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Who is the GREATEST baseball player ever?

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Who is the best OVERALL baseball player ever?

  • Babe Ruth

    Votes: 32 59.3%

  • "Shoeless" Joe Jackson

    Votes: 1 1.9%

  • Pete Rose

    Votes: 7 13.0%

  • Ted Williams

    Votes: 2 3.7%

  • Other-----Please explain your selection

    Votes: 12 22.2%
  • Total voters
    54
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Ruth remains the one everyone gets compared too. That alone shows you were he sits on the pantheon.

It would have been interesting had Bonds stayed off of the juice to see where he would have landed - I think he could have been the first 600/600 player ever and he almost got there anyway (762/514). Same with A-Roid. He had the skills to get there but the roids cost him a full year due to suspension and probably 2-3 years at the end of his career due to his hips being degraded. Neither one of them have anything like the pitching stats that Ruth carried though, which again points to where Ruth really sits on the all-time list as a player and not just a hitter.
 
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Mike80 said:
Ruth remains the one everyone gets compared too. That alone shows you were he sits on the pantheon.

It would have been interesting had Bonds stayed off of the juice to see where he would have landed - I think he could have been the first 600/600 player ever and he almost got there anyway (762/514). Same with A-Roid. He had the skills to get there but the roids cost him a full year due to suspension and probably 2-3 years at the end of his career due to his hips being degraded. Neither one of them have anything like the pitching stats that Ruth carried though, which again points to where Ruth really sits on the all-time list as a player and not just a hitter.
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To me Ruth is the greatest player
Ted Williams was the best all around hitter
Bo Jackson was the greatest physical talent (I've ever seen)


and unfortunately we have zero context about the old Negro League players

so it's all just opinion and conversation.
 
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Jaxbuck said:
To me Ruth is the greatest player
Ted Williams was the best all around hitter
Bo Jackson was the greatest physical talent (I've ever seen)


and unfortunately we have zero context about the old Negro League players

so it's all just opinion and conversation.
Click to expand...

It would be nice to have some context around guys like Josh Gibson and Oscar Charleston.... Of course Gibson got thst brain tumor early enough we would likely (and do and should) put a lot of "what if" context around him... On the other hand, maybe we would have got a satchel paige kind of look at him late in his career.

I feel Charleston probably compared favorably to Willie Mayes.. but yeah, conjecture.

Cool Papa Bell was apparently a pretty good knuckle ball pitcher prior to his being the fastest centerfielder ever.
 
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Mike80 said:
Ruth remains the one everyone gets compared too. That alone shows you were he sits on the pantheon.
Click to expand...

It also shows how we can mythologize a player who died before we were born. Obviously he was a helluva a hitter, but if he played today the media coverage of him wouldn't be so positive. He lived a life that you could hide back then but would be all over the internet now.

5 SEEDY STORIES YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT BABE RUTH'S SEX LIFE

For the record, after reading this story he's even cooler than I thought. I'm just saying he wouldn't be all hot dogs, apple pie, and Babe Ruth in this era.
 
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Jake said:
It also shows how we can mythologize a player who died before we were born. Obviously he was a helluva a hitter, but if he played today the media coverage of him wouldn't be so positive. He lived a life that you could hide back then but would be all over the internet now.

5 SEEDY STORIES YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT BABE RUTH'S SEX LIFE

For the record, after reading this story he's even cooler than I thought. I'm just saying he wouldn't be all hot dogs, apple pie, and Babe Ruth in this era.
Click to expand...

And if any of that would matter one iota about him being the player that every ball player since is compared too.....oh wait, it wouldn't....
 
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Jake said:
It also shows how we can mythologize a player who died before we were born. Obviously he was a helluva a hitter, but if he played today the media coverage of him wouldn't be so positive. He lived a life that you could hide back then but would be all over the internet now.

5 SEEDY STORIES YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT BABE RUTH'S SEX LIFE

For the record, after reading this story he's even cooler than I thought. I'm just saying he wouldn't be all hot dogs, apple pie, and Babe Ruth in this era.
Click to expand...

A guy today that was a 2.28 ERA pitcher, hit .342 and had more home runs than entire teams playing the same game against the same competition isn't going to be derailed by social media imo.

There might be more man hating dikes with a voice to bitch about him today but no one has ever dominated the game of baseball the way he did. That can't be ignored.
 
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Mike80 said:
And if any of that would matter one iota about him being the player that every ball player since is compared too.....oh wait, it wouldn't....
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Are you new to this planet? Heroes are scrutinized in ways now that they never were in the past because we know too much about them now.

Babe Ruth would be villainized by a certain segment of society for his debauchery, changing how he is perceived today vs the legends of almost a century ago. You're free to pretend that isn't the world we live in but that won't make it go away (unfortunately).
 
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Jaxbuck said:
To me Ruth is the greatest player
Ted Williams was the best all around hitter
Bo Jackson was the greatest physical talent (I've ever seen)

and unfortunately we have zero context about the old Negro League players

so it's all just opinion and conversation.
Click to expand...

You touched on a great point. Babe Ruth only played against white, American players. There were no Negro League players, no South American players, no Japanese players, and no Central American/Caribbean players. Think how many stars have come from those demographics since Ruth played.

Would he have been as dominant against a diverse pool players? No one can say, but I don't think it's much of a stretch to suggest the MLB of his era was a watered down version compared to the one players have competed in post-1950.
 
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Jake said:
You touched on a great point. Babe Ruth only played against white, American players. There were no Negro League players, no South American players, no Japanese players, and no Central American/Caribbean players. Think how many stars have come from those demographics since Ruth played.

Would he have been as dominant against a diverse pool players? No one can say, but I don't think it's much of a stretch to suggest the MLB of his era was a watered down version compared to the one players have competed in post-1950.
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You can't compare players from different era's in any sport imo. People get bigger, stronger and faster as time goes by. Rules change. Equipment, training and nutrition are different.

I basically always come back to this; if the MLB of his era was so watered down, why didn't anyone else dominate it like he did? Why hasn't anyone else ever dominated their era, or their sport, the way he did?
 
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