Barry Bonds vs Hank Aaron

[SHOELESSJOE3]

I think that the idea of old time players being humbled by today's game is due to shortsightedness on people's part. We tend to think of 1900 as the beginning of time, and act as though men 'evolved' from that time into a superior 'modern' man. It seems laughable, but it seems as though that's how some people think. So, somehow, in a 100 or so year time frame, the human race has evolved into superior athletes? What about the thousands of years before that? If humans developed as athletes as quickly as these people claim, then the people of 400 or 500 years ago would not even be as children compared to the modern man. If you heard someone from 1850 saying that the 'modern' man was superior athletically to the men of 1750, you'd laugh. Well guess what, it's the same concept.

The best athletes of 1900 were every bit as good as the best athletes of 2012. To argue against such a statement is akin to saying that men of a few hundred years ago were all weak and couldn't run at all, and that we will become a race of superhumans in another couple hundred years.

I think thats what being missed here. The discussion is not about the average player of the past, it's a select group, Wagner, Cobb, Ruth and some others. So though they might not stand out or be as dominant in todays game because the quality of players in general is higher we can't just write them off and say, they might not be able to play at high level today, may not even make it today. No one would debate that the average player of today is better conditioned than the average player of the past.

I find the Ruth being a modern day Steve Balboni or some saying he might not even make the starting nine on some teams to be a joke. Even if one thinks it would be a different Ruth in todays game, how can anyone buy Balboni and even worst Ruth being a bench player. If Ruth could have a problem making a team today, what does that say for some other great and the very good ballplayers from the past, none from the past could play today, silly.
I still rank him at the top and have repeated he would not be as dominent today but to some, thats not enough, they want to make a legit heavyweight hitter form the past into a modern day lightweight.

Is it that difficult to believe that some players born around 1900 could be born with some of the qualities that make them very good and great at the game.
I also don't buy the nonsense about moving past greats in to todays game as is If they were playing today they would and should be judged as benefitting from all of todays advancements, same as todays's players.

[Ubiquitous]

Clarify this. I believe that something like half of the top 30 or 40 players by WAR since 1950 have been black. How is that due to selection bias?

If you had a league with 500 black players from all over the country and then slowly added 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, so on and so on up to about 100 of the very best white players would you think that whites are dominating the league? If half of the best 30 or 40 players since whites integrated the black league happened to be white would that be further proof that whites are dominating the league?

[Ubiquitous]

The best athletes of 1900 were every bit as good as the best athletes of 2012.

Well, no they weren't and for the most part it has little to do with genetics. You are right in that evolution doesn't work that quickly but an environment can change very rapidly. We have come along way since 1900 in terms of medical care, nutrition, and just generally avoiding many toxic and destructive forces to the human body.

[brett]

Cobb's walk rate was actually significantly above the league average during his time in the AL. About the 65th percentile.

How do you arrive at this? Cobb had a .434 on base percentage and .366 batting average giving a difference of .434-.366=.068, or 6.8% of his plate appearances that he got on base by walk or HBP. His league had a .341 on base percentage and a .273 batting average for a difference of .341-.273 or .068, the same rate as Cobb.

So as far as walks + HBP per plate appearance, he was average. We could see him as being a little "better" because he had fewer non-hit plate appearances with which to draw the walks.

Cobb also only produced slightly above the league rate of total bases per hit. The league went 1.34 and Cobb 1.39.

[brett]

If you had a league with 500 black players from all over the country and then slowly added 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, so on and so on up to about 100 of the very best white players would you think that whites are dominating the league? If half of the best 30 or 40 players since whites integrated the black league happened to be white would that be further proof that whites are dominating the league?

No because only 15-20% of the population is black and over 50% is white.

[brett]

Well, no they weren't and for the most part it has little to do with genetics. You are right in that evolution doesn't work that quickly but an environment can change very rapidly. We have come along way since 1900 in terms of medical care, nutrition, and just generally avoiding many toxic and destructive forces to the human body.

Which is exactly why we are genetically weaker. Evolution does work that fast. If you remove the evolutionary pressures on circa 1900 Americans when over half of the population died in childhood, you get a much weaker gene pool within a couple of generations. If you don't have to work hard to survive, you get a lot of people alive who would have died 100 years ago. If we returned to 19th century conditions a huge percentage of the living population would be eliminated from the gene pool. Also while our nutrition got a lot better for a long time, we have dietary staples like high fructose corn syrup, white bread, corn starch, and most vegitable oils that should only be minor part of our diets, as well as grain fed beef which basically comes from animals forced to the point of diabetes.

