I voted for Joe Jackson. The third highest career batting average of all time has value to me. Factor in his excellent defense and outstanding arm, and, for me at least, he’s the best.
I would go with a few things:
The steals are obviously what sets him apart - Williams and Musial just didn’t steal bases, whereas Henderson put up over 1,400. I think that sets him apart from other players in terms of the kind of athlete that he was - it can also do a lot for the guy batting behind him.
The longevity of his career. At the age of 40, he put up 89 runs with an .889 OPS, 12 homers, and 37 steals over 121 games. Musial and Wiiliams both played after 40, but for fewer years, in less games, and with worse stats. Rickey scored over 350 runs after turning 40, that’s pretty rare.
He was also a lead-off hitter and a great base stealer, meaning he was never going to get pitched around, but he still managed to come up with 2,190 walks, more than Musial or Williams. he had a great eye and a tiny strike zone. He has the 2nd most career walks all-time, behind only Bonds who nobody wanted to pitch to.
But, you have to talk about runs. Runs win games, and Rickey has the most Runs scored all time. All of the crazy steals records are just gravy. But he does have the single most unbreakable record in all of baseball - most lead of the game home runs in 1 day - 2.
Stan and Ted are obviouly great, and probably more traditional choices for greatest LF - but Rickey doesn’t get the credit he deserves, IMHO and I’ll always love Bill James’s quote “If you could split him in two, you’d have two Hall of Famers.”
Snapshot of the Screwed up poll:
Moises Alou 1 2.04%
Kirk Gibson 0 0%
Goose Goslin 0 0%
Joe Jackson 1 2.04%
Ralph Kiner 1 2.04%
Dave Kingman 0 0%
Stan Musial 4 8.16%
Willie Stargell 2 4.08%
Ted Williams 38 77.55%
Carl Yastrzemski 2 4.08%
Requested replacement field of 8:
Barry Bonds
Ted Williams
Stan Musial
Joe Jackson
Willie Stargell
Carl Yastrzemski
Rickey Henderson
Manny Ramirez
I’ve asked the mods to replace the original poll.