Who's Better, Who's Best in Baseball

[Guest cooby]

By Elliott Kalb

A nice book our son got us for Christmas. It's a good book to read in segments because it ranks the author's best from 1 through 100, so the chapters are about a player each.

There is a good little background story about each player in question, the reasons why Kalb picked that player to rank where he put him, and comparisons between that player and one or two other similar guys to gel his reasoning.

I like the book so far, the only thing that I might have done differently was rank them from 100 down to 1, but I guess on the other hand, the top player deserves top billings.

By the way, it's Barry Bonds.


I'll try to throw in another comment here or there, but if anyone else is familiar with the book, please chat along...

[Guest cooby]

More:

Here's a list of Mets who made the cut:

Willie Mays (3)
Pedro Martinez (29)
Rickey Henderson (30)
Yogi Berra (38)
Tom Seaver (43)
Mike Piazza (54)
Eddie Murray (74)


Other players of interest to us

Babe Ruth (2)
Hank Aaron (4)
Alex Rodriguez (9)
Roger Clemens (26)
Randy Johnson (36)
Pete Rose (41)
Ken Griffey Jr. (49)
Mariano Riviera (62)
Derek Jeter (63)
Manny Ramirez (67)


Guys I never heard of

Oscar Charleston (16)
Martin Dihigo (68)


I'll bet somebody could figure out what surprised me most on the above lists

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

If Babe Ruth is 2, who's number 1?

[Guest cooby]

Barry Bonds

[MFS62]

cooby wrote: Guys I never heard of Oscar Charleston (16) Martin Dihigo (68)

The were Negro League players.

Later

[Guest cooby]

I am most anxious to learn about them. Number 16 is nothing to sneeze at, so I am surprised that I haven't heard of him before.


BTW, that is not the thing that surprised me most about the above lists

[Guest Edgy DC]

There were supposedly some white baseball fans who called Ty Cobb "The White Oscar Charleston." I think Bill James puts Charleston top ten, and number one among pre-Robinson black players.

I don't understand or agree that Bonds should be ranked ahead of Ruth for a handful of obvious reasons. It seems a pretty contrarian position.

On the other hand, if we ever pitched to the guy, who knows what he might have done.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Big article on Oscar Charleston just recently in Sports Illustrated.

[Guest cooby]

Edgy DC wrote: There were supposedly some white baseball fans who called Ty Cobb "The White Oscar Charleston." I think Bill James puts Charleston top ten, and number one among pre-Robinson black players. I don't understand or agree that Bonds should be ranked ahead of Ruth for a handful of obvious reasons. It seems a pretty contrarian position. On the other hand, if we ever pitched to the guy, who knows what he might have done.

If one of your reasons is steroids, that doesn't wash with Kalb

[HahnSolo]

Jeter at 63 and Big Unit at 36 both seem high to me, and I'd say that even if they weren't MFYs.

[Guest cooby]

Still nobody has ventured a guess. I thought it would be obvious.

[Guest cooby]

Kalb kindly downplays drug, alcohol and steroid abuse, or the suspicion of it

[Guest cooby]

Correction: This goes 1-75. I got through #75 Carlton Fisk, and suddenly the book ended.

D'oh.

[Vic Sage]

The only "real" Mets on the list are Seaver and Piazza (and even mikey wasn't home-grown).

As for Bonds v Ruth in the #1 slot... one doesn't even need to get into the steroids issue to settle this matter. When Barry starts pitching as well as he hits, then we'll talk. Until then its (1) Ruth, and (2) anybody else.