Baseball's All-Time Greatest
The Best Players on the Diamond in the 20th Century
Baseball's all-time greatest? Fans have been picking and arguing about them since the game began. We'll seldom agree on a whole team, but we love to see the next guy's choices--and take loud issue with them.
Major league baseball has been played since 1876, when the National League was formed. When considering all-time greats and the statistics that support their candidacies, however, most authorities rule out the 19th century players and records because conditions like rules, equipment, and season lengths were so different.
1900 was not only the turn of a century, but it marked the birth of the American League and more stability in how the game was played. To be sure, changes continued throughout the next century, but they were less radical and frequent. The spit ball was outlawed. The interior of the baseball itself was "juiced up" from time to time. Night baseball was introduced gradually and then became almost all-pervasive.
Transcontinental travel began in 1958. And just as major leaguers aren't eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame until five years after they stop playing, I would also suggest ruling out selecting members of all-time great teams whose qualifications are primarily post-2000.
In addition to those factors, there are obvious difficulties in comparing pitchers and batters from the "deadball" era (when the pre-Babe Ruth season home run record was 24) with the post-1920 sluggers. The same goes for comparing pitchers who routinely hurled thirty or more complete games a season with our contemporaries who merely have to bear down for six or seven innings.
On top of that there is the problem of judging stars we've seen up close or on TV versus those known only from the record books and black-and-white film clips. Finally, fans will honestly differ on the relative significance of slugging versus consistent hitting, spectacular versus steady fielding, and power versus finesse pitching.
Several recent books and articles have offered "objective" indexes of batting, fielding, base running, and pitching statistics, which would enable comparative judgements on the performers of different eras and from teams that provided more or less support. Interesting as they may be, these efforts inevitably leave much to subjective judgement of achievements.
Fortunately, some stars of the first half of the 20th century left records and reputations so outstanding that they cannot be ignored in a selection of all-time greats. Consider Ty Cobb's 24 seasons at a never-approached .367 lifetime batting average with base-stealing records that lasted for decades.
Babe Ruth's total dominance of slugging statistics, combined with his excellent earlier pitching career, entitles him to a spot. Walter Johnson's 400-plus victories, mostly with second division teams and including an incredible 110 shutouts, and his long-held strikeout records can't be excluded, either. So for that matter, Cy Young remains the very symbol of pitching greatness, with a record 511 wins and three no-hitters, one of them a perfect game.
Here, then, are my admittedly arguable picks:
1B-Lou Gehrig, a .340 hitter and the original "IronMan"
2B-Charlie Gehringer, steady .300 hitter and fine fielder of the 1930's
3B-Mike Schmidt, over 500 home runs and excellent fielder
SS-Honus Wagner, 8 batting titles and outstanding fielder
LF-Babe Ruth, enough said
CF-Willie Mays, over 600 home runs, great baserunner, incomparable outfielder
RF-Ty Cobb, as above
C- Roy Campanella, home run hitter (242 in less than ten full seasons), fine throwing arm, great handler of pitchers
Starting pitchers:
Cy Young, as above
Walter Johnson, as above
Nolan Ryan, 7 no-hitters and season and all-time strikeout record holder
Relief pitcher:
Rollie Fingers, practically created the closer role, reliable in the clutch.
Let the arguments begin.
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