# Quick Poll: Your Top 3 Greatest Baseball Players Ever **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [July 11, 2009, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637 "2009-07-11T03:04:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/41 "2009-07-13T15:53:25Z")
> [@Sternvogel](#): > > Even Americans who have never viewed a baseball game generally know who he was. > … > …the legends of old just seem more – well, legendary – than the guys I’ve seen in action at the stadium or “live” on the tube. A friend from London who we took to a Giants/Cubs game was quite surprisd to find out that the quite-literally-legendary Babe Ruth was indeed a real person. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/42 "2009-07-13T16:01:00Z")
Cobb Ruth Mays Pitchers: Johnson Ryan Spahn ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/43 "2009-07-13T16:45:43Z")
> [@Sternvogel](#): > > Of course, Ruth is considered by many (including me) the greatest player of all time because he was an excellent pitcher as well as hitter (for both average and power). If he were playing today, he might be both in the starting rotation and serving as a DH on his non-hurling days. Plus his legend survives over seventy years after he last appeared in an MLB lineup. Even Americans who have never viewed a baseball game generally know who he was. > > I’ll put Cobb second for his skill with the bat and his competitive spirit. Williams gets my nod for third – that “last man to hit .400 and qualify for the batting crown” honor has now been his for 68 years. Even though I don’t buy the argument that players of yore were generally superior to those of today, the legends of old just seem more – well, legendary – than the guys I’ve seen in action at the stadium or “live” on the tube. I saw Williams many times. The fielders used a Ted Williams shift because he was such a dead pull hitter. The 3rd baseman had the whole left side to himself. The SS, 2nd baseman scooched over to the first base side. The left fielder moved 50 feet toward right. They all compressed into the right side of the diamond. He could have slapped pitches the opposite way for free singles. He defiantly hit his normal way and led the league, often. When he hit a popup the centerfielder waited for it in deep center. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/44 "2009-07-13T18:28:59Z")
1. Babe Ruth 2. Walter Johnson 3. Ty Cobb Re: The Williams Shift. It was first used against Cy Williams in the 1920s. AFAIK, Cy did the same thing Ted did: tried to hit over it instead of going the opposite way. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/45 "2009-07-13T19:37:55Z")
If we’re starting a Top Three Pitchers thing too, I nominate Johnson, Grove, and Clemens. Yeah, I know. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/46 "2009-07-13T19:51:16Z")
Everyday players: Ruth Williams Bonds Pitchers: Rivera Martinez Clemens I can’t exclude Bonds or Clemens, because IMHO, all great current players are juiced up. They were just the unfortunate ones to get caught (sort of). ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/47 "2009-07-13T20:08:39Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > If we’re starting a Top Three Pitchers thing too, I nominate Johnson, Grove, and Clemens. > > Yeah, I know. “Yeah, I Know” suggests you feel a bit … guilty(?) or uninspired in picking the same guys practically everybody picks. Don’t be. There’s a REASON everybody picks the same guys over and over again. Johnson and Grove almost go without saying, and Roger Clemens (juicer or not) is right up there. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/48 "2009-07-13T20:22:38Z")
I’m sad that I’ve seen Nolan Ryan’s\* name multiple times (but that’s no new phenomenon) but not Rogers Hornsby’s. Three names is obviously incredibly restrictive, but along with Gehrig I think Hornsby is so close to the very top that it’s a bit surprising nobody has mentioned him. So I will, which gives me the chance to post the following: From 1921-1925, in a total of 696 games, Rogers Hornsby (a _second baseman_(!)) batted .402 with an OBP of .474 and slugged .690. His 162 game averages over this period of time: 143 R, 251 H, 48 2B, 15 3B, 34 HR, 139 RBI, 82 BB, 46 K. (In 1920, he batted .370/.431/.559, which was black ink all around, but including that would still have brought the numbers down). He led the league in OPS+ 12 out of 14 times during his prime. Second base. (I still can’t see my way to pretending he’s better than my top 3, but still, if other names are going to be mentioned). - You can’t be the best of all time if you were never the best in your league while you were playing. edit: **Jackknifed Juggernaut** , I love your pitcher list, even though I’d have a hard time leaving Grove out of the top, well, probably 1. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/49 "2009-07-13T20:36:22Z")
1. Babe Ruth 2. Willie Mays 3. Satchel Paige I just felt that the list needed a pitcher. And there are so many good and great pitchers, I decided to go with one whose reputation fills a void where statistics can’t reliably go so as to forestall any numerical arguments. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/50 "2009-07-13T20:39:34Z")
In a probably predictable but good-natured defense of statistics and numbers, those numbers we do have strongly suggest that Satchel Paige was really, really damn good. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/51 "2009-07-13T20:44:03Z")
Yes, but I’d rather not have to defend a choice of, say, Christy Mathewson over Walter Johnson or Bob Feller or Tom Seaver, etc. by being cited statistics that disagree with my choice’s greatness. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/52 "2009-07-13T20:46:07Z")
