09-18-2004, 12:35 PM
the whole "Ruth was better because he pitched" is kind of a crap argument. For anyone that played baseball, you know that most of the time, the guy who was the best hitter on the teach was also a real good pitcher, and ace pitcher was normallly a great hitter.
Darren Driefort is someone I remember who did that in college. He was both one of the best pitchers and best hitters in the nation when he was in college.
For the guy on the field who is the most skilled as Ruth obviously was, it's not uncommon for them to be able to dominate on both sides of the ball.
It's just that as more people began to play, and the game matured people specialized.
I totally understand Arpi's argument, and it's logical to say that if Ruth were born in 1970 rather than 1900 as was able to benefit from all of the technology in baseball, specialization, coaching, and strength training (I still say that Bonds didn't take steroids. For the simple reason that look at every other person who was accused of taking roids; each of them had a major dropoff and/or some nagging injury all year. Giambi, Nomar, Javy Lopez, Bret Boone, Trot Nixon, and Sheffield) his numbers would absolutely dwarf anything that Bonds did.
But since you can't predict that, I can say that if you found a time machine and put Bonds as he his now and played in the 1920s (and made him white so they didn't lynch him) in the "deadball era" with "bigger parks" and whatever else Ruth had to deal with, Bonds would absolutely destroy anyone there.
They were in the stone age of baseball preparedness, specialization, strength training, technology, etc. The pros back then were probably equivalent to minor league baseball or even college baseball now.
Darren Driefort is someone I remember who did that in college. He was both one of the best pitchers and best hitters in the nation when he was in college.
For the guy on the field who is the most skilled as Ruth obviously was, it's not uncommon for them to be able to dominate on both sides of the ball.
It's just that as more people began to play, and the game matured people specialized.
I totally understand Arpi's argument, and it's logical to say that if Ruth were born in 1970 rather than 1900 as was able to benefit from all of the technology in baseball, specialization, coaching, and strength training (I still say that Bonds didn't take steroids. For the simple reason that look at every other person who was accused of taking roids; each of them had a major dropoff and/or some nagging injury all year. Giambi, Nomar, Javy Lopez, Bret Boone, Trot Nixon, and Sheffield) his numbers would absolutely dwarf anything that Bonds did.
But since you can't predict that, I can say that if you found a time machine and put Bonds as he his now and played in the 1920s (and made him white so they didn't lynch him) in the "deadball era" with "bigger parks" and whatever else Ruth had to deal with, Bonds would absolutely destroy anyone there.
They were in the stone age of baseball preparedness, specialization, strength training, technology, etc. The pros back then were probably equivalent to minor league baseball or even college baseball now.