Rod is where he is and was basically there by age 34. 611 HR's by age 34! Insane.

Speaks really well to the game that an overweight drunk is the best player of all time. Good god what a clown sport baseball is.

It's become a clown sport but at one time (50s,60s,70s,80s) it was a great sport played by great athletes.