[Joltin' Joe]

I still have this book "The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball" which may be the first baseball book I ever bought as a little kid back in 1976. There is a section titled, "Black, Latin, White Report" in which they break up stats by race. Anyways to give you a little example from the book...

Batting averages/Sugging Averages

1947-1960
White: .261/.393
Black: .280/.455
Latin: .267/.385

1961-1968
White: .251/.380
Black: .269/.421
Latin: .267/.380

1969-1976
White: .252/.368
Black: .271/.414
Latin: .265/.366

Also interesting is that between 1969 to 1976, Whites had 555,672 ABs and Blacks had 279,530 ABs which represented far more ABs by Blacks than would be indicated by the population in the US.

[BigRon]

How do you arrive at this? Cobb had a .434 on base percentage and .366 batting average giving a difference of .434-.366=.068, or 6.8% of his plate appearances that he got on base by walk or HBP. His league had a .341 on base percentage and a .273 batting average for a difference of .341-.273 or .068, the same rate as Cobb.

So as far as walks + HBP per plate appearance, he was average. We could see him as being a little "better" because he had fewer non-hit plate appearances with which to draw the walks.

Cobb also only produced slightly above the league rate of total bases per hit. The league went 1.34 and Cobb 1.39.

Brett, I'm surprised- you're usually on top of calculations. Your math on Cobb's walks is off- how you calculated it is incorrect. To cut to the chase, Cobb walked 1249 times in 13077 PAs- about 9.4% of his PAs. He also was HBP 94 times, for a total of 1343 walks + HBP- about 10.2% of his career PAs. I didn't bother to look up the AL walk rates for his time, though I did it years ago. Cobb DID walk a fair amount more than league average- without looking it up I'd guess at least 25
% more than average.

[csh19792001]

You do bring up a great point here about being polluted over the past 15 years or so. I did run a high estimate on home runs for Cobb since I have him playing a ridiculous amount of games with the newer 162 game schedule. After all, he played over 3000 games during his 24 years in the bigs. Thus, I have him playing about 150 extra games nowadays with about 12000 total at-bats, which breaks down to a home run every 21.8 at-bats. That might be giving him too much credit. I see your point there. But 550 HRs doesn't look so great now when 12000 at-bats are needed to achieve it.

Someone in Cobb's family started a petition of sorts in 85' when Rose was approaching the record, citing the fact that Pete had been bequeathed with the opportunity to play over 180 more career games just by virtue of 23 years under the 162 game schedule. I think Rose's 4256 record is pretty bogus for a several reasons, this being one of them.

"The Validity of 4256"

For what it's worth- and I think it is worth quite a bit of consideration- here is Cobb's career in a completely neutral run scoring environment, under the 162 game schedule (courtesy of baseball-reference.com)

