Baseball and "Who is better" arguments

[stevejrogers]

I couldn't care less about who the Mets "honor' date='" not to mention how and when. There might not be an industry in America that indulges in as much navel-gazing as professional baseball.[/quote']

Funny you should say that. Talk to basketball experts and they are never going to suggest that Chamberlain and Cousy would be so much better than say Shaq and Steve Nash.

Ditto with hockey experts if you suggest Gordie Howe and Bobby Orr could compete in today's game, and football experts would laugh in your face if you suggest that Jim Brown would dominate in today's game.

Thats why I can't believe radio talkers like Warner Wolf, and callers as well on 1050 ESPN Radio this morning, are taking Ozzie Guillen to task for saying Roberto Clemente is the third greatest player from Puerto Rico behind Roberto Alomar (in his Blue Jay/Oriole/Indian prime of course) and Ivan Rodriguez.

Thing is, the comments should not be dismissed, you are still talking about two guys who are among the best in their positions all-time against a guy who if you actually LOOK at the record is on the level of a Derek Jeter type.

In fact Baseball-Reference.com lists Steve Garvey, Steve Finley, Al Oliver, Dave Parker, and Vada Pinson as Clemente's similar batters. Course they also list Tony Gwynn, but as well as fringe HOFers like Paul Waner, Enos Slaughter, Goose Goslin and Zack Wheat.

Alomar and Pudge (yes Pudge is a cheater and Alomar does deserve have more suspicions about him than many of his peers) also have put up much better stats over the years, as well as playing positions that are not traditionally offensive positions.

Well the point is the Alomar/Pudge vs. Clemente debate is not as cut and dried as the debate that Wolf said that Ozzie's comments were like, he said that Ozzie's comments were like if you said Juan Marichal was the second best Dominican pitcher behind Armando Benitez!

Why is baseball arguments this way where so many people with opinions like to say players in the past are so superior to anyone who played in couple of generations after them, and that there is no argument to their superiority?

[Guest Triple Dee]

But Honus Wagner worked for peanuts, literally worked for peanuts.

[metsmarathon]

baseball hasn't changed as much as other sports.

baseball is more measurable than other sports.

and since in other sports we can see that the players of today are so much bigger and stronger than the players of yesteryear that people assume any comparisons to be unfair, and since the baseball players of yesteryear have similar achievements to players of today but without all the modern advantages, people assume that the only way they could have overcome the lack of modern advantage is to have been far superior than today's players.

also, warner wolf is an idiot, and is probably hinging his objection to guillen's opinion on total hits, as opposed to any more meaningful metric.

Edited April 12, 2008 by Guest

[nymr83]

comparisons are not unfair as long as your using stats like OPS+ that account for the league you are playing in. other sports, to my knowledge, don't have such statistics to compare players across eras, so if scoring in the NBA was lower in the 1970's there's no available fair way to compare a 70's player's scoring to lebron james.

[metsmarathon]

sorry, i've gotta get that 'we' out of there. it implies that i think that way, when really i mean 'people'