How far has athletic achievement moved?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I recently finished a book on Bobby Fisher. I was wondering if you dropped 1974 Bobby Fisher into a game today with Kasparov or whoever the current world champion is, would he be blown away by advances in chess theory?

But, that’s kind of a boring question. Mainly, what I’d like to know is people’s opinions on how far sports has advanced. The cool thing with sports is that most of the rules have remain unchanged from 50, 60, 100 years ago and so you can kind of compare athletic achievements.

My question is whether you think a star in your favorite sport from 30+ years ago would still be able to compete at a high level in that sport.

As an example, would 1945 Rocket Richard still be awesome in the 2009-2010 NHL season? I say no. He would be a bit undersized and his fitness would be woefully beneath the best current players.

In your favorite sport, is there some sort of cutoff year where you’d say most of the league couldn’t compete with today’s teams? For me, I’d say it’d be somewhere in the Seventies. The Eighties Oilers teams would probably still be competitive, but the Islanders and Flyers would probably be too slow for today’s games.

Anyway, there’s got to be a ton of opinions out there, especially in stats-mad baseball.

2

Track and Field/distance running-not a chance.

Baseball-very likely though changes in off season training might throw them off but the game itself is very much the same.

3

I think all track competitors would be woefully behind because as far as I know the events are essentially identical and the times have steadily gotten better.

Are there any field events where old competitors might have a chance?

I wonder what sport has the least distance between players thirty years ago and the present day. Hockey’s a lot faster with more puck movement. Basketball players are in WAY better shape and taller players predominate. Football? Similar to hockey I’d wager, with the game being faster and hitting much more viscious. Maybe baseball? Has pitching advanced much? I don’t follow soccer, but would, say, Pele still be amazing?

I wonder about more esoteric sports. I wonder if there are ANY sports where a superstar from thirty years ago would still be a superstar today. Polo? Cricket? Rugby? Darts? Wrestling?

4

I don’t think the very best players of 1979 would be quite as great as the players of today. I guess we’d be talking about Jim Rice, Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, guys like that. It might take them half a season to catch up.

I think the level of pure physical skill required will have a lot to do with the answer. The sprinters of 1979 would be hopelessly outclassed today, but I think Bobby Fischer would figure things out in a week.

5

I would say that yes, it has. There is a greater variety of pitches thrown, and more pitches which combine speed and movement. With pitch counts and a five-man rotation and lots of relief pitchers, pitchers are much fresher than they were 30 years ago. And, more pitchers can control their pitches to a finer tolerance within the strike zone than they could a generation back. (This doesn’t show up in fewer walks, because umpires responded by shrinking the strike zone.)

My gut feeling is that the batter teleported into today’s game with the body and mindset of 30-40 years ago would feel like he was facing an All-Star every at-bat.

6

Some sports have changed because of equipment - golf, for example. So yes, the great gutta percha golfers would have a hard time with the new balls and such, but given some time to learn there’s not necessarily anything inferior about their skills. Possibly training, although it’s impossible to tell.

The change in things like distance running is in training, not equipment (shoes are drastically improved, but shoes don’t make you run a two hour marathon.) The first marathoners wouldn’t stand a chance today.

7

The interesting thing about Track and Field is that you can actually measure how much people have improved. There are small improvements in track and shoe technology but that’s nothing compared to other sports like golf. For instance Jesse Owens ran a 10.3 in the '36 olympics. With that time, he wouldn’t even make the US Olympic team for the last olympics. Hell, he’d barely make the Canadian Olympic team and that’s bad.

I know wiki isn’t much of a cite but here is the 100 meter world record progression. You’ll note Jim Hines ran a 9.95 in 1968 so he might be able to make a final nowadays provided he didn’t run for the US, I don’t think he’d make the team. I think you have to move into the '80s when Carl Lewis, Calvin Smith, and Leroy Burrell ran in the 9.8s before you get a few people who could compete with the top guys of today. That said, no one can compete with Bolt, he’d make Lewis look downright human.

8

I don’t think so. In almost all professional sports the players are substaintially larger at virtually every position than they were 30 years ago. As much as I love Walter Payton he would get tore up by even mediocre LBs and DE’s of today.

