Athletic conditioning has definitely improved over the decades. If you look at a tape of an old basketball game, you would really want to throw up - nowhere near the skill level and coordination on display back then as is standard now. Nowadays the players are too big for the court. And football? Just the size of the linemen tells the tale, and the fact that they are so much faster than in the past.I don’t believe that you can compare baseball players from different eras, either - IMHO the strike zone is much smaller than in the past, so it takes much better control and stuff to be a mediocre pitcher than in the past. And the batters are facing different pitching - and especially are not facing tired starting pitchers in the late innings unless the guy is pitching a shutout. So batters have to solve more different pitchers in a given game.
I hope that soon the calling of balls and strikes will be mechanized, so that a strike will be a strike and a ball will be a ball. As it is, each umpire has his own strike zone - at best. At worst, he is unable to be consistent. And at some level inconsistency is inevitable when the judgement is made by a person. Remember that the pitcher’s objective is not to groove a pitch but to make every pitch a difficult call for the batter, and thus for the umpire.
No argument from me there.
But the point is that professional sports are a full time job now. With rare exceptions, the guys aren't human, they are machines. Even one of my all-time favorites, Sammy Sosa, was transformed from a super nice kid to a steriod shooting schlub in a few short years.
A couple years ago, I went to a program put on by the 1960 World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates. Vernon Law was the featured speaker that particular day. It was a real eye-opener.
Law's residence was a walk-up apartment close enough so he could walk to the ballpark or take the team bus to the airport or railroad station for the away games. ElRoy Face, the great relief pitcher on that team, was a union carpenter in the off-season. Everyone had an off-season job. The fans loved the players because they could identify with them.
We asked Vern what the Pirates paid him to show up for this particular promotion. He replied "airline tickets for my wife and I, a week's lodging and meals in a nice downtown Pittsburgh motel, a couple hundred dollars in spending money and taxi vouchers and, most of all, the chance to meet the fans, former neighbors and friends in a city I grew to love and where my kids got their start." Can you imagine any of today's stars doing the same?
Interesting that you should mention basketball. IMHO, it is the only sport which loses more appeal as the level of competition goes up. 5'8" kids making three pointers in a high school game is very exciting. 15' guys dunking baskets in the NBA is ho-hum.
Put today's modern players in the conditions of a generation ago and see if they would be even able to put up with it mentally. Put the great players of a generation or two ago in the conditions of today and I have no doubt that they would rise to and exceed the abilities of modern players.
Yeah, physical conditioning is a big part of the game, but so is mental toughness and attitude. Babe Ruth wasn't loved just because he was a great player, but also because he had a great attitude toward the game and especially toward kids off the field.
They actually had to dribble and couldn't travel or carry the ball back then.
Put the best team of today against a team from the past...and play by the rules as enforced then...and the old timers win every time. IMHO, of course