Make the Argument

[AstrosFan]

I had this idea a while ago, and decided to put it into play after reading the Joe DiMaggio thread in the Hall of Fame forum.

All you have to do is make the argument that a player is the greatest ever. Use whatever you like to support your argument. Be as creative as possible. We'll start out with players who often come up in discussions of the greatest ever, and progress into more absurd choices. I'll start off by suggesting a player. Someone makes the argument for that player, and suggests a new player. We continue in that manner as long as we can.

So make the argument for...

Babe Ruth

[soberdennis]

Thank you for an easy one to start.
1. He showed that he could be very good at two very distinct positions. Noone else could argue that they could have been a HOFer as both a pitcher and a position player.
2. He was arguably the greatest homerun hitter that ever lived. Look at his HR/AB ratio.
3. A .342 lifetime BA along with all that power showed that he was more than just a HR hitter.
4. Noone has ever come close to his .690 SLG without some controversy surounding it.
5. He completely changed the way the game was played.
6. He was the greatest drawing card in the history of the game.

I could mention other things. But I think that should sufice. The Babe IMO is unquestionably the greatest there ever was.

Somebody try Ty Cobb

[cbenson5]

I'll do Ty Cobb. (I'll keep editing this post until I'm done)

I'll start off by giving some quotes of Ty Cobb by the men who watched him play.

"I never saw anyone like TY Cobb. No one even close to him as the greatest all time ballplayer. That guy was superhuman, amazing"
Casey Stengel, 1975

"The Babe was a great ballplayer, sure, but (Ty) Cobb was even greater. Babe (Ruth) could knock your brains out, but (Ty) Cobb would drive you crazy."

Tris Speaker

"(Ty) Cobb is a prick. But he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit." Babe Ruth


"I recall when Cobb played a series with each leg a mass of raw flesh. He had a temperature of 103, and the doctors ordered him to bed for several days, but he got three hits, stole three bases, and won the game."

Grantland Rice

"He does things I've never seen. And he doesn't drink at all, from what I hear" Clark Griffith


"Created or equalled more Major League records than any other player"
Hall of Fame plaque

Ty Cobb carrer stats:

Games-3035
At Bats-11429
Runs- 2245
Hits-4191
2B- 723
Triples- 297
HR- 117
RBI- 1938
TB- 5859
BB- 1249
SO- 357 (from 1913 to 1928 no records exist before these dates.)
SB- 892
OBP- .424
Slugging .513
Avg .367

These numbers are phenomenol in any era, but consider that Ty Cobb played the majority of his career in the deadball era.

Ty Cobb won 12 batting titles, including nine straight. Both of these are major league records. He is fifth in career at bats, but his .367 batting average ranks 1st all time. Among players with 5,000 or more at bats, only Rogers Hornsby is within .20 points of Ty Cobbs batting average, but Ty Cobb has over 3000 more at bats than Hornsby. Among men with ten thousand or more at bats only Tris Speaker is within .30 points of the great Cobb.

He led the league in On Base Percentage seven times.

He led the league in slugging percentage eight times.

He led the league in OPS ten times.

Runs five times.

Hits eight times.

Total Bases 6 times.

RBI's four times.

Stolen Bases six time.

Ty Cobb is undoubtably the greatest hitter of his time and one of the greatest hitters of all time. He was also an excellent fielder, but not the best of his time as that honor goes to Tris Speaker.

IMO These two categories are alone enough to put Cobb near the top, but he sets himself above any player who has ever played the game when you add in his baserunning, intelligence, and determination

Baserunning:

These quotes are taken from Cobb. Al Stump. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 1994.

Page 166

"How fast was he (Cobb) really? At Chicago he beat some of the top runners by going from home base to first in 3.5 seconds and touring four bases in 13.5 seonds." If alive today, given starting blocks, technique training, and the springy shoes of Carl Lewis, he might well be an Olympic Games prospect."

Page 123

"One day that summer Cobb was timed with a stopwatch at one hundred yards. His 10-flat sprint in uniform pants and baseball shoes compared well with world-record-holder Dan Kelly's 9.6 seconds in underwear, track shoes, and with specialized training."

How Cobb reacted to catchers puttind their masks on the baseline to impede Ty Cobb from scoring.
Page 148

In late June, against Cleveland's Harry Bemis, who was an early-day Johnny Bench at blocking home plate, Cobb went for the score with spikes out in front like lances. He knocked Bemis back several feet. The ball rolled free."

Page 165

During the 1908 World Series Ty Cobb slid into second base so hard
"that he knocked the bag from its moorings and was safe as he sent baseman Joe Tinker flying."
Ty Cobb announced his intentions before this steal and once agains announced that he would steal on the next pitch before safely taking third.

If anybody calls into question Ty Cobb intensity and determination just consider his record of stealing home 54 time.

Ty Cobb retire with both the single season and career stolen base records. These records have been broken since then, but in a much different era than when Ty Cobb ruled the base paths. Ty Cobb played in a much more physical era of baseball than the men who have surpassed his records. He did it with no sliding pads, on much rougher basepaths, and without custom made shoes.

No player can match the Georgia Peach's toughness, determintion, and agressiveness. When it comes right down to it, nobody could play every facet of the game as well as Ty Cobb. He almost single-handedly beat teams about every possible way that you can beat somebody. The first hall of famer in 1936 (getting more votes than anybody else who played the game up to that point including: Ruth, Wagner, Speaker, Hornsby, Lajoie, Sisler, Gehrig, Mathewson, Johnson, Collins, and Foxx) was the greatest then and has yet to be surpassed. Well, that's my opinion on Cobb.

Well, anybody up for arguing for Honus Wagner.