Babe Ruth greatest player ever

[shamrock]

A poster mentioned Cy Young. I looked him up and found out some interesting things. He, unlike many other pitchers, warmed up only briefly before pitching. He also tried to get batters to hit the ball rather than try to strike them out, which would take more pitches. Naturally he wanted them to ground out or fly out. Also, he was reported to be a vegetarian.

No wonder Cy was able to pitch so many games! No higher tribute than having the top pitcher award given annually named for you. I read somewhere that when Cy was invited to baseball banquets following his retirement, he always insisted that his win total was actually 512, not the 511 they gave him official credit for. Must have been a very competitive guy.

I also read that he and Rube Waddell hooked up in about an 18-inning duel that Waddell won, I believe 2-1. So thereafter, Waddell, a true drinking man, would go from saloon to saloon trading the baseball he "used to beat Cy with" for another drink. Consequently, there were Rube Waddell baseballs at saloons all over A.L. cities, no telling how many.

 

[Don Wassall]

I know this is a Babe Ruth thread, but are there any other records as unreachable as Cy Young's 511 career wins? There's a lot of individual and career marks in baseball that may never be surpassed -- including Ty Cobb's .366 career batting average -- but I don't see anyone ever topping Young in the wins department.

 

[shamrock]

Most people might not know but Cobb was an upper class Southerner, his father was a professor and known for his progressive views on blacks.

He ended up quite rich, he invested in Coke stock early and made other good investments. He maintained good friendships with most ball players of his era. He frequently saw Ruth in the off-season and even fixed Ruth up with a gal that, rumors say he might have been intimate with also. Imagine her stories!

You mentioned Al Stump one of histories great douche bags that singlehandedly created the “Cobb is racist” meme. All for his personal profit.

I will say that Tommie Lee Jones portrayal, while totally fictional, is fun to watch. His Cobb character is basically a cranky old man. Racist only because he holds views about blacks that are typical of the era before the race hustlers took over.

Well, Cobb was a very intelligent man, son of a professor as you noted, and an excellent businessman, and Tommie Lee Jones was at his lunatic best in the film. Which brings up...

Harvard Beats Yale 29-29

Tommie Lee Jones had a role in the football DVD documentary titled "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29." After watching it I felt that it was the greatest college football game I've ever seen, and I've seen 60 years of great college football. The game was played in 1968. Everything about it is old school - no canned music; real cheerleaders, not gymnasts like today; real grass, real cold-weather football outdoors, and real student-athletes rather than 5-star recruits looking for NFL money. It was unbeaten Yale vs once-beaten Harvard. Best of all, the ending is the most incredibly unbelievable one I've ever seen. No one would ever have believed it if it were fiction.

In the film they intersperse actual footage from the game with interviews of players who participated in that game, including Tommie Lee, who played for Harvard. The interviews are fascinating - players revealing their thoughts and feelings about that day - the game is remarkable, and the film footage, which includes most of the game, is clear as a bell. I advise all the many football-loving fans on this site to pick up the DVD, which is for sale at Amazon. I've never heard of a single fan who wasn't blown away by the insane ending of this game and the revealing interviews of the former players, all reflecting back 40 years or so on that game. It was also the last time an Ivy league team would make the top 20.

Anyone here who hasn't seen it should. You won't be disappointed, I guarantee.

 

[shamrock]

I know this is a Babe Ruth thread, but are there any other records as unreachable as Cy Young's 511 career wins? There's a lot of individual and career marks in baseball that may never be surpassed -- including Ty Cobb's .366 career batting average -- but I don't see anyone ever topping Young in the wins department.

Impossible to top 511 wins unless they go to year-round ball in the future and pitchers start going every fourth day again. Maybe one day baseball will continue in the winter in Mexico or in Hawaii. Year-round ball might mean a great pitcher could put up 25 or 26 wins a year for 20+ years. Who knows?

