brett favrerrereve

[brinstar]

no shit, my first response when i heard he was traded to LA was "ahhh damn, and i kinda liked the dodgers"

and the hype still isn't fucking going away, they spent 5 minutes talking about that dreadlocked fucker during A FUCKING NFL GAME

[Drem]

ahahahaha. during the phillies game joe morgan only brought him up when he calling him lazy etc, because joe morgan's the shit

[Harrison]

Manny is lazy. All those times he was thrown out at first for trotting when he should have been running his ass off like anyone else would have been.

*shrug* people come and go, he was my least favorite even though he was decent at times when neeeded.

[Drem]

Ya, and we're all seeing what being a lazy player does to a team, but you can't really shrug him off, either, if you know your shit about baseball. He is essentially the next Lou Gherig, having the most grand slams in active baseball and the second of all time behind only Lou Gherig. Not to mention he's one of the elite 24 with over 500 runs and led the AL til this LAD trade in RBIs, home runs, and batting average. And when he was an Indian for 8 years or whatever he had a 45 home run season. He's also been in the last 12 all star games or something like that

He's definitely got his credentials, but god damn does he have moments of douchery. Like when he walked off into the Monster during a mound visit and never came back or how he'd play outfield with a water bottle in his back pocket heh

I think if he hasn't shaped up by October he doesn't stand much chance staying with LA

[Harrison]

Thankfully someone else sees that other than me.

It's tough to be objective when you're surrounded by rabid fans.

[brinstar]

do you guys ever wonder how well The Greats would perform if they were playing today?

babe ruth, lou gehrig, mickey mantle, Ty Motherfucking Cobb???

like, has the game changed enough to diminish their greatness, or would they just swarm the entire league and wtfpwn everyone?

[Harrison]

I always wonder that myself. I personally think that if they were thrown into it, a la time machine, they'd flop.

There are a lot of things they'd have to adapt to.

Babe Ruth was hardly an athlete. He partied CONSTANTLY..drinking, smoking, etc. Hardly ever working out, or waching his diet.

He had natural talent. No way to deny that. He didn't get there by accident.

But if he was tossed into our leagues today, I don't think he'd stand up to our "greats".

That's my personal opinion. The game itself has evolved a bit, and physical prowess has taken on a whole new level they weren't up to par with.

[Reynaldo]

those bastards didn't even have protective headgear back then. I can't see any sane person going to bad vs. randy johnson is nothing but a cloth baseball hat.

[Arlos]

The thing is, pitchers back then threw just about as hard as they do today, so the task of hitting a baseball has changed remarkably little in the last hundred years. Indeed, in some ways it is easier now, what with domed stadiums that remove the sun and wind as factors, and the fact that players wear lightweight uniforms now, where back then even in summer they wore heavy wool ones, which were hot as hell.

Yes, Ruth would be ponderously slow around the bases compared to modern athletes. But given how many home runs he hit, that wouldn't matter as much. Remember, Ruth was so far ahead of anyone else in the game, that for some of his seasons, he got more homers by himself than did some TEAMS. To duplicate that today, someone would have to hit 4 or 5 hundred home runs. Hell, one author looked at his 1921 season, and found that if modern rules and field dimensions were in place that year (the center field wall was 500' away, balls that went over the wall fair but then hooked foul were foul, rather than the home run they are now, and balls that hit the foul pole were ground rule doubles, rather than the home runs they are now. Those modern rules came into effect in 1931) he would have hit 104 home runs, not 59.

Seriously, Babe Ruth was born to play baseball like Mozart was born to make music. Hell, he was an all-star caliber pitcher as well, before he switched to being an outfielder full time. He set a record for most shutouts in a season as a pitcher in the AL in 1916 that wasn't even TIED until 1978. No, of all of the old greats, Ruth would easily be the one to be ridiculously dominant still today. He might have to play as a DH due to lack of speed in the outfield, but he'd be the best hitter in the league for sure.

I don't know about Ty Cobb, on the other hand. First of all, the man was a vicious racist and a complete raving asshole. You think Barry Bonds is a jackass, well, he's a choirboy compared to Cobb.

-Arlos

[Drem]

The thing is, pitchers back then threw just about as hard as they do today, so the task of hitting a baseball has changed remarkably little in the last hundred years. Indeed, in some ways it is easier now, what with domed stadiums that remove the sun and wind as factors, and the fact that players wear lightweight uniforms now, where back then even in summer they wore heavy wool ones, which were hot as hell

Totally disagree w/ that. Pitches are more diverse than they ever were. Did you see 90mph sliders in 1921? Don't think so

As for the old greats doing well now? Dunno, it's pretty hard to say. Babe Ruth was pretty good at hitting, and I'd say considering his media hype and general attitude that Manny Ramirez is basically like Babe Ruth minus pitching and a voracious lifestyle. They have all the same traits more or less. And tbqh, it's harder to get home runs now than it used to be with all the new fancy stadium designs. We might have leeway for home runs that exit fair and go foul, or getting runs off hitting the pole, but the odds of either of those happening are really really low so it's not an incredibly valid point. But with all the elaborate fences and the apparent veering away from a simple, single wall in the outfield, it's getting harder and harder to call a home run vs. a live ball

I'd say it's like seeing a sports star like Michael Jordan that changed the face of the game—like Babe Ruth did when he turned baseball into a high-scoring, offensive game—and now, a few years later, everybody has adopted that style of playing and it's not really a big deal anymore. Ruth's records have all been broken except his Yankees batting average for one season. He was just a really pivotal player at the time. Nobody even liked baseball until he made it popular

[Arlos]

I dunno, Drem. Look at how many unique and different pitches Satchel Paige threw. He had literally more than a dozen of them. We know that because he named each of his pitches.

Now, admittedly, Paige is not typical of most pitchers, and I will grant you that there is probably a wider variety of pitches today, but for a straight heater, I doubt that today's pitchers get much faster than the old time greats. Just look up Walter Johnson for an example of a Ruth-era pitcher who they figure threw fastballs at over 100mph. (which is what we were discussing in the first place, as someone referenced a Randy Johnson fastball at that speed).

-Arlos

[Drem]

Yeah, it also kinda boils down to the bullpen strategies of today compared to back then. Starting pitchers aren't in for the first 7 innings or an entire game anymore. There are usually at least 3 or 4 pitchers thru the course of a game now, and that results in a significantly lower amount of sloppy pitches and botched plays because of fatigued mound-work

And ya, I don't think the top speed for a fast ball is any higher than it ever was, but all the other pitches are definitely getting faster as they perfect them over the years. Like I said, I saw LA's mid-relief tossing a 90mph slider.... that's pretty goddamn quick