Year 	Age 	G 	PA 	AB 	R 	H 	2B 	3B 	HR 	RBI 	SB 	BB 	SO 	BA 	OBP 	SLG 	OPS 	RC 	Gact
1905 	18 	43 	176 	161 	23 	41 	7 	0 	1 	18 	2 	11 	24 	.255 	.302 	.317 	.619 	16 	41
1906 	19 	104 	432 	391 	56 	132 	18 	6 	1 	42 	27 	22 	43 	.338 	.379 	.422 	.801 	61 	98
1907 	20 	158 	702 	660 	120 	247 	33 	16 	6 	147 	62 	28 	57 	.374 	.405 	.500 	.905 	131 	150
1908 	21 	156 	692 	630 	113 	222 	43 	24 	5 	138 	46 	40 	43 	.352 	.397 	.521 	.918 	128 	150
1909 	22 	163 	720 	631 	149 	258 	39 	12 	11 	138 	91 	57 	47 	.409 	.463 	.561 	1.024 	162 	156
1910 	23 	144 	632 	539 	124 	217 	39 	15 	9 	106 	73 	72 	46 	.403 	.476 	.581 	1.057 	148 	140
1911 	24 	154 	671 	607 	141 	246 	47 	24 	8 	122 	82 	44 	45 	.405 	.452 	.601 	1.054 	162 	146
1912 	25 	146 	642 	583 	129 	241 	32 	25 	7 	89 	65 	46 	32 	.413 	.461 	.590 	1.051 	157 	140
1913 	26 	128 	549 	466 	83 	191 	21 	18 	5 	80 	58 	66 	33 	.410 	.488 	.564 	1.052 	126 	122
1914 	27 	100 	447 	369 	83 	145 	25 	13 	2 	69 	40 	65 	23 	.393 	.492 	.547 	1.039 	97 	98
1915 	28 	163 	745 	597 	159 	226 	34 	14 	3 	110 	104 	128 	45 	.379 	.496 	.497 	.993 	145 	156
1916 	29 	151 	689 	583 	136 	229 	35 	11 	6 	82 	77 	89 	40 	.393 	.475 	.521 	.996 	144 	145
1917 	30 	158 	736 	642 	135 	265 	52 	28 	7 	128 	65 	72 	35 	.413 	.476 	.614 	1.089 	186 	152
1918 	31 	142 	646 	571 	134 	239 	28 	21 	4 	103 	50 	61 	27 	.419 	.477 	.562 	1.039 	153 	111
1919 	32 	143 	647 	589 	118 	235 	44 	16 	1 	89 	34 	47 	25 	.399 	.444 	.533 	.977 	140 	124
1920 	33 	118 	514 	446 	86 	146 	29 	8 	2 	63 	15 	59 	29 	.327 	.408 	.442 	.850 	80 	112
1921 	34 	135 	588 	515 	113 	189 	35 	15 	12 	92 	21 	54 	20 	.367 	.430 	.563 	.993 	124 	128
1922 	35 	143 	632 	544 	100 	215 	43 	16 	4 	100 	9 	56 	25 	.395 	.455 	.555 	1.010 	137 	137
1923 	36 	153 	671 	578 	102 	192 	41 	7 	6 	87 	9 	67 	15 	.332 	.404 	.458 	.863 	106 	145
1924 	37 	163 	745 	644 	109 	208 	37 	10 	4 	75 	23 	84 	19 	.323 	.402 	.430 	.832 	112 	155
1925 	38 	127 	495 	422 	89 	151 	30 	12 	12 	94 	13 	63 	13 	.358 	.447 	.571 	1.018 	105 	121
1926 	39 	83 	283 	242 	47 	80 	18 	5 	4 	61 	9 	26 	2 	.331 	.398 	.496 	.894 	47 	79
1927 	40 	139 	577 	495 	93 	166 	30 	7 	5 	83 	21 	64 	13 	.335 	.417 	.455 	.871 	92 	133
1928 	41 	100 	402 	363 	51 	112 	27 	4 	1 	38 	6 	33 	17 	.309 	.373 	.413 	.786 	55 	95
       24 Yrs 	3214 	14033 	12268 	2493 	4593 	787 	327 	126 	2154 	1002 	1354 	718 	*.374* 	.441 	.523 	.963 	2814 	3034
162 Game Avg. 	162 	707 	618 	126 	232 	40 	16 	6 	109 	51 	68 	36 	.374 	.441 	.523 	.963 	142 	3034

2500 runs and 4600 hits. And a .374 career batting average. (Yes, this is hypothetical, but it is illustrative, to a point)

When we talk about Rose...and this is something else to strongly consider- and this should probably be its own thread- is that I'd bet a large sum of money that Rose was a juicer. The bulk of the evidence points to it, from the gym he worked out at...the felons and thugs (drug dealing bodybuilders) he consorted with on a daily basis for years.... his obsession with lifting way before it was in vogue...being willing to do "absolutely anything to get an edge and win" (his own self-proclamation), to his ridiculous longevity and incredibly short recovery time with injuries. This is a guy who is clearly completely unconscionable and devoid of pretty much any semblance of integrity... especially regarding any rules/mores of the game and the institution of baseball.

Add to that, he was the biggest "stat expletive" that ever played this game. I've seen several videos of him from 79'-83'...he knew exactly how many hits he had at all times, had projections on when he was going to pass each guy (he had all their exact totals memorized, too). He wanted to rack up all the NL records, as well, and after he broke the hit record in Sept 85', he said that he would "definitely" also be passing Cobb for the all time record in runs scored. Sheer ignorance coupled with boundless arrogance.

I get a great deal of satisfaction feeling that he'll never have a prayer of getting into Cooperstown.

[csh19792001]

I think he might have been a LITTLE more like a cross between a healthy Brett and Gwynn's run in the mid 90's though-placing more hits, but driving the ball from time to time. Maybe Brett's power and Gwynn's averages with Ichiro's baserunning.

