Bonds hits 756

[bbl]

I'm saying that if you take an average guy and have him play straight, then put him on speed, his performance will more than likely drop. Again, for endurance sports, a bit of some sort of stimulant can be beneficial -- that's pretty well documented. But for things requiring patience and extreme accuracy, I can't see the benefit. Take the ping pong test, it's pretty damning.

 

 

opk i justl asghlgtoti ottott tookl tht pinmg pong test but ig dont have a ping opong tble so i just took tyhe test anyway and i kan tipe real fast now so what's that? oh nevermin so i askgste slee what uere sayign about persision whooooo hooooo this is fun! what was that! oh don't know my jaw hurts i needs a drink an som womans gotaa go hha ha funny call some girls hey what are u doing? aw forget it and i itch a lot sooooo i nned to go now bye bye!

[Banta]

Bonds > Ruth! Ruth was backed by Lou Gerhig and the rest of Murderer's Row! Bonds was backed by... Andy Van Slyke, Matt Williams, and Ray Durham. Bonds has more HR's that Ruth! Bonds has faced better pitching than Ruth! Ruth is done, he's a has been, washed up! Bonds ain't done yet! There's NO WAY you can even suggest Ruth was a better HR than Bonds! The science is settled; the consensus is in! It's as certain as KK responding to this post with some meaningless statistics!

[Emprov]

opk i justl asghlgtoti ottott tookl tht pinmg pong test but ig dont have a ping opong tble so i just took tyhe test anyway and i kan tipe real fast now so what's that? oh nevermin so i askgste slee what uere sayign about persision whooooo hooooo this is fun! what was that! oh don't know my jaw hurts i needs a drink an som womans gotaa go hha ha funny call some girls hey what are u doing? aw forget it and i itch a lot sooooo i nned to go now bye bye!

 

 

ROTFL!

[King Kashue]

Bonds > Ruth! Ruth was backed by Lou Gerhig and the rest of Murderer's Row! Bonds was backed by... Andy Van Slyke, Matt Williams, and Ray Durham. Bonds has more HR's that Ruth! Bonds has faced better pitching than Ruth! Ruth is done, he's a has been, washed up! Bonds ain't done yet! There's NO WAY you can even suggest Ruth was a better HR than Bonds! The science is settled; the consensus is in! It's as certain as KK responding to this post with some meaningless statistics!

Why would I respond to this post with stats?

I only bother responding to serious posts with a measure of merit

[bbl]

Why would I respond to this post with stats? I only bother responding to serious posts with a measure of merit

Lots of merit - better pitching, less lineup protection, and statistically speaking... more HR's.

How was Ruth a better HR hitter? I really don't see it.

Bonds > Ruth

[catphish]

Who cares??? It's NFL Season now!!!!! :D:D:D

+1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

[King Kashue]

Lots of merit - better pitching, less lineup protection, and statistically speaking... more HR's. How was Ruth a better HR hitter? I really don't see it. Bonds > Ruth

And if Bonds hadn't averaged .290 and 32 home runs a year before age 34 and then averaged .329 and 46 home runs a year in the six years after, you'd have a much better argument...

He's the best homerun hitter only if it was only him hitting those homeruns...

By most estimations, Greg Anderson and a team of chemists were on the field helping Barry swing that bat...

[Emprov]

And if Bonds hadn't averaged .290 and 32 home runs a year before age 34 and then averaged .329 and 46 home runs a year in the six years after, you'd have a much better argument... He's the best homerun hitter only if it was only him hitting those homeruns... By most estimations, Greg Anderson and a team of chemists were on the field helping Barry swing that bat...

 

This has been discussed before but, I'm guessing that if Ruth had faced dedicated 6/7th inning guys, setup pitchers and closers, his numbers would have been a lot different. The famous "Dead Ball Era" was only in the first few years of Ruth's career so I don't think that would've played too much of a role.

[King Kashue]

This has been discussed before but, I'm guessing that if Ruth had faced dedicated 6/7th inning guys, setup pitchers and closers, his numbers would have been a lot different. The famous "Dead Ball Era" was only in the first few years of Ruth's career so I don't think that would've played too much of a role.

 

 

And he also only faced white pitchers. However, Bonds faced expansion pitching. The argument that Barry has faced better pitching is not a given.

