The Monuments Men: MLB

When we talk about the greatest ever in sports, we always seem to focus on the era that the current 30 and 40 year olds watched growing up (probably because most people around that age work in the sports media). In basketball, it’s Magic, Larry and Michael. Football talks about Montana, Elway and Rice. Baseball is a different animal, though. It's the oldest sport that's been in the mainstream of American culture, so our field of players to choose from is quite large. Also, we start in 1907 when choosing different players. No other sport travels back that far to discuss the greats. When creating this idea of a Mt. Rushmore for each of the four major sports, I knew baseball would be the hardest to select. So, I'm calling in the Sports Microcosm baseball expert, my former roommate, and co-host on Apt 11 Sports, Kyle Holmgren to fill in the list. But first, let me add one piece to the mountain and discuss the most insane period of the sport: the steroid era.  

Pumped Up on Baseball

The era of baseball that I grew up watching is now marred with asterisks, medical acronyms, and a blanket of fog over all accomplishments during the time period. During this era, several guys dominated. One who started out as a skinny kid in Pittsburgh became a behemoth in the bay area. Of course I’m talking about Home Run King, Barry Bonds. In a 22-year career he hit 762 home runs, which is the most by any player in any era. "He was on steroids, though!" Yes, we are all aware of that. He never failed a test, though. And unlike the Baseball Hall of Fame, I'm not going to choose to ignore one of the most popular eras of the sport. It was definitely the most exciting era. Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGuire went year after year drilling 50+ homers and having us tune in every game they played to see who moved into the lead that day. Also, to Bonds' credit, he was an MVP player prior to hitting 500 foot jacks every night. In Pittsburgh, Bonds was a finalist for the MVP his final 3 seasons there, winning the award twice. His first year in San Francisco is when his numbers ballooned. Is that the moment that we want to mark as the start of steroid usage? Maybe he started in 1990 and it took a little time for his power to hit astronomical numbers? The point is that we'll never get specifics unless he decides to come out and say when he started, how long he used for and even then we don't know what he would have achieved without them. The man was walked almost 20 percent of his plate appearances. Intentionally walked 26 percent of all his walks. He finished his career with almost 3,000 hits and 2,000 RBIs. Removed from the era, Barry Bonds is arguably one of the best batters to ever step to the plate. While nobody else wants to acknowledge the period, I don't care about the sanctity of baseball as much as the next guy and Barry Bonds is going on my list. His head’s nearly the size of the actual Mt. Rushmore so it’ll fit right up there with the rest of the faces. Or maybe it'll end up as a statue to Barry because everyone else will complain about being put on a list with him. Now, here's Kyle to give you some insight on the history of the game and who he selects as his Top-3 MLB players of all-time.

I get to pick my Top-3 MLB players of all-time? Not exactly an easy task. As Tim said, we’ve got to go all the way back to 1907 when we start looking for our guys. Now I’m a little more of a purist than my former roommate and I care a little more about the sanctity of baseball. Would Bonds make my list? No, but this isn’t my blog so I’ll take what I can get with three of the four picks. It’s so hard to pick with all of the amazing baseball players that have come and gone over the years. Bob Feller, pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, won 25 games in 1941 and 26 games in 1946. He had a bit of a slump while he was in WWII. Hank Aaron and his home runs make him one of the greats. Jackie Robinson is honored across the league once a year for the contribution that he made to baseball and to the entire country. More recently, Derek Jeter decides to retire after the most impressive career I’ve seen in my lifetime. If I had to pick just three…

