Some Facts Straight.

[Sonny Schmidt]

Listen to me: Mickey Mantle used no steriods. Never worked out. Abused his body. Still was the GREATEST swith hitter in baseball history. Players today like A-rod and others look at how they swing the bat. They ley go with one hand and still hit the ball 400 feet. Why? Because they use weights, take steriods and todays pitchers suck. Also the fences are shorter distances. Mantle played in Yankee stadium where center fiels was 460 feet away.

[Jake Patterson]

Listen to me: Mickey Mantle used no steriods. Never worked out. Abused his body. Still was the GREATEST swith hitter in baseball history. Players today like A-rod and others look at how they swing the bat. They ley go with one hand and still hit the ball 400 feet. Why? Because they use weights, take steriods and todays pitchers suck. Also the fences are shorter distances. Mantle played in Yankee stadium where center fiels was 460 feet away.
Sonny, is this in response to something???

I was at Yankee stadium last year and saw the spot where Mickey was supposed to hit in the center field facade - absolutely awesome.

[ralanprod]

Listen to me: Mickey Mantle used no steriods. Never worked out. Abused his body. Still was the GREATEST swith hitter in baseball history. Players today like A-rod and others look at how they swing the bat. They ley go with one hand and still hit the ball 400 feet. Why? Because they use weights, take steriods and todays pitchers suck. Also the fences are shorter distances. Mantle played in Yankee stadium where center fiels was 460 feet away.

I'm trying to figure out if this is supposed to be a troll or not?

Let's see... Yep Mantle was one of the best ever, no doubt.

Letting go with one hand? Well, as long as it is after contact - it doesn't really make much of a difference. A-rod has two hands on the bat when he actually hits the ball.

I didn't realize using weights or not "abusing" their bodies was somehow "wrong". Just because the Mick liked to get hammered every night doesn't mean modern players should have to.

As for steroids, sure they have had an effect on the game. Remember though, it isn't just the batters using them.

While some parks have shorter distances now to the fences, how about right field in Yankee stadium? Yep - that's right it's longer now than when Mantle played. That's where he hit most of his home runs - while batting left handed. Center field is a monster distance though, no doubt about that. (Shorter than when Ruth and Gehrig played though if we want to be picky)

Today's pitchers suck? On a whole they are bigger, stronger and throw harder. Would some of the pitchers from Mantle's days be stars now? Probably. True talent is timeless. However you can just as easily name pitchers today that would be stars back then. Not to mention the modern influence of foreign talent. How would some of today's asian and latin american players have done in the past?

Feel free to bash today's players, but at least do it with some reasonable points.

[Sonny Schmidt]

Right field at yankee has always been 325.

[rkbenn]

Must feel good to get that off your chest.

[skipper5]

MM was The Man in my book, but let's stick with the facts.

When Mantle played at Yankee Stadium it was 312 down the LF line, and 295 down the RF line.

[scorekeeper]

http://www.themick.com/10homers.html

[Bolts-Baseball]

http://cephas.net/photos/nyc2002/DSCN0443.JPG

[scorekeeper]

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/stadium/yankee_stadium.shtml

…That's where he hit most of his home runs - while batting left handed….

Is there any database that shows where HR’s have been hit? I won’t argue where the Mick or anyone else hit most of the HR’s, but as long as I’ve watched baseball, and I saw more than a couple of Mantle’s HR’s in person, I’ve seen relatively few balls go out within 50’ of a foul pole.

[baseballislife2008]

sorry but this kid doesn't know what he's talking about. If he was an adult he would know that Yankee stadium was always 314ft.

Pitching back then was better?? LOL THAT'S HILARIOUS!!!!

[skipper5]

[QUOTE=baseballislife2008;1521258]sorry but this kid doesn't know what he's talking about. If he was an adult he would know that Yankee stadium was always 314ft.

My bad, I was incorrect. The RF corner looks to have changed from 295' from 296' mid-way through the Mick's career.

http://www.nydailynews.com/features/thestadium/the_history/stats.html

[scorekeeper]

sorry but this kid doesn't know what he's talking about. If he was an adult he would know that Yankee stadium was always 314ft.