9

Earlier players in American football would be blown away by today’s players and teams. The players are simply much bigger and faster today plus coaching theory has become much more advanced. There are probably some exceptions. The 1970’s Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburg Steelers would probably do Ok but probably not at the level they were then. I can see Terry Bradshaw still being a really good quarterback today for example. The 1980’s Chicago Bears would probably be pretty good and I can see Walter Peyton being a good but not great running back (although I see someone just disputed that). I still don’t think the much earlier players would have much of a chance. Quarterbacks like Joe Namath and Johnny Unitas probably wouldn’t do nearly as well today although they may be passable. They were too small by today’s standards. I am not even convinced that Joe Montana would be that great today. He was a little slow on his feet to compete with today’s defensive lines.

10

My favorite sport: climbing, either on natural rock or on artificial climbing walls.

The Yosemite decimal system was originally intended, as the name suggests, to be divided into ten different grades, with 5.0 being a very easy climb (the grades below 5 are considered “scrambling” rather than technical climbing) and 5.9 being the hardest. This worked until the 1960, when people started climbing routes which were previously considered unclimbable without artificial aids.

So a 5.10 grade was added, and later 5.11, and so on. The grades above 5.9 are divided into subgrades a to d, with the difference between e.g. 5.12b and 5.12c being as big as the difference between e.g. 5.6 and 5.7. Today, there exists routes which are considered to be at grade 5.15a or above. The same thing happened with the French grading system, where 5c was originally supposed to represent the hardest routes which any human could climb without artificial aids, but nowadays the scale goes up to 9b.

Although I enjoy climbing a lot, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m hardly the world’s greatest talent. Not surprising: I only picked up the sport around age 30, and before that I was already not an athletic wunderkind. Nonetheless, I can climb routes which would have been considered to be literally off the scale just a few decades ago. There are fifteen-year-olds at my local climbing gym who could humiliate the world’s greatest climbers from the first half of the 20th century.

The reasons are obvious:
[ul]
[li]Better gear – the modern climbing shoe is a relatively recent invention; before that most people used either heavy-duty mountaineering boots or just whatever shoes they happened to be wearing that day.[/li][li]Better safety gear – until the invention of the modern dynamic nylon ropes, any serious fall had the potential to be fatal; that doesn’t exactly encourage people to push their boundaries all the time. Nowadays, you can just take a few dozen falls in an afternoon and think nothing of it.[/li][li]More opportunity for practice, and more people being exposed to the sport, thanks to the popularity of indoor climbing gyms and securely bolted rock faces in outdoor areas.[/li][/ul]

Probably, the really steep part of the slope is behind us by now, but the popularity of the sport is still increasing, as are the developments in technology; perhaps in another few decades those 5.15 routes will be considered relatively easy…

11

My initial reaction would be to say that Babe Ruth, in today’s game, would be no better than Pat Burrell or Nick Johnson (without the injuries).

12

The game of hockey has changed so much in the last thirty years it would be hard to say what would happen if you put the Pens in their style of todays game against the flyers of the seventies playing theirs. The Pens would probably win but it’s hard to use finesse when someone is trying to break your arm with their stick.

13

There is a basic reason times and such get better. People learn from their mistakes, or at least they should. Every time somone participates a good competitor, studies not only what the person did to win, but what else he did that was wrong.

Many people can win a competition even if they make mistakes, so long as those errors aren’t too bad.

Not only have athletes and competitors gotten better the way you can analyze the way they are winning has.

For instance, to oversimplify, in the old days, we had to look at Esther Williams and if we were lucky we could catch her on a newsreel and she how she won. Then we could look at a film or videotape of Mark Spitz to see what moves he was making to win.

But now we can take Michael Phelps and put his performances into a computer and have it analzy each and every second he was in the water and exactly how he was moving.

Thus we have much more information and more ways to beat Phelps in the future.

14

Horse racing. Secretariat and Seattle Slew would still kick major ass today. Maybe even more so, since breeding has concentrated on creating more sprinters at the expense of “classic distance” runners going a mile and a quarter to a mile and a half.

This does not apply to harness racing. Those get faster every year.

15

The comparisons being made here between athletes of today and yesterday is a bit misleading. Sure, if via a time warp we snatched Babe Ruth or Jesse Owens and dropped them into a modern day baseball game or track meet, with absolutely no preparation time, then yeah they probably would suffer in the comparisons. But if the Babe was born in say 1980, making him 29 now, and able to take advantage of all that sports medicine etc. (big umbrella implied here, ignoring the can of 'roid worms understand) could offer, he’d probably be one of the top players in the game.

