Sport stars from the past

Are you allowing the players from the 1920s and 1930s take the same drugs and supplements that today's players take?

What if Mickey Mantle had today's doctors?

The players would still be great under today's conditions. Would are current players be good under the old conditions?

Sure you have other players being added to the mix like African Americans, Latins and Asians, but in baseball, for example, there are no other sports trying to pull the baseball players away.

Chris Paul is a hell of a basketball player, but if he played in 1960, maybe he becomes a great leadoff hitter instead.

 

Vince Lombardi said once he thought Ali would have made a great tight end. If Cassius Clay is growing up now maybe he goes into football instead of boxing.

 

How many of those who told you that have hit .400?

I'd like Ted's chances yesterday, today and tomorrow.

 

How many of us have?

 

Who keeps saying this about Walter Johnson? Most experts clearly say otherwise. Many of them in Ken Burns' Baseball have talked about how Johnson's fastball would translate to today's world. And they all say it would match up to today's standards.

You also say you have these arguments with sports fans all the time? I would think that is a HUGE generalization. I can't remember the last time the topic has come up, trying to compare a past great to a current one.

 

I would bet Ilmago's life on the fact that Walter Johnson never once threw a baseball that reached a speed of 100 mph. Not once.

Did it reach 95? It's likely, but I'd say only in his prime. Just hitting 90 consistently would have likely put him in the top 1 percent for the Deadball Era in which he pitched.

That's not true at all. Pitchers have been experimenting with making the ball cut and run and jump and spin ever since hitters stopped being allowed to call for their own pitches.

In Johnson's time, you had the spitball, shine ball, emery ball, paraffin ball, coffee ball all in regular, quasi-legal usage -- not to mention pitches that relied on less, err, exotic substances such as the screwball/fadeaway, inshoot (similar to a four-seamer today), outshoot (similar to a cutter today), knuckleball and plenty of other variations that have changed names over the years.

The slider has been around for 100 years, only nobody ever called it that in the old days.

The only modern grip I think I've never heard a reference to back then was the split-finger pitch. And maybe the circle change, though Eppa Rixey was likely using a variation of it in the '20s -- a pitch held deep in the hands with minimal pressure from the index finger. And if he knew about it, others did, too.

But clearly Roger Craig knew about the splitter, and I'm guessing he didn't just suddenly pick it up in the mid-1970s, long after his pitching days were over. He must have learned it from somebody, and he probably tried to use it, as well.

Back to Johnson: He famously relied on only his fastball, and didn't develop a curve until later in his career. But he was rare. Most pitchers, even the great ones, have always done whatever they could to make the ball move. Modern hitters would go berserk if they had to hit against the lumpy, mushy, dirty ball Johnson and his contemporaries threw. But they'd crush the meatballs they could see, that's for sure.

 

I think Buckdub has made an important point here. Contemporary hitters, the best of them anyway, the Pujols et. al., would likely have had the same stats in the dead ball era as the top hitters of that era, like Cobb and Wagner. They'd have higher batting averages, fewer homers, and about the same RBI. Part of being a great athlete is adjusting to conditions. Same goes for pitchers. If you let Christy Mathewson pitch every fifth day instead of every other day, he'd probably throw harder than he did under dead-ball conditions, hard enough to get today's hitters out just as he got yesterday's out.

 

Batters facing Walter Johnson often alleged that they could not actually see the ball. Umpire Billy Evans admitted that even he couldn't tell if the ball was crossing the plate or not. Quite an admission.

Batters often admitted that they couldn't tell if they were swinging over the ball, under the ball, or anything. Even Babe Ruth told of his first AB against Johnson in 1915. He says he stepped into the batters box. Bam, bam, bam. Back to the dugout. Easiest victim Walter ever had. Babe never swung, never saw any pitches. But he heard something swish by. He told the ump that the pitches sounded high.

Another batter, I think it was Jimmie Dykes, was batting agaisnt Walter and his arm comes down. Jimmie is waiting and the ball never arrives. Then the catcher is returning the ball. Jimmie turns to the ump, with questioning eyes. The ump tells him to take his base. Huh? says Jimmie. The ump then informs him that if he doesn't think the ball clipped him, feel his ball cap.

Jimmie does and the bill is turned all the way around. Jimmie turns white. Never even saw a ball! Only Nolan Ryan was that fast in modern times.

No one ever alleged they couldn't even see a ball. So I equate Johnson with Ryan. Ryan was timed over 100 mph.

Feller was time at 98.6. Body temperature. Many equated Feller with Grove. But no one ever claimed that they couldn't follow Feller's pitches. So I measure Johnson over 100. With Ryan.

When Feller came along in '37, he electrified the BB world, with his 98.5 mph velocity. So that was the top rate for the BB world at the time.

Today, so many pitchers register over 98 on the radar gun, that I stopped counting. Rod Dibble, JR Richards were both over 100. Didn't create a stir then. But it would have in 1940. So that is one way to measure velocity by era.

If that were possible in 1938, they would have created the same stir as Feller did in '38.

 

Take heed n the the stories of "fast pitchers" told by old men. Someone who faced Johnson as a rookie had never seen a ball thrown that fast. It would blow his mind in comparison to what he had seen in bush ball. Twenty-five years later, he has seen scores of fast pitchers so a guy like Feller doesn't seem nearly when he watches. So he says Johnson was faster.

 

Would today's pitchers be as good if they were asked to throw 350 innings and have 35-40 starts a season?

What would Johnson look like if he was pulled after 100 or 110 pitches and then have the best trainers in the world work on him?

Also, do you really think the old time baseball players trained year round?

The best of the 1920s would do just fine against the best of today under similar conditions.

 

Nobody's mentioned yet Chamberlain would also lead the league in scoring?

 

As someone said when Wilt published that book, "he was always was hung up on individual statistics."

Wilt was my childhood sports star. He would definitely be a dominant NBA force today. Just look at who's jumping center at most games.

Never forget the night at the old Convention Hall when I saw Wilt break up a fight by grabbing Wayne Embry and LIFTING HIM UP IN THE AIR TO WILT'S HEAD!!!! That's some kinda strong.