Well, I can sure think of a lot of adults I know who don’t know the dimensions of Yankee Stadium.

Pitching back then was better?? LOL THAT'S HILARIOUS!!!!

Well, I think that depends on how “better” is defined. Try asking even the best pitchers in the game today to throw 250+ innings for 5 or 6 years in a row without having specialists to carry their a$$es, and see how well they perform in Aug thru Oct.

How good would Cy Young’s or Walter Johnson’s records look if they would have been able to bail out after the 6th or 7th every game they started?

Don’t ever try to compare players from different times in history if you don’t first define exactly how you’re comparing them. For sure its never as simple as comparing only one thing like velocity or ER, BA or RBI’s.

[baseballislife2008]

Well, I can sure think of a lot of adults I know who don’t know the dimensions of Yankee Stadium.



Well, I think that depends on how “better” is defined. Try asking even the best pitchers in the game today to throw 250+ innings for 5 or 6 years in a row without having specialists to carry their a$$es, and see how well they perform in Aug thru Oct.

How good would Cy Young’s or Walter Johnson’s records look if they would have been able to bail out after the 6th or 7th every game they started?

Don’t ever try to compare players from different times in history if you don’t first define exactly how you’re comparing them. For sure its never as simple as comparing only one thing like velocity or ER, BA or RBI’s.

I was laughing at him for comparing pitcher's from earlier. I never mentioned that it was or wasn't true.

[Baseball gLove]

Did you have too much coffee today?

[jbooth]

Right field at yankee has always been 325.

Here's the facts jack; according to the data below, right field has NEVER been 325.

Although, since the fence angles out from the foul pole, it has always been 325 somewhere in right field. Somewhere between the foul pole and the left side of the bullpen gate, it has always been 325.

Yankee stadium
Dimensions:

Left field: 280.58 (1923), 301 (1928), 312 (1976), 318 (1988);

left side of bullpen gate in short left-center: 395 (1923), 402 (1928), 387 (1976), 379 (1985);

right side of bullpen gate: 415 (1937); deepest left-center: 500 (1923), 490 (1924), 457 (1937), 430 (1976), 411 (1985), 399 (1988);

left side of center-field screen: 466 (1937);

center field: 487 (1923), 461 (1937), 463 (1967), 417 (1976), 410 (1985), 408 (1988);

deepest right-center: 429 (1923), 407 (1937), 385 (1976);

left side of bullpen gate in short right-center: 350 (1923), 367 (1937), 353 (1976);

right side of bullpen gate: 344 (1937);

right field 294.75 (1923), 295 (1930), 296 (1939), 310 (1976), 314 (1988);

[korp]

Listen to me: Mickey Mantle used no steriods. Never worked out. Abused his body. Still was the GREATEST swith hitter in baseball history. Players today like A-rod and others look at how they swing the bat. They ley go with one hand and still hit the ball 400 feet. Why? Because they use weights, take steriods and todays pitchers suck. Also the fences are shorter distances. Mantle played in Yankee stadium where center fiels was 460 feet away.
Definitely not going to argue the fact that Mickey was an amazing player. I would not say pitchers today suck but I would think the average pitch speed is higher today and that along with weight lifting/roids allows those one-handed swings we have seen hit balls out. Also not all fences were longer than they are today ..... great 460 to center so he pulled or went oppo with more hr's.

[tominct]

A friend was going on the other night about how Many et al have cheated the game. I asked if Mickey Mantle cheated the game with all of the times he took the field hungover, or drunk. He said that Mantle's actions did not contstitute cheating the game.

I argue that he cheated the game, himself and the fans.

Sure he was awesome, but how often was he at his best?

T

[tominct]

Pitching back then was better?? LOL THAT'S HILARIOUS!!!!

