The Yankees Never Complimented Players Who Always Hustled

[LouGehrig]

When asked about today’s players, Gene Woodling made such a revealing statement when he replied, "In our day with the Yankees, you never used the words, 'Nice hustle.' That was an insult. You're supposed to run hard all the time. And we did."

http://baseball.suite101.com/article.cfm/woodling_never_say_nice_hustle

[VIBaseball]

Reading about those old Yankees, their grim and serious businesslike tone is striking. I think that legacy is still there to a degree. The Yankees are probably less prone to posing and styling than most other clubs. They just don't put guys like that on their roster.

[LouGehrig]

Because few of them exist, but to be fair, how would the old Yankees have reacted if they played under today's long term, guaranteed contracts?

[KCGHOST]

Yep, that was then and this is now. It's the typical song-and-dance of "the older I get the better I was".

[LouGehrig]

Yep, that was then and this is now. It's the typical song-and-dance of "the older I get the better I was".

Not quite. Today's pitchers are the greatest in the game's history. They throw harder, as a group, than any group in any other era.

Forget steroids as a variable. Nutrition, diet, training methods, medical procedures, etc. have allowed individuals to grow closer to their maximum genetic height and weight. Today's pitchers are bigger, stronger, and better than ever before.

Now, hitting is a reflex action. In the last 20-30 years, the above mentioned advances do not help reflexes. The hitters of today are about the same as those in the past, but the strike zone, lower mound, smaller ballparks have worked against the better pitchers to negate their physical advantages.

However, some individuals DO get better with age, and you have just finished reading a post by one of them.