But that isn’t the only factor. You also have the competition level to consider. Baseball, in the 80 years between the Babe’s peak and now, has seen the population of the US at least triple, while we now can draw on African-American, Far Eastern, and Latino players of all stripes to fill lineup slots. So, even if Ruth were given all the advantages of a modern-day development path, from Little League on up, he still likely wouldn’t stand out from his peers like he did in the 20’s. And it’s not just that he probably wouldn’t hit .344 career, but that there’s more (e.g.) modern-day shortstops who can hit with power, something almost unheard of in his day. The distance between the elite players like the Babe, the average players, and the scrubs would thus be smaller. Likewise in track and field there will be more fast runners than there were in Owen’s time.

16

The question I’m interested here is exactly that. If you plucked 25 year-old Babe Ruth from his time and dropped him into the league today, would he still be awesome? With modern training, development, blah, blah, blah, who knows how good some great historic players would have been? But, I think you can make some [very] rough guess at how a former great player/team might perform today.

After all, the players I’m thinking of are the best their sport has EVER produced. Would the best 0.01% of players from the past still be good? I mean, they were the finest players that their time could produce. My question is, has athletic achievement moved so far that even the greatest players the game could possibly produce 30,40, 50 years ago not even stand out by today’s standards? If they couldn’t, that’s pretty amazing to me.

I was thinking about basketball yesterday and there are a handful of taller/fitter players from the past that I think could still have excelled in today’s game. I think the following players in their prime would likely still be all-stars today:

  • Bill Russell
    -Wilt Chamberlain
    -Oscar Robertson
    -Julius Erving

Also, the Secretariat example is awesome. I think that’s a bang-on example, as far as my knowledge of horse racing goes. Any other sport where former athletes could still compete?

17

The best runner out of 7 billion will probably be better than the best out of 3 billion.

However, technological improvements can’t be ignored, to say nothing of training, diet, and advanced analysis of technique. Or PEDs.

The difference in the material of a record-quality track and a standard track in the '60s is huge. According to the '78 article “Fast Running Tracks” in Scientific American, the change in track surface at Harvard in '77-'78 resulted in a 2.91% improvement in times. The authors conclude that, with a well designed outdoor track, “We predict that the world record for the mile could be improved by as a much as seven seconds.” The change over the last 30 years–when several well designed outdoor tracks have been built–is about six seconds, with the numbers flattening out in the last decade and a half as technology leaps and improvements have become smaller and more incremental.

Another technological development that frequently gets overlooked is the gun. Until recently the official who fires the gun would be inside lane 1, usually by about 10 meters or so. Because the best runners would run in lanes 4 and 5, they would be another 4 meters or so away from the gun (for the 100 m race, more for staggered starts). So the sound of the gun would have to travel 14 meters (0.04-0.05 s) to get to the best runner, and only from then could he begin reacting.

Note that the gun has since been replaced with a silent one that instantaneously triggers the speaker system immediately behind the runners. So that’s another 0.04-0.05 s that you can shave off when comparing 100 m times. For more information, check out this article.

Ralph Boston and Bob Beamon had several non-wind-aided jumps in major meets 40-45 years ago that would have made them world champion today in the long jump. I’ll let Wiki summarize:

Jesse Owens was a freak of nature. He jumped 8.13 meters in 1935 in the long jump while taking off from a cinder runway. 62 years later, with all those advances everyone talks about, his 8.13 meter jump (non-wind aided) from an obsolete track wearing heavy spikes would be good enough for 6th best on the planet.

The 2007 athletes were wearing lightweight spikes, jumping from a composite surface, with the best nutrition, with full time trainers and support staffs, and presumably using drugs that WADA hasn’t figured out how to test for yet.

Mark Spitz won 7 golds in the '72 Munich Olympics. All of his world records have been obliterated. Swimming probably has undergone more technical assistance than any other sport in the world. First it was the swim cap to cut down on drag. Then it was better pool technology that absorbed waves. Next it was swim stroke analysis in jet pools. Finally, it has been these new anti-drag suits. Spitz didn’t have any of that stuff.

Spitz attempted a comeback at 41 after being out of competitive swimming for 20 years. He didn’t qualify, of course. But at 41 he actually beat several of his old records. A 41-year old man’s body was able to adapt to modern techniques in 6 months to produce results he couldn’t get during his prime as a 21 year old.

18

Now for my favorite sport: basketball. IMO you could go quite a ways back. The cutoff would be somewhere in the mid '60’s to early '70s for average players.

One cool thing about basketball is that the game is based more on skill and intelligence than athleticism. So guys can play for a long time, against a huge variety of opponents, and show true transcendence. An older player may not be very athletic anymore but he can still show a young up and comer that he has a lot more to learn.