Finally someone with a clue. To even mention that the guys back then were better than today, PARTICULARLY THE PITCHERS is just assinine.

here's my definition....put Home Run Baker in a time machine and drop him in a big league game, and make him face, hmm let's see a team I know....Beckett the first two ABs, then Manny DelCarmen, or Okajima, and then Papelbon for his fourth AB. Then we will see how good he would compare tod'ays players. The game was played on the first floor in those days, today it's played on the 100th floor.

IMHumbleO there were'nt more than two pitchers on any team before 1947 who would even be SIGNED today, forget about actually making the bigs.

The idea that one compares Young's 511 wins to what is asked of today's starters (even with getting their ASSES covered) betrays a truely ignorant understanding of today's pro game. No one COULD do that today, but that is not praise for Young, but an acknowledgement that the game is played at a far, far higher level in general than it was back then.

Consider.....

Kolbe and LeBron must be thrilled they didn't play in the 40's and 50's, they would have such a hard time with all those 6'1 and 6'2 guys trying to cover them. Damn, they may have had to go to college to prepare themselves!

[davewashere]

I'm of the school of thought that baseball is being played at a higher level today than at any other point in the game's history. Pitching and hitting methods continue to be refined, training techniques have improved, and the equipment (and I'm talking about fielding gloves in particular) is far superior. I think there are very few players from the bygone eras of baseball who you could simply drop into the modern game. The fact that pitchers no longer throw 300 innings a season is just more evidence that hitters today are facing fresher arms throwing harder fastballs throughout the entire game. Is a middle reliever throwing his first inning of the day in the 8th inning as good as a staff ace throwing in the 1st inning? No, probably not. But is that middle reliever in the 8th better than a tired staff ace in the 8th who has lost 5 mph on his fastball, doesn't have much break on his slider and is having trouble finding the corners? Usually yes.

Mickey Mantle was an amazing natural talent who probably could have put up considerably better numbers if he had taken better care of himself. The same could be said of Babe Ruth. That doesn't take anything away from the many players who play the game at an elite level today.

[scorekeeper]

tominct,

Like most people in arguments like this, you’re trying to compare apples and oranges. You weren’t there, and there wasn’t any way to have the technology they had access to, measure them the way today’s players do, so you don’t have a clue about how hard they threw, or anything else really. The only real measure is how they did against their peers when they played, not how some crackpot thinks they’d do against some other era’s players.

The only ignorant thinking I see, is that so many people don’t understand that baseball, like everything else in life, is a product of the world around them. How would any of those guys you mentioned be doing if they only had access to the same nutrition, the same exercise technology the old timers had, and god forbid, didn’t have access to the juice? Heck, try telling today’s players they had to play an afternoon game, ride a bus or a train all night, then play another game the next day, and you’d have guy’s stroking out!

Something else those members of M.E.N.S.A. like yourself sometimes don’t take into account is the $$$$$$$$$$$$ and the contracts. How hard would Gary Sheffield, or most other players for that matter, work if all they were gonna make was $100K a season, and there was no free agency? You don’t take into account that the players in the “old days” were seldom from the higher levels of society who had access to better medicine, food, and living conditions. The game attracted mostly the dregs of society.

Just stick to worrying about the players you think are today’s Gods, and don’t even discuss old time players. Heck, if they’re so pitiful, just ignore them.

[azmatsfan]

tominct,

Like most people in arguments like this, you’re trying to compare apples and oranges. You weren’t there, and there wasn’t any way to have the technology they had access to, measure them the way today’s players do, so you don’t have a clue about how hard they threw, or anything else really. The only real measure is how they did against their peers when they played, not how some crackpot thinks they’d do against some other era’s players.

The only ignorant thinking I see, is that so many people don’t understand that baseball, like everything else in life, is a product of the world around them. How would any of those guys you mentioned be doing if they only had access to the same nutrition, the same exercise technology the old timers had, and god forbid, didn’t have access to the juice? Heck, try telling today’s players they had to play an afternoon game, ride a bus or a train all night, then play another game the next day, and you’d have guy’s stroking out!

