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March 21, 2022 Post a Comment

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Baseball laying in the grass. Homepage blog 2010, arts and entertainment, history and society, sports and games athletics — © iStockphoto/Thinkstock

Ah, the crack of the bat. The smell of fresh-cut grass. Munching on Cracker Jack while trying to avoid being splashed by the massive beer barely clung onto by the inebriated fan sitting behind you. Nothing says summer quite like baseball game, the American national pastime. Baseball's place in the American zeitgeist comes, at least in part, from its long history and the general consistency of the game over decades—information technology's quite likely that your great-great-grandad would be able to easily follow a modern game if he were magically plopped into the stands. This history and consistency make information technology a bit easier to compare players from much different eras than it is to practice so for other sports, which is what I'll be attempting here. Permit's see how it goes!

Roger Clemens

Roger Clemens
Roger Clemens, 2007.
© D. Silva/Shutterstock.com

Over the grade of his illustrious 24-year career, Roger Clemens amassed a record seven Cy Immature Awards equally the best bullpen of the year in either the American or National League and threw four,672 strikeouts, the third almost of all time. In 1986 he became one of the rare starting pitchers to win a league MVP honour afterward he posted a 24–4 record with a 2.48 earned run boilerplate (ERA) and 238 strikeouts for the Boston Red Sox. Moreover, he did all this while a number of opposing batters were taking steroids, which resulted in offensive statistics going through the roof at the time. So why isn't he higher? Well, it's very probable that Clemens himself took steroids, then his accomplishments aren't quite as stunning for the era as they appear. Plus he's quite possibly the role player I've hated the most during my baseball fandom, and then he gets a deserved place here simply can't become any higher lest I return this list incomplete past tossing my keyboard out a window in a tizzy. Hurrah for subjectivity!
Honus Wagner

Honus Wagner
Honus Wagner.
Culver Pictures

A number of mod fans probably know Honus Wagner all-time equally the subject of the most-valuable baseball game card in history, the rare 1909–eleven T206 Wagner card that was produced by the American Tobacco Company. The scarcity of the card is a big reason why it can fetch upward of $ii million in a auction, but information technology wouldn't be nigh as valuable if the person depicted on information technology was just a run-of-the-mill player and non one of the best to have ever stepped on a diamond. "The Flying Dutchman" (god, they came upwardly with such good nicknames back in the day) led the National League in batting boilerplate eight times over the class of his career and retired with a stellar .328 average despite having played during the offense-killing "dead-brawl era." At the fourth dimension of his retirement in 1917, he had tallied the 2d most hits (iii,420), doubles (643), triples (252), and runs batted in (1,732) in major-league history, and all of these totals yet rank among the top 25 of all fourth dimension. A mensurate of Wagner'southward greatness is found in the 1936 balloting for the inaugural course of the Baseball Hall of Fame, where he was one of the five players selected for that honor amongst the thousands who had played the game upward to that point.
Stan Musial

Stan Musial
Stan Musial, 1964.
AP Images

Quite possibly the greatest person on this listing, "Stan the Man" was a historically adept player likewise as a model citizen. The beloved St. Louis icon played his entire 22-flavor career with the urban center's Cardinals franchise and is as inextricably linked with his town as an athlete ever has been. Stan Musial led the Cardinals to three Globe Series titles (1942, 1944, and 1946) while racking up just as many MVP awards (1943, 1946, and 1948) and amassing a lifetime .331 batting average. As show that he was a human being with a keen middle for the ball, Musial's highest single-flavor strikeout total was a paltry 46 (in 505 plate appearances) as a 41-yr-old who started in the Cardinals' outfield. (He still hit .330 that twelvemonth.) His hitting was so consistently good that opponents oftentimes resigned themselves to their fate, as noted by bullpen Carl Erskine: "I've had pretty proficient success with Stan by throwing him my best pitch and backing up third."
Ty Cobb

Ty Cobb
Ty Cobb.
Pictorial Parade

And now here's possibly the greatest humanity drop-off in list-item history. If Musial was a fairy-tale prince when it came to comportment, Ty Cobb was the evil troll nether the bridge chucking boulders at passing children. An unrepentant racist who routinely sharpened his spikes to maximize potential injury to opponents on hard slides and who one time fought a fan in the stands, Cobb was nevertheless a supremely talented actor who has the greatest lifetime batting average in major-league history (.366). He led the American League (AL) in batting boilerplate a ridiculous 12 times in his 24-year career but was by no ways but a singles hitter, as he also led the AL in slugging percentage (a statistic that measures a hitter's ability production) on eight occasions. He batted over .400 in 3 seasons (1911, .420; 1912, .409; and 1922, .401) and, in add-on to his batting-average record, he retired in 1928 as the all-time leader in hits (iv,189), runs scored (2,246), and stolen bases (892), all of which were broken only late in the 20th or early in the 21st centuries.
Walter Johnson

Walter Johnson
Walter Johnson.
UPI/Bettmann Archive

The flame-throwing Walter Johnson was a generational talent who divers dominant pitching for decades. He was so great that he led the AL in strikeouts more than oft than not, topping the league 12 times over the course of his 21-year career. Pitching his entire professional life for the Washington Senators, "Big Train" threw 110 career consummate-game shutouts, still the most in major-league history and a record that will never be cleaved. (As of this writing, the electric current agile leader, Clayton Kershaw, has 15 over viii and a half seasons.) In 1913 he won 36 games with a 1.fourteen ERA and an eye-popping 0.78 WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched; a WHIP below i.00 is considered stellar) to win the Chalmers Accolade, the equivalent of the mod MVP. He took a second MVP in 1924 as he led the Senators to their first World Serial championship. Johnson's 3,509 career strikeouts ready a tape that lasted 56 years, and his win total of 417 is second but to Cy Immature's 511.
Hank Aaron