The Obvious Choice

Let’s play a game. I’ll say something and you tell me the first thing that comes to mind. Ready? Best baseball player ever. I’ll bet the name Babe Ruth crossed your mind just now. If he’s not number one on your list, he should be pretty high. Ruth finished his 22 year career with 714 home runs, almost 3,000 hits, and over 2,200 RBIs. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? One thing that differentiates Ruth from almost every other player was his play on the field before all the home runs and the fame. Before his Yankee days, he was a world class pitcher for the Red Sox. Ruth made all but seven of his starts from 1915 to 1919. In that time he started 139 games and of those 139 games he won 87. That’s about 63% if you were looking for a number. In the 1916 season he had 23 wins with an ERA of 1.75 and 24 wins with an ERA of 2.01 in 1917. If he did nothing else for the rest of his career he’d be a great player. The numbers are all well and good but it’s what Ruth did to the game that puts him on the list of the best ever. He was one of the architects of the way the game is played today. All of those steroids that Tim talked about up there, that started with Ruth. I’m not saying Babe Ruth was on the juice, but he did start a trend that still exists in baseball today. McGuire, Sosa and Bonds were all chasing an idea that Ruth helped build. The home run hitter is king. The Yankees even built their new stadium to allow for more home runs from their lineup of power hitters. The game is dominated by home runs and all of that started with George Herman Ruth.

The Georgia Peach

When Babe Ruth started hitting 40 or 50 plus home runs in the 1920s, a completely different kind of baseball player was dominating the game about 600 miles to the west, in Detroit. It has famously been said that the best hitters in the game fail seven times out of ten. During the 1911, 1912 and 1922 seasons, this man only failed six times out of ten. Ty Cobb still has the best career batting average in the history of baseball. He hit .366 over 24 seasons. The only time he hit less than .300 was his rookie season in 1905 and he only had 150 AB that season anyway. He set upwards of 90 records in his illustrious career and a few of them still stand today including that .366 career average. A record that begins to illustrate the way that Ty Cobb played the game of baseball is the record for most times stealing home. He did it 54 times. He stole home, 54 times. He won nine batting titles in a row and a couple more outside of those. Out of his 4,189 hits, Ty Cobb only hit 117 home runs. There is a legend that surrounds a two game stretch Cobb played during the 1925 season. In those two games, Cobb hit five home runs. If you were paying attention a couple sentences ago, this was not his normal game plan. According to legend, Cobb told reporters to pay close attention because he was going to try something new that day. He said that for the first time in his life, he was going to actually try to hit home runs. He wanted to prove to them that he could hit for power if he wanted to. Whether or not he actually told reporters that before the two games is still debated. What’s not debated was Cobb’s hatred for everything Ruthian post 1920. He thought the great desire for home runs killed all the strategy in the game. If you don’t think that’s the case, look at how different the play is in the National and American leagues today.

The Best of Both Worlds

There was one man who came into the batter’s box with some of the attributes of both Ruth and Cobb. That man was Ted Williams. Williams started his career about a decade after Ruth and Cobb had finished theirs. He is the last man to hit .400 over an entire season. He finished his career with a batting average of .344 and an on base percentage of .482. His career OBP is a record that still stands today. He had the average like Cobb, so what made him like Ruth? Williams finished his 19 year career with 521 home runs. He’s not in the 700 club, but those guys never hit .400. Williams was obsessed with hitting. In 1970, he wrote a book called The Science of Hitting. That’s what hitting was to him, a science. He broke it down into its different pieces and perfected all of them. He used a lighter bat, allowing him to swing faster. He was said to have told his teammates not to leave their bats on the ground because they might absorb moisture, making them heavier. While he was playing left field in front of the massive Green Monster at Fenway Park, he would practice his swing by looking at his shadow as he went through his movement. He lived for hitting. It was his life. Williams was criticized for being selfish with his batting. He wouldn’t swing at a bad pitch to put the ball in play and advance the runner. His argument was basically that it was stupid to swing at a pitch outside the strike zone because his average dropped dramatically. Williams is considered by many to be the best hitter of all time, and that’s why he’s making it up on Mt. Rushmore.

The Lineup

Thanks to Kyle for pinch hitting on the blog today and giving us some insight on his greats of baseball. We know that you probably have 15 other guys you think are worthy of the Mt. Rushmore, and we agree that they’re worthy but these are the choices. Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Lou Gehrig, Stan Musial, Cy Young, and the rest of the crew all made major contributions to the game, but when you have to pick 4, things get hard. Then when taking away a spot for someone else to put the best player of the steroid era to make a point, it’s ever harder. All of the 4 major sports have been covered and tomorrow I’ll stack up the best from each sport to choose the Final 4 on the American Pro Sports Mt. Rushmore.