Today's game versus the early part of the century

[DodgerBlue8188]

I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately. I keep wondering how players from the 20's,30's and 40's were do against todays players.

Now days you have situational lefties, a bullpen, in depth scouting reports, players being advanced at a much younger age.

In the early part of the century you had heavier bats, higher mound, spit balls, 12 bus trips from city to city versus 3 hour flights, career ending injuries that would take 6 months to heel now because of surgery.

I was hoping to learn more based on posts from you all because this is something I'd like to learn more about.

One arguement I've heard is that nobody will ever hit .400 again because of the way pitching has became so important and advanced compared to decades ago.

Then you have the argument that if the field demensions would the same years ago as they were not Babe Ruth might have hit 104 home runs in 1921.

But you also have the rule that foul balls were not counted as strikes for part of the dead ball era.

[DTF955]

(Looks at title, wonders if he should say something. Decides to let OP figure it out )

I think players from 100 years ago tended to be much better at fundamentals. If we presume that they are given all the requisite chances to get as fit as today's players are - provided they're not the ones with artifical flavors - I think they'd do quite well.

the natural strength of some of them would probably amaze the modern ones. They had to have much tougher jobs in the offseason, jobs which really built their muscles. But, OTOH, that alone didn't get one into baseball shape. Today's players can condition all year 'round. So, despite being less able fundamentally, I thikn todays would be a lot better..

It reminds of a comment about putting the first 1,000 yard rusher into the NFL in 1981. It was in "The Hidden game of Football, I think. It talked about how the game had changed, how he would have changed with it, and all sorts of things, and concluded by saying that if he'd grown up and become a rookie in 1981, he might not have been the player he was - but he might just be George Rogers (who did lead the league in rushing as a rookie, just like that guy did when he first ran for 1000 yards.)

And, seriously, I find myself doing the same thing at times - even started to write 19 in a check once within a last few years. :-)

[Buzzaldrin]

I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately. I keep wondering how players from the 20's,30's and 40's were do against todays players.

But you also have the rule that foul balls were not counted as strikes for part of the dead ball era.

The foul strike rule was passed in the NL in 1901 and the AL in 1903. It was not part of the dead ball era because it was in large part responsible for creating the dead ball era.

Players are bigger and stronger now because those are controllable and trainable things, but one thing that has not changed whatsoever since the 1800s is hand-eye coordination. That's the same as it was in the 1870s, pretty much.

In the 1890s, you had no radio, no tv, no internet, no movies, no cars, not even a whole lot of electric lighting. i think you'll find that, for the players before 1900, their diversions (when they weren't booze or girl related) were...well, playing baseball...like, all the time. What better training for baseball is there? There is no reason in the world to assume that Dan Brouthers or Joe Jackson could not hit Johan Santana as well or as poorly as they hit John Clarkson or Ed Walsh. Considering that for Brouthers the ball was coming from five feet closer (ten when he broke in (no, not 10'6" and 15'6")) and for Jackson the spitball and emery ball were popular, and one ball was used for a whole game until it was oblong and brown, they faced hardships we can't even imagine.

I think players who played baseball (from any era) because it was either a huge passion or a way to escape abject poverty would have an advantage over other players (also from any era) because if you're playing to fill your swimming pool, some ghetto kid like Ruth is gonna make you look silly.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

We've had this debate many times before here at BBF. I think the old time stars do get underrated a bit but when folks start making claims that Babe Ruth would hit 80-100 HRs in a season in today's game I have to scratch my head.

[AJbaseball00024]

Pitchers mostly have seven innings of pitching time at the max these days. Back in the days they have pitchers do nine innings of work. Also, with the lighter bats and stronger players of today (some due to steroids), more home runs are hit. Back in the day, stadiums were designed to give hittters like Babe Ruth a chance to hit more home runs.

[Buzzaldrin]

Back in the day, stadiums were designed to give hittters like Babe Ruth a chance to hit more home runs.

No they weren't.

[TonyK]

Suppose the only popular team professional sport today was baseball. Assume football was still only played by college elite and basketball was never invented. All of the minor sports such as lacrosse, soccer, track, etc. were even less popular.

That means every decent high school athlete would be trying out for the HS Varsity baseball team. These teams would be stacked. If you are shaking your head now, there are too many HS kids playing other sports who were LL All Stars when they were 12. The talent at the college and minor league level would be tremendous. Players from other countries might not even make ML teams. Thousands of semi-pro teams would entertain small town fans. The whole country would shut down the week of the World Series.

But times have changed. Modern ballplayers deserve credit for their hard work and ability to focus on learning their craft. Who knows what would have happened to them if they were back in 1909 competing for a spot on the local semi-pro club. Some would dominate and some might not fare as well. Same with the players of old appearing today.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

Back in the day, stadiums were designed to give hittters like Babe Ruth a chance to hit more home runs.

Any other genius insights?