 

However, on the flip side, what do Ruth's numbers look like if he worked out in the gym 3 hours a day, had a hitting coach breaking down his swing on frame-by-frame video, and had a nutritionist?

 

My point is that it's not merely a matter of numbers. If it were Josh Gibson > Everyone else.

[collinwho]

My point is that it's not merely a matter of numbers. If it were Josh Gibson > Everyone else.

 

 

Or possibly Sadaharu Oh > everyone else.

[Emprov]

However, on the flip side, what do Ruth's numbers look like if he worked out in the gym 3 hours a day, had a hitting coach breaking down his swing on frame-by-frame video, and had a nutritionist?

 

This is just speculation on my part based on the little that I know of Ruth. He seemed to me to the be the kind of player who got by on natural talent alone with very little work, kind of like Randy Moss. Granted, there was a heck of a lot of natural talent but, when I hear things like him having 4 or 5 beers in between double hitters, it really makes me wonder how transferable his work ethic would be. He didn't really seem like the kind of player who would work out 3 to 4 hours a day and he certainly didn't display much patience at the plate. All conjecture of course but it makes me wonder. Too bad that conjecture is all that it can ever be.

[King Kashue]

This is just speculation on my part based on the little that I know of Ruth. He seemed to me to the be the kind of player who got by on natural talent alone with very little work, kind of like Randy Moss. Granted, there was a heck of a lot of natural talent but, when I hear things like him having 4 or 5 beers in between double hitters, it really makes me wonder how transferable his work ethic would be. He didn't really seem like the kind of player who would work out 3 to 4 hours a day and he certainly didn't display much patience at the plate. All conjecture of course but it makes me wonder. Too bad that conjecture is all that it can ever be.

Of course it's conjecture, that's the point

There's all sorts of "what if?"s in sports...What if Bonds doesn't unnaturally prolong his career? What if Jimmy Foxx or Mickey Mantle don't prematurely end theirs?

That's one of the beautiful things about baseball, unlike the NFL and the NBA, where the game has changed dramatically in the last couple of decades, Baseball has remained the same in most fundamental ways.

A fan can "give" Walter Johnson a slider and wonder how he stacks up against Randy Johnson (answer: Big Train > Big Unit), they can guess at what Jimmy Foxx does if he doesn't drink himself out of his career, or imagine what Josh Gibson would have done if he had played in the Bigs instead of being segregated out of the highest level of competition.

You just don't hear people saying "what if Red Grange played today?" or "What if any of the players in the 50s actually dunked?"

[King Kashue]

he certainly didn't display much patience at the plate.

Forgot to comment on this, but I'm not sure what's giving you that impression?

He led the league in walks most every season of his career, and this was before intentional walks were common. He had lots of strikeouts as well, but he only had one full season where he had more strikeouts than walks.

Someone who hits .342 for their career with a .474 obp is almost by definition patient at the plate.

[Banta]

Ruth > everybody else

- Ruth spent the first one-third of his career as a pitcher. (He also had nearly 100 wins.) There's no telling how many HRs he would have hit if he had been a position player those years.
- For most of his career, there were rules that robbed Ruth of HRs. For instance, hitting the foul pole was simply a foul ball, not a HR. Also, even a ball hit over the fence, if it curved around the foul pole and landed foul was a foul ball. It is estimated that Ruth hit 78 balls before these rule changes in 1931 which may have been HRs.
- Ruth had far fewer ABs than any of the guys on the top of the HR list. Even guys like Sosa and Griffey, Jr. have had more ABs than Ruth.
- Ruth was able to hit long HRs even at the very end of his career. In the last game he played where he hit a HR he actually hit 3 of them, one of which was the first ever hit over the upper level roof at Pittsburgh's old Forbes Field. In that game he went 4 for 4 with 6 RBIs. He retired after an injury five days later.
- Ruth was not an overweight slob as he is sometime remembered. The vast majority of the film footage taken of Ruth was taken in the last few years of his career. He had far more triples than Hank Aaron, and only a great athlete records a lot of triples.
- Ballpark dimensions for much of Ruth's career were much larger on average than the ballparks of today, and Ruth had a good number of inside the park HRs. Again, great athleticism.

I can go on.