Well said, Brett. One point I might raise, though, is that Ichiro is not a great baserunner. He's not even particularly good, in fact. I've been one of his biggest fans over the years here, but the fact is he simply does not play HARD, like McRae, Pujols, Brett, Mays, Brett Butler and the other fantastic baserunners I've seen and read about. Ichiro is a tremendous basestealer, but not nearly aggressive enough on the basepaths. He may be afraid of injuries; I don't know.

Excerpt from our latest baserunning thread

RE: "EXTRA BASES TAKEN PERCENTAGE"
Mays was regularly above 65% per season (most guys never even approach that)...and several times around however around 75%.

I just went down the list of SB leaders since 1950, just to see who fell where:

Bert Campaneris: 60%
Willie Wilson: 58% (one year, he was on first 12 times when a double was hit, and scored all 12 times!!!)
Rickey Henderson: 55%
Kenny Lofton: 55% *best % for a full season I've seen, 78% in 1993 he went First to Third 29 of 36 times!!!)
George Brett: 54%
Brett Butler: 54%
Maury Wills: 53%
Ozzie Smith: 53%
Lou Brock: 53%
Vince Coleman: 53%
Joe Morgan: 51%
Hank Aaron: 51%
Tim Raines: 50%

Active:
Juan Pierre 51%
Reyes: 51%
Rollins 48%
Crawford: 46%
Jeter: 46%
Ichiro: 41%

[csh19792001]

Granted, the pitchers were probably only throwing 85-95(100 mph was highly unlikely, except for possibly Sir Walter)during Babe's day with less stuff, but better control.

Which harkens one of our classic, VINTAGE thread here!

Did Pitchers of Yesteryear Throw With "Much Less" Velocity Than They Do Today?

Enjoy, Pheasant (and all those who may not have had a chance to particulate in and/or pour over that thread...)

[csh19792001]

My point here is not about productivity, its about the image I have of Ruth shuffling up into the pitch and trying to hit it out of the stadium.

That's the main thing I've gotten laughed at about when I try to make a case that Ruth, Cobb, Wagner were as awesome as today's greatest, if not better. People have actualy pointed to the fact that there are many clips of Ruth taking a few steps before hitting a home run. And the majority of guys had mechanics that were pretty pathetic, by today's standards.

People will say stuff like: "Have you ever actually watched those skinny little out of shape white guys RUN, Chris? You've gotta be kidding if you think Babe Ruth or Ty Cobb was anywhere near Barry Bonds or Albert Pujols."

Does this "prove" anything? No, but it strongly suggests certain likelihoods, namely, that pre integration players may not have been anywhere near as great as people like you and I have always believed, because of their stats and ungodly accomplishments.

And I absolutely agree with Honus Wagner Rules. We can't time machine these guys, or say, "Well, Ruth didn't have advantages A, B, C, D that are conferred to today's guys". If you time machine him and totally alter the historical realities of his particular instantiation and context (1914-35 MLB), then he isn't Babe Ruth anymore!! Babe Ruth is not extant.

So nothing is gained by grasping at such straws, and going back and forth for years here by saying, "Well, Ruth faced significant inferior opposing players and pitchers on average, sure, but he didn't have steroids, and lasik, and a personal trainer, and a nutritionist, and video to study opposing pitchers, and his own jet, etc. etc. etc."

Waste of time, my friends.

[brett]

Brett, I'm surprised- you're usually on top of calculations. Your math on Cobb's walks is off- how you calculated it is incorrect. To cut to the chase, Cobb walked 1249 times in 13077 PAs- about 9.4% of his PAs. He also was HBP 94 times, for a total of 1343 walks + HBP- about 10.2% of his career PAs. I didn't bother to look up the AL walk rates for his time, though I did it years ago. Cobb DID walk a fair amount more than league average- without looking it up I'd guess at least 25
% more than average.

OK, my main error is that batting average is not over all plate appearances. Also neither is OB% (it doesn't include regular sacrifices).

[Jackaroo Dave]

If you time machine him and totally alter the historical realities of his particular instantiation and context (1914-35 MLB), then he isn't Babe Ruth anymore!! Babe Ruth is not extant.

Reading the whole thread was worth it to get to this.

