On sending an athlete back in time 50 years

[Greg_Charles]

I think any of the athletes mentioned here would take one look at their 1950s’ paychecks, scream, “That’s it per week?”, be informed that, no, that’s it per year, and hop the first time machine back to the 21st century.

[Greg_Charles]

@BobT

Dunking was illegal only in college basketball and only in the late 1960s through the late 1970s. The NBA never prohibited dunking.

IIRC, only the slam dunk was prohibited, not the dunk itself. That is, you could drop the ball in the basket, you just couldn’t jam it in.

[Fish]

I think the biggest disadvantage any modern athlete has in going backward in time is missing out on the kind of safety equipment and medical technology we have today.

They didn’t have the gladiator pads that allowed 1955’s hitters to safely crowd the plate. I imagine football padding today is similarly better engineered than that of 1955. Of course, any good athlete can adjust to this lack, at some cost to either his health or his numbers.

The 1955 New York Yankees didn’t have an X-ray machine in their clubhouse to check if that hurt foot was fractured so he could tape up and be back in by the 6th inning. How a modern athlete would adjust to the constant injuries, I’m not sure; many of them already play with minor nagging aches and pains. Sandy Koufax retired in 1965 (or so?) because he was worried what all those cortisone injections were going to do to his arm. Some modern athletes may have come to depend on the medicine available today.

What about the quality of things like cleats to cushion your feet, and stuff like Ben-Gay rub for aching joints? Aspirin and other painkillers? And—gasp—pills some players take today to get pepped up before a game?

Sure, some of today’s monster players would continue to dominate. Some simply wouldn’t be tough enough. Consider that pitchers today are happy to get 20 wins a season; Cy Young had 511 career wins and Walter Johnson (retired 1927) had 110 career shutouts. To me, that’s old-time tough. That’sa lotta innings. These days, we make a big deal if a pitcher only gets four days’ rest.

If I were going to send somebody back in time, I’d pick some minor league baseball player: somebody who has had decent access to good training, has seen some pretty damn good pitching, but who isn’t overly reliant on the comforts of today. I think such a player would make more of a difference, for longer, than one of the highly-paid peacocks of the major leagues.

[Marley23]

@Trunk

Show me a measure of how “rated” he is and then we can discuss if he’s “overrated”.

You said if you sent him back 50 years, nobody would be able to run the ball against him. I think that’s giving him too much credit. I didn’t say he was never any good. I said that his present level is not so great as to justify that comment. Which televised Sunday night game was it this year that he didn’t do anything? I think the best defender on that team right now is Ed Reed. You’d need a more expert football fan than myself to provide the stats. (Perhaps HeadNinja.) My personal feeling, based on games I’ve watched and commentary from others, is that Lewis is not playing now with the same skill or fire that made him a superstar a few years ago.

or is that just one of those “blah blah bullshit” statements that people make about stports that can’t really be defended, but sound big when they want to slam a guy?

Please chill out by about ten degrees, you’re being much too sensitive about this. If it sounded like I was saying Ray Lewis was never a star or a dominant player, that’s not what I was going for.

[Spoke]

For those who think a modern power pitcher would dominate hitters of yore, here’s an interesting article: Why can’t anyone throw a baseball faster than 100 mph?

Pretty much every generation since the early 1900s has boasted a supposed 100-mph pitcher, from Walter Johnson and Smoky Joe Wood to Bob Feller to Dalkowski to Nolan Ryan. If we stick with speeds registered since modern radar guns became ubiquitous in the 1970s, peak velocity seems to be a shade north of 100. Major League Baseball doesn’t keep official records on pitch speeds, but the Guinness Book of World Records credits Ryan with the fastest pitch ever, a 100.9-mph heater from 1974. This article disagrees, crowning Mark Wohlers the radar-gun champ with a 103-mph pitch.

…[A]according to experts in biomechanics, that 100-mph ceiling isn’t an illusion—it’s a basic property of human physiology.

And for those who think Randy Johnson is the ne plus ultra:

What about growing taller, more massive pitchers? That doesn’t necessarily make a difference, either. Small, slightly built pitchers like Dalkowski, the 5-foot-11 Pedro Martinez, and the 5-foot-10 Billy Wagner throw just as hard as giants such as Randy Johnson. The physical principle here is fairly simple. If two levers move at the same speed, the ball released from the longer lever will have more velocity. But as a lever becomes larger, it requires more torque to move. Randy’s lever is larger; Wagner’s moves more quickly. The trade-off makes their velocity roughly equal.