Records are made to be broken, they say. I never thought Montana's 4 Super Bowls could be topped, or Ruth's 714 HRs, or Cobb's 4,191 base hits. Surely no one will top Tom Brady's seven Super Bowls, yet we cannot predict how future changes in football might affect that. Still, Cy's 511 must be as safe as anything I can possibly imagine.

 

[Carolina Speed]

I know this is a Babe Ruth thread, but are there any other records as unreachable as Cy Young's 511 career wins? There's a lot of individual and career marks in baseball that may never be surpassed -- including Ty Cobb's .366 career batting average -- but I don't see anyone ever topping Young in the wins department.

Cal Ripken's 2,632 straight games played will never be broken.
Nolan Ryan's 5,714 strikeouts will never be broken.
Chief Wilson's 36 triples in one season.
Pete Rose's 4,256 career hits
Babe Ruth's 177 runs scored in a single season (Modern Era). Billy Hamilton scored 198 in 1894.

Didn't we do a thread on this one time?
Nice to revisit. I enjoy baseball stats.

 

[Don Wassall]

Yes, CS, I remember a thread about unreachable marks, but with baseball it's always fun to talk about records and compare players and teams from the past to today's virtually fundamentals-free product.

Baseball is unique compared to just about all other sports in that many of its most hallowed records are from generations ago, though players like Ripken, Ryan and Rose are from the lifetimes of many if not most of today's fans. Gives the early players an aura and mystique they no longer have in other sports, where for example in basketball we occasionally see commercials and movies mocking players from the '40s and '50s as small, slow, uncoordinated, and of course way too White.

 

[white is right]

Yes, CS, I remember a thread about unreachable marks, but with baseball it's always fun to talk about records and compare players and teams from the past to today's virtually fundamentals-free product.

Baseball is unique compared to just about all other sports in that many of its most hallowed records are from generations ago, though players like Ripken, Ryan and Rose are from the lifetimes of many if not most of today's fans. Gives the early players an aura and mystique they no longer have in other sports, where for example in basketball we occasionally see commercials and movies mocking players from the '40s and '50s as small, slow, uncoordinated, and of course way too White.

Yes baseball is among the few sports where the best player in history is from an era that isn't close to the modern era. Until the PED era records stood for generations literally and milestones of 3000 hits, 300 wins, 500 home runs were as big news as record breaking event.

The only records in baseball that have been shattered without the probable aid of PED's are strikeout records and save records which have been broken and advanced similar to passing records in football.

I think the steals record of Henderson looks safe too as small ball really isn't played anymore.

I'm not too sure that a MLB Ichiro type of player couldn't challenge Rose' record but he would need to age like fine wine and hit the majors at a similar age to Yount or Griffey jr and avoid the injury bug like Griffey fell to.

 

[shamrock]

Yes, CS, I remember a thread about unreachable marks, but with baseball it's always fun to talk about records and compare players and teams from the past to today's virtually fundamentals-free product.

Baseball is unique compared to just about all other sports in that many of its most hallowed records are from generations ago, though players like Ripken, Ryan and Rose are from the lifetimes of many if not most of today's fans. Gives the early players an aura and mystique they no longer have in other sports, where for example in basketball we occasionally see commercials and movies mocking players from the '40s and '50s as small, slow, uncoordinated, and of course way too White.

Yes, Don, those commercials and movies are so disgusting. That's why I'm so happy to see the many white champion boxers today. We see them from the Ukraine and other Eastern European nations as well as from Britain. The 21st- century heavyweight division has been dominated by whites - both Klitschkos and Tyson Fury. We'll never again see a white American champ because we just have it too good for our boys to be willing to get their faces smashed in for a buck, but I'm gratified about the white champs from other nations.

We hear a lot of people saying how weak boxing has become, but that's just because Americans aren't doing much any more. Tyson Fury is a formidable champ. Canelo and GGG have been superb fighters. Lomachenko is brilliant. I don't see Ali or any of the black American fighters that the media so loves being able to beat Fury. And, of course, the greatest football player in history is white and still playing today. And Mike Trout may well prove to be the greatest baseball player in history. All this bugs the blacks and depresses the media.