[Emprov]

Forgot to comment on this, but I'm not sure what's giving you that impression? He led the league in walks most every season of his career, and this was before intentional walks were common. He had lots of strikeouts as well, but he only had one full season where he had more strikeouts than walks. Someone who hits .342 for their career with a .474 obp is almost by definition patient at the plate.

Ruth has the rep of helping to end the Dead Ball Era with his free swinging. Before Ruth, the game was more one of strategy. Ruth brought in the era of the home run hitter. Before him, small ball was the thing. After Ruth, it was more about going yard.

[someotherguy]

Do you think we can get this up to 756 posts?

[King Kashue]

Ruth has the rep of helping to end the Dead Ball Era with his free swinging. Before Ruth, the game was more one of strategy. Ruth brought in the era of the home run hitter. Before him, small ball was the thing. After Ruth, it was more about going yard.

 

 

That doesn't mean he wasn't patient, it just means he didn't want to hit and run every at bat.

 

Hitting homeruns wasn't seen as "free swinging", it was just imprecise. For instance, Ty Cobb thought it was a lowbrow version of the game and demonstrated that he could hit like that (by ripping several over a few games) but that he chose to play a game of 'precision'.

 

 

Batting averages actually rose (quite a bit, almost 50 points) across the league during the beginning of the live ball era. If it was all about free swings, that shouldn't have happened.

[Emprov]

That doesn't mean he wasn't patient, it just means he didn't want to hit and run every at bat. Hitting homeruns wasn't seen as "free swinging", it was just imprecise. For instance, Ty Cobb thought it was a lowbrow version of the game and demonstrated that he could hit like that (by ripping several over a few games) but that he chose to play a game of 'precision'. Batting averages actually rose (quite a bit, almost 50 points) across the league during the beginning of the live ball era. If it was all about free swings, that shouldn't have happened.

 

I don't think that it was all about free swinging, there was a lot more that was going on during that time -- outlawing the spitball, switching to cork cored balls, making foul balls strikes, etc... Ruth's style wasn't the only factor that ended the era, I think that it was part of it though.

[King Kashue]

I don't think that it was all about free swinging, there was a lot more that was going on during that time -- outlawing the spitball, switching to cork cored balls, making foul balls strikes, etc... Ruth's style wasn't the only factor that ended the era, I think that it was part of it though.

Indeed...

Which is another argument against 'free swinging' Ruth

[bbl]

And if Bonds hadn't averaged .290 and 32 home runs a year before age 34 and then averaged .329 and 46 home runs a year in the six years after, you'd have a much better argument... He's the best homerun hitter only if it was only him hitting those homeruns... By most estimations, Greg Anderson and a team of chemists were on the field helping Barry swing that bat...

 

 

Doesn't change anything. I'm not saying Bonds is the best all-natural HR hitter ever. I'm simply saying he's the best HR hitter ever.

[bbl]

However, on the flip side, what do Ruth's numbers look like if he worked out in the gym 3 hours a day, had a hitting coach breaking down his swing on frame-by-frame video, and had a nutritionist?

 

 

When debating who's the greatest, potential (tapped or untapped) doesn't matter.

[King Kashue]

I think it's quite certain. Even with expansion pitching, I think it's safe to say that the quality of pitching that Bonds has faced throughout his career is superior to the pitching that Ruth faced.

 

 

You think it's safe to say that...And tons of people disagree. You're free to think it's a given however...

[King Kashue]

Doesn't change anything. I'm not saying Bonds is the best all-natural HR hitter ever. I'm simply saying he's the best HR hitter ever.

 

 

And I'm saying anything unnatural (particularly anything expressly against the rules) isn't Bonds...

[bbl]

You think it's safe to say that...And tons of people disagree. You're free to think it's a given however...

I didn't say it was given, nor does it matter if "tons of people disagree."

But since you mentioned it, are you one of these "tons of people" that believe today's pitching isn't superior to that of Ruth's day?

If you don't care to debate, that's fine. But to respond with nothing more than "it's not a given" and "other people disagree" weak (and quite lame).

[ThudMaker]

But since you mentioned it, are you one of these "tons of people" that believe today's pitching isn't superior to that of Ruth's day?

It's safe to say that the strike zone has been shrunk since the days of Ruth to compensate for that "superior" pitching of today you are talking about.