Something else those members of M.E.N.S.A. like yourself sometimes don’t take into account is the $$$$$$$$$$$$ and the contracts. How hard would Gary Sheffield, or most other players for that matter, work if all they were gonna make was $100K a season, and there was no free agency? You don’t take into account that the players in the “old days” were seldom from the higher levels of society who had access to better medicine, food, and living conditions. The game attracted mostly the dregs of society.

Just stick to worrying about the players you think are today’s Gods, and don’t even discuss old time players. Heck, if they’re so pitiful, just ignore them.

Not to mention off-season training and coaching. A large majority of the Major Leaguers would work full time at non-baseball related jobs to make ends meet. Now they can spend hours a day training and meeting with personal coaches.

[wogdoggy]

Finally someone with a clue. To even mention that the guys back then were better than today, PARTICULARLY THE PITCHERS is just assinine.

here's my definition....put Home Run Baker in a time machine and drop him in a big league game, and make him face, hmm let's see a team I know....Beckett the first two ABs, then Manny DelCarmen, or Okajima, and then Papelbon for his fourth AB. Then we will see how good he would compare tod'ays players. The game was played on the first floor in those days, today it's played on the 100th floor.

IMHumbleO there were'nt more than two pitchers on any team before 1947 who would even be SIGNED today, forget about actually making the bigs.

The idea that one compares Young's 511 wins to what is asked of today's starters (even with getting their ASSES covered) betrays a truely ignorant understanding of today's pro game. No one COULD do that today, but that is not praise for Young, but an acknowledgement that the game is played at a far, far higher level in general than it was back then.

Consider.....

Kolbe and LeBron must be thrilled they didn't play in the 40's and 50's, they would have such a hard time with all those 6'1 and 6'2 guys trying to cover them. Damn, they may have had to go to college to prepare themselves!



http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_fast_did_Bob_Feller_throw


Really? assinine?

[tominct]

tominct,

Like most people in arguments like this, you’re trying to compare apples and oranges. You weren’t there, and there wasn’t any way to have the technology they had access to, measure them the way today’s players do, so you don’t have a clue about how hard they threw, or anything else really. The only real measure is how they did against their peers when they played, not how some crackpot thinks they’d do against some other era’s players.

The only ignorant thinking I see, is that so many people don’t understand that baseball, like everything else in life, is a product of the world around them. How would any of those guys you mentioned be doing if they only had access to the same nutrition, the same exercise technology the old timers had, and god forbid, didn’t have access to the juice? Heck, try telling today’s players they had to play an afternoon game, ride a bus or a train all night, then play another game the next day, and you’d have guy’s stroking out!

Something else those members of M.E.N.S.A. like yourself sometimes don’t take into account is the $$$$$$$$$$$$ and the contracts. How hard would Gary Sheffield, or most other players for that matter, work if all they were gonna make was $100K a season, and there was no free agency? You don’t take into account that the players in the “old days” were seldom from the higher levels of society who had access to better medicine, food, and living conditions. The game attracted mostly the dregs of society.

Just stick to worrying about the players you think are today’s Gods, and don’t even discuss old time players. Heck, if they’re so pitiful, just ignore them.


I made it clear....drop a player from then, into today. PERIOD. No weights, no nutrition, having to wrok summer jobs, NO BLACK PLAYERS, all of that.

How good were they....PERIOD. I don't care about the world around them, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize that those are variables, I just choose to ignore them. Those guys didn't have those things, today's players do, if that makes the guys today better, then that is EXACTLY what I am talking about.

"I would rather face Steve Carlton with his no hit stuff, then four different pitchers." Keith Hernandez.

[tominct]

Not to mention off-season training and coaching. A large majority of the Major Leaguers would work full time at non-baseball related jobs to make ends meet. Now they can spend hours a day training and meeting with personal coaches.

EXACTLY....WHICH IS WHY THEY ARE BETTER TODAY! Thanks for making my point!

[tominct]

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_fast_did_Bob_Feller_throw


Really? assinine?

