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Old Wed Aug 27, 2003, 09:12am
A Pennsylvania Coach A Pennsylvania Coach is offline
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Re: Re: Re: Are you telling me.....

Quote:
Originally posted by ChuckElias
Quote:
Originally posted by A Pennsylvania Coach
the best baseball player in the history of the game is playing today.
Coach, I can only assume that you're talking about Bonds. But to claim that he's the best ballplayer ever is debatable at best. No doubt he's put up amazing numbers in the last decade, but I would have a hard time listing him above some of the true greats, particularly those from the first half of the 20th century. The two most obvious names would be Ruth and Cobb. DiMaggio (the NY variety) and Teddy Ballgame might be up there ahead of Bonds too. Just my opinion,

Chuck
There are usually some good discussions on this topic at http://www.baseballprimer.com . Ruth and Honus Wagner are the only two players you can even make a case for vs Barry, IMHO. Because of Ruth's pitching, you can call him the greatest player, but most of those in the sabermetric community would narrow the list of best hitter to two--Ruth and Bonds. DiMaggio is nowhere near the class of Bonds--another product of NY hype and East Coast bias. DiMaggio got far too much hype over his fluky streak, and doesn't even compare to Williams in his own era.
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