Hank Aaron
Hank Aaron.
Pictorial Parade

Every bit the possessor of the title Home Run Rex for a generation, Hank Aaron is often thought of as simply a tremendous power hitter, admitting arguably one of the best ever. Nevertheless, his 755 career homers (a record for 33 years) are simply the tip of the iceberg for "Hammerin' Hank." His all-fourth dimension-best 2,297 runs batted in and 6,856 total bases are, of class, indicative of his legendary power, merely he also put up a solid career .305 batting average and won iii Gold Gloves for his play in the outfield. The consistently corking Aaron was selected to the All-Star Game 21 directly years and hitting at to the lowest degree 30 habitation runs in 15 seasons. In addition to his standing records, Aaron finished his career in 1976 with what were so the 2nd near hits (iii,771) and runs scored (2,174) in major-league history.
Ted Williams

Ted Williams has long been chosen "the greatest pure hitter who ever lived." His .482 lifetime on-base of operations percentage is the highest of all time, and he ranks in the top xx in total runs scored, home runs, runs batted in, and walks despite having missed virtually v total seasons of his prime to military service. "The Splendid Splinter" (run across what I mean near the nicknames?) was renowned for his uncanny center, which helped him mail the last major-league flavour with a .400 batting average (.406 in 1941). Overall, the Boston Cherry Sox icon led the AL in batting average half dozen times, slugging percentage 9 times, and on-base percentage 12 times in his 19-year career. Not content with simply being the best hitter ever, Williams has also been called both the best fisherman and best fighter pilot e'er. Despite all the accolades (or perhaps considering of them), he had a notoriously prickly human relationship with the public. Just as famed writer John Updike put it when Williams refused to come out for a curtain call after hitting a home run in his final career at bat: "Gods do not answer letters."
Barry Bonds

Barry Bonds
Barry Bonds hitting his tape-setting 756th career home run, August 7, 2007.
Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images

Yeah, I get it. He was cross, preening, and virtually convincingly a steroid user—not exactly the kind of guy who should go the benefit of the doubt and earn spot number 3 on this list. Barry Bonds is, in the eyes of many baseball fans, the affiche male child for the steroid era and its supposed illegitimacy. Just, well, he was already a surefire Hall of Famer before he allegedly began juicing, and steroids would take had no effect on the unparalleled eye-hand coordination that produced an all-time high 2,558 career walks and staggering .444 lifetime on-base percentage. And that's the affair well-nigh steroids—you tin can never definitively say exactly what impact they accept on a baseball thespian's functioning. Then let'southward just capeesh the incredible statistics Bonds piled up: an unsurpassed 762 dwelling runs (including a single-season tape 73 in 2001), a tape seven career MVP awards, and 688 intentional walks, which is more double the amount given to the histrion with the second well-nigh of all fourth dimension and a hit attestation to the unparalleled fearfulness Bonds instilled in opposing pitchers.
Willie Mays

Willie Mays.
UPI/Bettmann Archive

Unlike his godson Bonds (whose male parent, Bobby, was Willie Mays'southward teammate from 1968 to 1972), Mays needs to exist subjected to no mental gymnastics to justify his place on this listing. Non only did Mays rack up astounding totals at the plate—including 3,283 hits, 660 abode runs, and 1,903 runs batted in—merely his outstanding play in the outfield produced 12 consecutive Gold Glove Awards (1957–68) and led many observers to call him the greatest all-around actor the game has always seen. In fact, the most-iconic moment in Mays's career (and one of the most iconic in baseball game history) came on defense: his over-the-shoulder catch at the warning track in the 8th inning of a tied 1954 Globe Serial game that helped the New York Giants win that competition and, somewhen, the championship. That was the only title of his career, merely a relative lack of team success does nothing to tarnish the reputation of the 20-time All-Star and two-time MVP (1954 and 1965).
Babe Ruth

Baby Ruth
Babe Ruth.
UPI/Bettmann Archive

Well, hither'due south a no-brainer if at that place ever was ane. Yes, he played among an artificially limited talent puddle earlier Jackie Robinson bankrupt the colour barrier in 1947 and decades before advanced training regimens produced athletes who looked like, well, athletes, but Ruth was such a historic talent that he transcends these qualifiers. In fact, his arrival in the major leagues was so seismic that it marked the end of the dead-ball era. When he joined the majors in 1914, the all-time tape for home runs in a season was 27. Within seven years he had more than than doubled it with 59, and he eventually produced a personal-high 60 dingers in 1927. All told, he led the AL in dwelling runs 12 times. He was such a biggy power hitter that his astounding .690 career slugging pct remains the best of all time, and the gap between his mark and second identify is larger than the one between second place and ninth. Oh, and he as well was a great pitcher during his early years, leading the AL with a one.75 ERA in 1921 and pitching 29 and two-thirds consecutive scoreless innings across ii World Series—because when y'all dominate the game as much as the Infant did, you may as well do so in all facets, right? Moreover, the charismatic Ruth was the first transcendent American sports superstar, routinely garnering headlines across the land for both his on-field exploits and his off-field celebrity. His play with the storied New York Yankees teams of the 1920s catapulted baseball to the prominence in the national consciousness that it still enjoys today. Not only was Ruth the greatest baseball thespian of all time, but he was the near important one too.