bellings wrote:This is going to come up in every of these HOF threads getting started, so lets just pull it out and discuss how current players stack up against previous eras.
I say they are better atheletes. For my evidence, let's look at every sport that relies on a measurement. I can't think of any sport where the athletes haven't broken the world record in the last 20 years: long jump, high jump, javlin; the running events get their records broken all the time. Compare these records to the records set by athletes when the Babe was playing baseball. I bet that some current ballplayers would be able to break the records set by track and field professionals in the 20's and 30's.
So basically, there is no reason to keep a player out of the HOF because he is "only" good for the current era. If he's good in the current era, he would have ripped it up in a previous era.
I'm not sure it is a meaningful distinction in the end. All of us compare ball players to the current stars, top peers (at that position), the best ever, the best at that position, all players at that positions, etc. And all of them are valid.
wkelly91 came up with some great points on just why it is so difficult to compare. Let me add one:
10a) Players played fewer games in the past. The records from those eras are not entirely comparable. What if Ruth had had a few more games? I'm sure he would have passed 60HR.
10b) Pitchers pitched longer and more often.
If you take a modern day starter and put him into nearly any other era, do you think all that extra conditioning will make a difference? Pitching 300 innings is a huge change from pitching 200.
It can be fun to talk about, and the beauty is that everyone is right, because we'll never know.