[csh19792001]

How do you arrive at this?

http://seamheads.com/baseballgauge/player.php?ID=112431

And from Baseball-Ref..Cobb 1905-28 vs. the AL (1905-28)

                        HR% 	SO% 	BB% 	XBH% 	X/H% 	SO/BB 	AB/SO 	AB/HR 	AB/RBI
                        2.2% 	6.7% 	23.4% 	21.3% 	27% 	0.29 	21.1 	97.7 	5.9
MLB Averages 		1.5% 	15.4% 	18.6% 	13.3% 	23% 	0.83 	11.3 	141.5 	9.3

[Imapotato]

Which is exactly why we are genetically weaker. Evolution does work that fast. If you remove the evolutionary pressures on circa 1900 Americans when over half of the population died in childhood, you get a much weaker gene pool within a couple of generations. If you don't have to work hard to survive, you get a lot of people alive who would have died 100 years ago. If we returned to 19th century conditions a huge percentage of the living population would be eliminated from the gene pool. Also while our nutrition got a lot better for a long time, we have dietary staples like high fructose corn syrup, white bread, corn starch, and most vegitable oils that should only be minor part of our diets, as well as grain fed beef which basically comes from animals forced to the point of diabetes.

As someone who would have died 100 yrs ago and is in horrible shape now at age 37. I agree, that humans are becoming weaker due to the stronger genes not surviving and not populating as much as the weak ones. Poor people who get entitlement programs the more kids they have...pop out kids at a much higher rate than richer and stronger individuals who usually try to not have kids until they are older.

[SHOELESSJOE3]

That's the main thing I've gotten laughed at about when I try to make a case that Ruth, Cobb, Wagner were as awesome as today's greatest, if not better. People have actualy pointed to the fact that there are many clips of Ruth taking a few steps before hitting a home run. And the majority of guys had mechanics that were pretty pathetic, by today's standards.

People will say stuff like: "Have you ever actually watched those skinny little out of shape white guys RUN, Chris? You've gotta be kidding if you think Babe Ruth or Ty Cobb was anywhere near Barry Bonds or Albert Pujols."

Does this "prove" anything? No, but it strongly suggests certain likelihoods, namely, that pre integration players may not have been anywhere near as great as people like you and I have always believed, because of their stats and ungodly accomplishments.

And I absolutely agree with Honus Wagner Rules. We can't time machine these guys, or say, "Well, Ruth didn't have advantages A, B, C, D that are conferred to today's guys". If you time machine him and totally alter the historical realities of his particular instantiation and context (1914-35 MLB), then he isn't Babe Ruth anymore!! Babe Ruth is not extant.

So nothing is gained by grasping at such straws, and going back and forth for years here by saying, "Well, Ruth faced significant inferior opposing players and pitchers on average, sure, but he didn't have steroids, and lasik, and a personal trainer, and a nutritionist, and video to study opposing pitchers, and his own jet, etc. etc. etc."

Waste of time, my friends.

At the most I have seen one, the same one shown probably hundreds of times, Babe Ruth taking some steps into a pitch. Appears to me that some who say they saw many of these clips showing Babe stepping into a pitch to give the impresson that pitchers many times lobbed one over. So Babe had a number of chances to hit some slow pitch soft balls to hit, very doubtful. Could be an honest mistake, they think they saw "many"
Never happened many times. Think it over, why would anyone toss a soft ball pitch to the most feared hitter in the game "many times." If there are even two of these videos, I woud like to see them.

Who can say, out of frustration some pitcher might have thrown one or two of these Rip Sewell type pitches to Ruth.
What makes more sense, the most dangerous hitter in the game had a number of these pitches to hit, why would pitchers do this as a pattern............or he saw one or two of these pitches in his career, makes more sense.
As famous as Ruth was, there are not that many videos of his swing, we usually see the same few dozen swings over and over.

[SHOELESSJOE3]

."

.

And I absolutely agree with Honus Wagner Rules. We can't time machine these guys, or say, "Well, Ruth didn't have advantages A, B, C, D that are conferred to today's guys". If you time machine him and totally alter the historical realities of his particular instantiation and context (1914-35 MLB), then he isn't Babe Ruth anymore!! Babe Ruth is not extant.

.

Where is the logic here, we'll move up a past player and he will compete with modern day player but not reap any of the benefit that they do, sound fair to you.

Does it make any sense that when we say if he played today we were also considering that he was born in these recent years. Seems to me that when we think of a past player today, were not talking about a time machine, We're considering that player born much later.
It will be the same Babe that was born with any qualities, the eyes and the reflexes.. This has nothing to do with the time era you were born in, you either have the above at birth or you don't.

[bluesky5]

So when deciding Aaron v. Bonds did anyone actually take into account that Aaron is a full 30 years older than Bonds?