Bob Feller was ONE. ONE.

Almost NO OTHER pitcher threw that hard in those days.

[soceric]

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_fast_did_Bob_Feller_throw


Really? assinine?

Not joining the discussion, but I thought this was pretty cool..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMPxpOapRuU

[wogdoggy]

Bob Feller was ONE. ONE.

Almost NO OTHER pitcher threw that hard in those days.



if we had better technology then we'd certainly know more..rumor has it babe could bring it too..

at what point does it become the old days?

would gibson be considered old days?
that was before training had the popularity it did today? did carlton train lift weights like an animal? gibson?

does weight training automatically mean a better faster pitcher?

[JJA]

Many of those who saw Walter Johnson and Feller said Johnson was faster. Cobb (who died in 1961) asserted in his autobiography that there was no doubt Johnson was the fastest of anyone he ever saw. He also has that great quote about Johnson's fastball hissing as it passed the plate, not very likely if it was in the low 90's! Here on Baseball Fever in the history portion of the site there is a great Johnson thread with some incredible pitching sequences of his arm action (see http://www.baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=54344&page=4) that have to be seen to be believed. (Also a great comeback to those who say you throw with your body and not with your arm.)

Others claim Lefty Grove was even faster in Johnson. Steve Dalkowski (who pitched in the '50's and '60's with limited success due to wildness) is often touted to have thrown the hardest of anyone in history, Ted Williams being among those in that camp. And on and on.

Without radar guns (which didn't come around until the 50's) it's a tough question to answer how hard the guys from yesteryear actually threw. It appears that the best guys threw just as hard as the best guys today, but without reliable radar readings it's hard to say for certain.

[cubsphill]

Many of those who saw Walter Johnson and Feller said Johnson was faster. Cobb (who died in 1961) asserted in his autobiography that there was no doubt Johnson was the fastest of anyone he ever saw. He also has that great quote about Johnson's fastball hissing as it passed the plate, not very likely if it was in the low 90's! Here on Baseball Fever in the history portion of the site there is a great Johnson thread with some incredible pitching sequences of his arm action (see http://www.baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=54344&page=4) that have to be seen to be believed. (Also a great comeback to those who say you throw with your body and not with your arm.)

Others claim Lefty Grove was even faster in Johnson. Steve Dalkowski (who pitched in the '50's and '60's with limited success due to wildness) is often touted to have thrown the hardest of anyone in history, Ted Williams being among those in that camp. And on and on.

Without radar guns (which didn't come around until the 50's) it's a tough question to answer how hard the guys from yesteryear actually threw. It appears that the best guys threw just as hard as the best guys today, but without reliable radar readings it's hard to say for certain.


Wait, so only stuff above low 90's hisses? uhh...

[davewashere]

Wait, so only stuff above low 90's hisses? uhh...

It's amazing what you can hear when your ears aren't obstructed by those pesky protective helmets. My grandpa told me Walter Johnson's curveball used to whistle show tunes and Bob Feller's heater told raunchy jokes.

[scorekeeper]

I made it clear....drop a player from then, into today. PERIOD. No weights, no nutrition, having to wrok summer jobs, NO BLACK PLAYERS, all of that.

How good were they....PERIOD. I don't care about the world around them, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize that those are variables, I just choose to ignore them. Those guys didn't have those things, today's players do, if that makes the guys today better, then that is EXACTLY what I am talking about.

The only thing you’ve made clear is that you have absolutely no respect for players from earlier days. To me the more entertaining idea would be to drop one of today’s sissies into the old days.

It’s truly a shame you didn’t get a chance to see those guys you thing are so awful, play.

[scorekeeper]

Bob Feller was ONE. ONE.

Almost NO OTHER pitcher threw that hard in those days.

Just by saying ALMOST shows that even you recognize there were some guys who threw hard. But even so how do you know how many threw hard, but more on point is, why are you so convinced that no one other than hard throwers are worth the powder to blow them to the Devil?