notfrommensa: By Johnson, I assume you mean Walter and not Randy? ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/53 "2009-07-13T23:33:20Z")
Latest tally: Ruth 24 Mays 11 Cobb 9 T. Williams 9 Bonds 7 DiMaggio 3 Wagner 2 Gehrig 2 Pujols 1 Clemente 1 B. Robinson 1 N. Ryan 1 Rose 1 Cy Young 1 Mantle 1 W. Johnson 1 Paige 1 ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/54 "2009-07-14T00:34:25Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > “Yeah, I Know” suggests you feel a bit … guilty(?) or uninspired in picking the same guys practically everybody picks. It’s just that I don’t like picking a juicer (one whose roid rage was such that he threw a broken bat at an opposing player.) But he was awesome and so I have to pick him. His accomplishments are what they are. Satchel Paige might well have been greater, but he was (more or less) a contemporary of Lefty Grove, and it just seems very unlikely to me that the three greatest pitchers of all time all had their peaks before 1947. It’s possible, though. Jimmy, the Nolan Ryan thing is a Nolan Ryan thing. His mystique exceeds how much he actually did to help teams win by a very wide margin. You could do a whole thread on him, but it’s funny; I remember much of his career and nobody thought he was as great a pitcher as Steve Carlton when the two of them were pitching. Nobody. But Carlton has almost totally disappeared from the public consciousness outside of Philadelphia, while Ryan seems to be viewed as being in a class with Tom Seaver and Christy Mathewson. It’s weird. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/55 "2009-07-14T00:47:40Z")
I’m in Philadelphia, and I’d be willing to bet – a lot – that even here, if you did a poll on the street, more would name Ryan as the greatest, or one of the five greatest, or whatever, than would Carlton. But anyway. Yeah, this thread isn’t about that. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/56 "2009-07-14T01:00:40Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > It’s just that I don’t like picking a juicer (one whose roid rage was such that he threw a broken bat at an opposing player.) But he was awesome and so I have to pick him. His accomplishments are what they are. > > Satchel Paige might well have been greater, but he was (more or less) a contemporary of Lefty Grove, and it just seems very unlikely to me that the three greatest pitchers of all time all had their peaks before 1947. It’s possible, though. > > Jimmy, the Nolan Ryan thing is a Nolan Ryan thing. His mystique exceeds how much he actually did to help teams win by a very wide margin. You could do a whole thread on him, but it’s funny; I remember much of his career and nobody thought he was as great a pitcher as Steve Carlton when the two of them were pitching. Nobody. But Carlton has almost totally disappeared from the public consciousness outside of Philadelphia, while Ryan seems to be viewed as being in a class with Tom Seaver and Christy Mathewson. It’s weird. I think it was the no hitters and 1 hitters that did the trick. ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/57 "2009-07-14T11:50:26Z")
So, even with a limited sample size, Dopers seem to think the Top 5 players of all time are: Babe Ruth Willie Mays Ty Cobb Ted Williams Barry Bonds All outfielders. Is there a reason for that? I’d think that playing one of the tougher defensive positons would add weight for one of the all timers, like Wagner or Hornsby. ---
**Author:** ![KennerTheGreat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a8b319/32.png) [@KennerTheGreat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KennerTheGreat)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/58 "2009-07-14T11:58:40Z")
Southern Yankee, I think it’s because in the end, most fans are impressed by the guys who can hit home runs consistently, and the all-time home runs list was dominated by outfielders, until recently anyway. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/59 "2009-07-14T15:39:22Z")
> [@KennerTheGreat](#): > > Southern Yankee, I think it’s because in the end, most fans are impressed by the guys who can hit home runs consistently, and the all-time home runs list was dominated by outfielders, until recently anyway. Completely inadequate analysis there. Life time batting ave. Cobb 366 Williams 344 Ruth 342 Mays 302 Bonds 298 life time RBI they are all in the top 15 all time. They were a lot more than HR blasters. ---
**Author:** ![KennerTheGreat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a8b319/32.png) [@KennerTheGreat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KennerTheGreat)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637/60 "2009-07-14T15:51:19Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Completely inadequate analysis there. > Life time batting ave. Cobb 366 Williams 344 Ruth 342 Mays 302 Bonds 298 > life time RBI they are all in the top 15 all time. > They were a lot more than HR blasters. I don’t mean to imply that these people were one-dimensional behemoths that could do nothing but hit home runs. But when we talk about Babe Ruth, we don’t usually start by talking about his .342 average, or that he was a top-flight left handed pitcher, or even that he played for seven World Series Champions. We almost always start with the fact that he hit home runs. Lots of 'em. More than anyone who played before him, and more than anybody afterwards until Aaron (and Bonds). Most of us think of great players as players that hit a lot of home runs. They may have done other things, and done them quite well, but the home runs are what usually gets our attention. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-poll-your-top-3-greatest-baseball-players-ever/502637.md?page=4)