I’m sure this has been done before, but I searched (briefly) and didn’t find anything.
Who do you think is the greatest baseball player?
I’m a lifelong Yankees fan, but my vote goes to… Ted Williams.
Ugh… I tried not to. Willie Mays was my first choice, then the Babe (the pitching really makes him unworldly.)
But, I can’t get past William’s hitting and time lost to the service. Two wars took years from his career. Factor in his average stats for the lost years and he’s even more amazing.
I can’t imagine saying anyone but Babe Ruth. Aside from his fabled home runs, he was an excellent pitcher, and though it generally took a back seat to his power, he was a very good baserunner as well. Is there anyone in baseball history who had that broad a skill set, and was so consistently excellent at them all?
I will still give it to the Babe. He wasn’t just a bit better than the hitters of his day, he was revolutionarily better and that after being a Hall of Fame caliber Lefty Pitcher to start his career. He was a great fielder early on and his Batting average and slugging average were out of this world.
Ted Williams was not a great fielder and obviously never pitched. I find it hard to support your argument when even Ted Williams readily admitted Joe D was the greatest living baseball player. Joe D was the complete package. He lost a prime chunk of his career to WWII and was a righty in Yankee Stadium.
Willie Mays was a much better fielder and nearly as good a hitter and far better base runner.
I have just dropped Ted Williams to 4th at best.
I need to think more about this, Ted might be 4th best on my list and yet I would pick Lou Gehrig over him if I was drafting. I would also seriously consider Yogi and Bench before Ted.
Jim
ETA: I had a quick thought:
Outfield: Mays DiMaggio Ruth
Infield A-Rod Banks Morgan Gehrig
Catcher: Yogi
DH: Williams
These discussions always involve a lot of assumptions like, do you count Negro Leaguers? Do you give credit for players who missed time to WWII? Do you discount steroid era players, or players who played before integration? Do we count guys who could make it like A-Rod, but aren’t there yet?
My inclination is to say “I’m just going to figure who helped their teams win the most from 1901 on, and accept that I don’t know enough about Negro Leaguers to judge them” and the hell with anything else, save some credit for missing time to wars.
So I’m going with:
Babe Ruth
Honus Wagner
Willie Mays
Barry Bonds
Ted Williams
Ty Cobb
Stan Musial
Henry Aaron
Walter Johnson
Mickey Mantle
Big props to Joe DiMaggio, but it doesn’t matter what Ted Williams did or didn’t say; Williams was greater.
If I was putting together a team:
1B: Gehrig
2B: Morgan
SS: Wagner
3B: Schmidt
C: Bench/Berra platoon, but Josh Gibson was possibly even better
RF: Ruth
CF: Mays
LF: Bonds
DH: Williams
SP: Johnson
I suppose you could make an argument that A-Rod has been a better player than Mike Schmidt, but
So far I don’t think he has surpassed Schmidt, though he likely will someday, and most importantly,
He’s played most of his career as a shortstop, not a third baseman, and Wagner is easily the best shortstop.
But you said “Greatest Baseball Player” not “Greatest Hitter”.
Ruth wins no matter what but Williams was a hitter, he was an average fielder and average baserunner. Mays and DiMaggio were better all around players.
As I said Williams admitted DiMaggio was the best ball player. Somewhere there is a quote where Ted actually said that he (Ted) was the best hitter of their generation but DiMaggio was the best player.
This is a pretty weak argument. Who cares that Williams said that? Diego Maradona said that Di Stefano was the better player, but he’s never in the conversation for the best soccer player. Just because one player respects another doesn’t mean their evaluation of them is accurate.
No, it’s about the whole thing. That’s how I read it. I’m just commenting that one player’s opinion isn’t a definitive bit of evidence on the relative quality of two players.