[jbooth]

Many of those who saw Walter Johnson and Feller said Johnson was faster. Cobb (who died in 1961) asserted in his autobiography that there was no doubt Johnson was the fastest of anyone he ever saw.

I read an article once about how fast Walter Johnson was.

The story goes;

A batter who had never faced Johnson before, came to the plate and took strike one. He then took strike two, and walked off toward the dugout. The ump said, "Hey, that's only strike two", and the batter replied, "I didn't see the first two, so there's no point in waiting for the third one."

[ssarge]

Many of those who saw Walter Johnson and Feller said Johnson was faster. Cobb (who died in 1961) asserted in his autobiography that there was no doubt Johnson was the fastest of anyone he ever saw. He also has that great quote about Johnson's fastball hissing as it passed the plate, not very likely if it was in the low 90's! Here on Baseball Fever in the history portion of the site there is a great Johnson thread with some incredible pitching sequences of his arm action (see http://www.baseball-fever.com/showth...t=54344&page=4) that have to be seen to be believed. (Also a great comeback to those who say you throw with your body and not with your arm.)

Others claim Lefty Grove was even faster in Johnson. Steve Dalkowski (who pitched in the '50's and '60's with limited success due to wildness) is often touted to have thrown the hardest of anyone in history, Ted Williams being among those in that camp. And on and on.

Without radar guns (which didn't come around until the 50's) it's a tough question to answer how hard the guys from yesteryear actually threw. It appears that the best guys threw just as hard as the best guys today, but without reliable radar readings it's hard to say for certain.

John:

Always a fun discussion.

Assuming guys DID throw as hard 1-2 generations ago. . . .

Why didn't they run as fast, or swim as fast, or jump as high or as far? Those records / achievements have clearly advanced unbelievably in the past 50 years. What is different about throwing? I really can't get my arms around that, and to ME, it argues eloquently for the converse conclusion. . . .

Best regards,

Scott

[ralanprod]

It might make for an interesting study (but a ton of work) to see how many of the homeruns hit in the "old days" came in later innings where the starter was still pitching, rather than a reliever. I guess what is more to the point is to compare the ERAs of pitchers by inning. I think it would be interesting to compare that stat between generations.

While there were no doubt pitchers who could handle the innings, and didn't drop off much from inning 1 to 9, I'd bet that wasn't the case for the majority of the pitchers. I'd say that would be the case as well today.

I think the specialization of late inning pitching is less a result of the pitchers being unable to finish a game, and more a result of managers realizing that once a pitcher gets tired he usually becomes a liability. I think this would be even more pronounced as you moved down the depth chart on the pitching staff.

I could be wrong though, but it's way too many numbers for me to crunch.

[JJA]

Scott,

Your point is excellent, but unfortunately I can't answer it. As long as we're on the subject, you might as well add hitting distance to the same category. It appears that the guys from yesteryear could hit it just as far as the guys of today, despite being measurably smaller than today's players. It's generally accepted that Ruth, Mantle, Josh Gibson hit balls just as far or further than McGwire, Sosa or any other current guy (steroids or not). For example, no one hit it out of the old Yankee Stadium except Josh Gibson (if you believe the legend that he hit 2 out). And certainly the Mantle shot to the top of the old Yankee Stadium was never duplicated in our lifetime.

http://www.themick.com/Hardestballhr.gif

Even more surprising was DMac's observation about running speed. He claimed that his records showed guys were slower at the end of his career compared to when he first started scouting. He had no explanation either, but said there was no doubt it was true.

So who knows. By the way, it's great to see your daughter tearing it up at LMU (last I checked she was at 0.330 or something like that as a freshman with a ton of HRs!). I've wanted to go see her play but it's been crazy busy. Congratulations to both of you for a great freshman year!

[slicew]

Listen to me: Mickey Mantle used no steriods. Never worked out. Abused his body. Still was the GREATEST swith hitter in baseball history.
The greatest switch hitter in history doesn't even have a lifetime batting average over .300? Most popular switch hitter in history - I'll give you that.