Posted on 08/01/2015 4:52:36 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
In that pre-steroid era, 500 homers was a huge accomplishment, as signified by the fact that only three others had achieved it when Williams got there in '60. Gehrig couldn't, Musial couldn't. Ruth's 714 was so far out there as to be unassailable; and not to denigrate Aaron's achievement, but he had to take advantage of the new DH rule for a few years to pass the Babe.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/HR_career.shtml
Aaron passed Ruth while in the NL with no DH. I believe he played his last year with the Brewers in the AL after he had already passed Ruth.
Aaron was the best hitter in baseball history. Even though he benefitted by being a DH at the end of his career, he established all relevant milestones with the NL Braves before he DH’d for the Brewers. He passed Ruth when he played for the Braves. 3000 hits is considered an automatic ticket to Cooperstown; to get there you need 150 hits per season for 20 seasons.
If you take away Aaron’s 755 homers, he still has 3000 hits.
But I think Willie Mays was the best player. He hit for power and average for over 20 years, but the single moment he is most remembered for is a defensive play; the over-the-shoulder catch in the Polo Grounds.
Mays was the superior all-around player, no question. Three things about that catch:
1. The Giants brought in a reliever just to pitch to slugger Vic Wertz, who hit that 460' shot flagged by Willie in the '54 Serious. After Willie's splendid catch, when the reliever entered the dugout, he said, "Well, I got my man."
2. Vin Scully has always maintained that Willie agrees with him that was not his best catch; rather it was a dive on the warning track in left-center against the Dodgers in Ebbets Field.
3. Next time you see Willie's famous catch, make a point to look to his left. You'll note the center field fence just disappears--a ball could roll 600' from home plate. The reason is that was how the spectators left the Polo Grounds, because the grandstand backed into Coogan's Bluff, by walking across the field and through that center field exit. That's what led to Merkle's Boner in '08. He knew the fans were charging onto the field and he wanted to avoid being engulfed, so rather than touching second base on the batter's game-winning single he just headed straight to the dugout. Johnny Evers spotted that and did the rest.
Ruth didn’t get the 3000 hits to go with the homers. Williams would have been the best hitter if he hadn’t lost years serving his country. There is a nice exhibit at Cooperstown showing his batting average by pitch location. No surprise that a fat pitch over the heart of the plate was over .500.
Do not mention Barry Bonds as a great hitter. We will never know how good a hitter he really was. I would put Pete Rose in the HOF before Bonds. The sad thing is Bonds could have made it to Cooperstown without the “help.” My theory as to why Barry did the juice is because of the legacy of his dad, Bobby Bonds. Bobby was considered to have been an underachiever; every year he was expected to post .330/30HR/100RBI numbers but he never met those numbers. Maybe Bobby was an underachiever, maybe the expectations were unrealistic and unfair. But Barry grew up hearing those things about his dad. He was determined that nobody was going to say the same things about him.
I have been conflicted about Pete Rose for a long time. Bonds broke the rules to “help” his game, but Rose did not. In fact, unlike the Black Sox, I’m not aware of any allegation that Rose tried to throw a game to make money. It’s really sad because he is one of the very best to play a very hard game.
My dad was on a minesweeper during the war - I think it was mainly to keep our ports free as he never saw any action. His ship was the Merganser IIRC. He was based out of Einewetok for awhile.
True, sadly. I had to piece together the facts about the decision to drop the bombs for myself, like others on this forum.
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