Those who subscribe to the huge generational talent gap idea -- how much ground does Aaron or Mays lose to Bonds talent wise being born 30 years earlier?

[Ubiquitous]

No because only 15-20% of the population is black and over 50% is white.

Not in the all black league.

[Blackout]

hammerin hank!

[pheasant]

If we believe that baseball has advanced as much as track and field has, then Aaron and Mays would get destroyed by Bonds. And not only has weight training, nutrition, and technology advanced significantly since 1980, but so has the population, integration factor, and more importantly, the salaries!The average player in the early 1970s made 30000.00, which is on par with what my dad made back then as an engineer. The average salary recently crept above 3 million per year! Nowadays, you have people putting everything on the line to literally win the lottery by making it to MLB.

However, I don't necessarily believe that the advancement of baseball even comes close to mimicking that of track and field, weight lifting, or even football. For one, it's so much more of a skill game. And secondly, millions of people were playing it 90 years ago. Skill in baseball was highly honed, even 90 years ago. Even corporations had organized baseball teams. Just today, I saw Proctor and Gamble's team from circa 1920! They had nicer uniforms than the pros. And they travelled around and played other Corporations' baseball teams. My point is: Baseball was THE sport back then. Everybody played and it was extremely competitive. There were several highly skilled players.

Although the javelin comparison mentioned earlier is a very good one, I don't believe that millions of people were trying to perfect their javelin throw 90 years ago. If they had, then I believe the record wouldn't have climbed nearly as much as it did, assuming the construction of the javelin didn't change over the years.

I believe that the advancement of baseball has improved fairly similarly to the advancement of golf. I.e, the improvement curves would have similar slopes. Both of these games have been very popular for a long time. So skills were honed many years ago on perhaps at a similar level.

Can I quantify the improvement? I really can't. My gut is that 80% of the players from Ruth's era wouldn't get a job today in MLB. However, Ruth destroyed the majority of the top 20% badly. The same holds true for Cobb.

Can I prove any of this? Of course not! That's what is so fun!

With all of that said, I still have clean Bonds over Aaron.

[csh19792001]

With all of that said, I still have clean Bonds over Aaron.

Then, my brother, surely you have not have read these....

The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron

Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero

[brett]

If we believe that baseball has advanced as much as track and field has, then Aaron and Mays would get destroyed by Bonds.

In 1968 Mays was 37 years old and the 100 meter record was 9.95 seconds.
In 2002 Bonds was 37 and the record was 9.78 seconds.
That is a 1.7% improvement over a third of a century and certainly SOME of that is due to shoes, tracks and aerodynamic suits.

By WAR, Mays was responsible for about 200 total wins in his career. If we reduce that by 1.7% he loses about 3.5 war, or still finishes with just about 150 with 2 years lost to the WAR.

If he lost 1.7% of his rates, he would still have 3230 hits and 649 home runs.

In fact the surprising truth about world records in raw strength and power sports from the late part of Mays' career to the late part of Bonds career is that they did not improve except for equipment improvements.

In '68 Beamon long jumped 8.90 meters. The record today is 8.95 meters, just over half a percent farther on better tracks, with better equipment etc.

In 1977 Alexeev clean and jerked 568 for a world record. The American record as of today is 522.5 pounds set in 2004 and with some improvements in equipment.

In the early 70s Don Reinhoudt had a 3-best powerlifting total of 2427 pounds in a time before high tech suits were used to boost lift totals. The current superheavyweight champion without equipment totalled 2100 last year.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

In 1968 Mays was 37 years old and the 100 meter record was 9.95 seconds.
In 2002 Bonds was 37 and the record was 9.78 seconds.
That is a 1.7% improvement over a third of a century and certainly SOME of that is due to shoes, tracks and aerodynamic suits.

There are many caveats here. That 9.95 time was set at very high altitude in Mexico City. The 9.78 time was set at low altitude. Huge difference. And the record today is 9.58 also at low altitude.

In '68 Beamon long jumped 8.90 meters. The record today is 8.95 meters, just over half a percent farther on better tracks, with better equipment etc.

8.95 meters is 29 feet, 2-1/2 inches. Again this was set at very high altitude and was such an extreme outleir and was complete fluke. Beamon never jumped over 27 ft again after this. When the record was broken in 1991 it was broken several times at sea level. Carl Lewis jumped over 29 feet three times in his legendary battle with Mike Powell with Powell beating Lewis by setting the current long jump world record. What equipment is needed in the long jump?