For example, Jordan was able to school Dr. J, Bird, Magic, Drexler AND Kobe, McGrady, and Pierce. Now obviously Jordan wasn’t half the player he was at 38 compared to 24, but it’s still good enough for Pierce or even KG.

After the NBA/ABA merger you can compare any year to any other. I think most NBA fans recognize this. The '80s Boston/LA teams would be the best teams in the league right now, if for no other reason than rules which prevent super teams like that from being formed, but still, the talent is just obvious when you watch the games themselves (as all good fans should – they’re epic, entertaining, and absolutely star studded). Bird/Magic would fight LeBron for MVPs in today’s league.

Someone mentioned Dr. J. He’s not that old, in terms of eras. His prime was in the late '70s but he put up great numbers in the NBA into the mid '80s. He was the 2nd best player on a championship team in '83 at age 32. He’s one of the greatest SFs of all time after Bird and, it looks like eventually, LeBron.

Another thing I wanted to say is that height is pretty overrated by casual fans. For example, Barkley, Rodman, and Ben Wallace are the most dominant rebounders of the modern era and they would be considered woefully undersized for that task. Particularly Barkley, who was just a freak when it came to strength, leaping ability, and desire/eye for the ball. Rodman could probably write a scientific treaty on how to predict where the ball is going to go. Big Ben and Rodman could guard Shaq about as well as anyone can hope to and they give up 4-5 inches and 30-40 pounds.

If anything, wingspan and shoulder height are more important. You don’t rebound with your neck (see Chris Bosh vs. Dwight).

Taking a step back, there are two levels to discuss here in terms of all time comparisons: big men and small guys (i.e. perimeter players, PG/SG/SF).

Big men, across all eras, are relatively equal. Duncan and Shaq didn’t do anything that impresses Wilt. As of right now, 2009, prime Wilt would easily be the best player in the league and it wouldn’t even be close, especially given the paucity of quality big men right now. Duncan/Shaq are well past their prime (Shaq is 38) and KG is getting there + he’s injured. Dwight is unrefined offensively and has huge troubles against thick guys like Yao and Perkins. I’d pay to see Dirk or Amare try to cover Wilt. After that there is a huge cliff.

You can see this smooth transition in what may be called the daisy chain of big men. In no instance did a new generation come and cream their aging predecessors. Mikan to Wilt and Russell, Wilt to Kareem, Kareem to Hakeem/Moses, Hakeem to Shaq, Shaq to Duncan/KG, then to Dwight.

Kareem, in particular, played against a huge variety of players because he played for such a long time – '69 to '89. He was able to block the shots of both West and Jordan, which is kinda crazy to think about.

If anything, the amount of quality big men peaked in the late '80s/early '90s. Look around the league today and you don’t see many quality big men. This is partly due to style/rule changes, but mostly due to a lack of talent. Big Z, Vlade Divac (in 2001, at age 32) and Magloire can make the all star team in our era. Think about that. Duncan and Shaq don’t care about rule changes, they still win titles, and any of Hakeem/D-Rob/Ewing/'Zo (before injury) would be feasting on today’s softies.

For the perimeter players though…they have evolved a tremendous amount. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that 70% of the perimeter players during the '60s and early '70s couldn’t make a roster today. Many couldn’t dribble left, they dribbled with their head down, they sucked at defense, weren’t that athletic (played mostly below the rim), couldn’t shoot at range, had low percentages in generals, and rules prevented them from practicing flashier stuff that has been popularized over the last 25 years. Of course, most players wouldn’t be able to dribble for more than 5 seconds in the '60s before being called for traveling or palming, so perhaps the old players could learn new tricks. But current players have been doing this stuff since they first picked up a ball.

Now, you could make arguments like well percentages were lower back then because it was a track meet style of play and the pace was insane compared to today (which is true). Teams just took crazy shots before the defense could set in, which is a good idea because penetration was heavily discouraged for a variety of reasons. But all you have to do is watch tape of the finals from the '60s. You’ll laugh at the primitive perimeter play.

But still, some guys were just spectacular. Jerry West (The Logo) would be one of the better guards today, probably behind LeBron/Wade/Kobe but he’d be right there. Oscar Robertson was like a '60s chubby version of MJ and indeed had the best guard post play until Jordan came around. Tiny Archibald was a bolt of lightning who has the distinction of being the only player to lead the league in both ppg and apg in the same season.