How to be an expert in 15 minutes a day according to a genius

I was talking with somebody about this quote and I couldn't cite the reference off the top of my head.

"Einstein said that if a person studies a subject for just 15 minutes a day in a year he will be an expert, and in five years he may be a national expert."

But it was Einstein....Albert Einstein!!! I wish I knew that, it would have given me more credibility. But there you go, the value of reading, writing and -- I would add -- arithmetic.

Some of the stats below really give you a good look at why we are where we are in this country, but there I go again complaining about stuff. FASCINATING!!

http://annkroeker.com/2008/11/22/just-fifteen-minutes-a-day-readysetread/

Jennifer at Scraps and Snippets posted about Lifelong Learning at her blog, citing a 2006 article by Harvey Mackay packed with statistics to make an autodidact sprint to her bookcase and grab anything within reach:

• Only 14 percent of adults with a grade-school education read literature in 2002.
• 51 percent of the American population never reads a book more than 400 pages after they complete their formal education.
• 73 percent of all books in libraries are never checked out.
• The average American watches 32 hours of TV every week.
• The average American reads only eight hours (books, newspapers, magazines, Yellow Pages, etc.) every week.
• The average American annually spends 10 times more on what he puts on his head than what he puts into his head.

Consider the following:

• If you read just one book per month for 12 straight months, you will be in the top 25 percentile of all intellectuals in the world!
• If you read five books on one subject, you are one of the world’s foremost leading authorities on that subject!
• If you read just 15 minutes a day — every day, for one year — you can complete 20 books!

The idea of becoming an expert by focusing one’s reading on a single subject reminds me of a post I wrote about lifelong learning and Five Fat Files. In it, I referenced an online article on brain research that included a statement attributed to Albert Einstein:

Einstein said that if a person studies a subject for just 15 minutes a day in a year he will be an expert, and in five years he may be a national expert.

Literary agent Terry Whalin used those same statistics from the Mackay article to encourage writers to read regularly.

With these statistics, it is little wonder that parts of the publishing business are struggling (and even predicting the struggle will continue for some.)If you want to be involved in some aspect of publishing (books or magazine writing where your work appears in print), then you need to be committed to reading on a regular basis. It’s important to take in great information through reading. The experience will fill your mind and heart with something important which will influence your writing. Create a habit of reading.

Giants as the anti-A's

Hey thanks there, Einstein. I'm glad that the Giants are considere the anti-A's in more ways than one. I'm also glad when any one of the pro-scout, anti-Moneyball teams like the Giants, the Cardinals, the Braves and even the Royals win. These teams still retain a lot of the charm of old-school scouting and player development with a smattering of statistical analysis.

I read somewhere that the amount of statistical analysis in baseball has gone up exponentially by some insane amount or another. I guarantee most of these teams are just gathering data as a CYA exercise and have no idea what they are looking at or what to do with most of it.

from sfgiants.com
Giants' latest title offers questions, answers | sfgiants.com:

Maybe the wrong Bay Area baseball franchise was celebrated in a best-selling book and a feature film that grossed more than $100 million worldwide. Certainly the Oakland A's and general manager Billy Beane offered a compelling story for the world to absorb with "Moneyball."

The Giants are perceived as the anti-A's, and yet San Francisco's the team that keeps ordering championship flags and rings.

As the Giants' GM, Sabean has created a culture in which many baseball-operations employees don't want to leave the organization. He asks for unswerving loyalty, but he also reciprocates it. The resulting "collective collaboration," as Sabean called it, helps the Giants act in concert when reaching a baseball-related decision.

'via Blog this'

This article from Tracy Ringolsby tends to support my point. The top NL franchises of the last 19 years ( the length of Brian Sabean's tenure ) have been none other than the Giants, the Cardinals and the Braves. All of these franchises lean more towards scouting and player development than statistical analysis.

from Tracy Ringolsby:
Sabean Doesn’t Want Attention, Just Wins « Write 'em Cowboy:

And under his guidance the Giants, in the last 19 years have:

–Third best winning percentage in the NL (1,556-1,358, .534) behind the Braves (1,651-1,263, .567) and Cardinals (1,545-1,319, .547).

–Played more post-season games (76) than any NL team other than the Cardinals (121) and have a better post-season winning percentage (.605) than any team that has played at least 34 post-season games.

–Have made four World Series appearances, the only NL team other than the Cardinals, who also have made four, to have been in the World Series more than twice, and have won an NL-best three World Series in the last 18 years.

And don’t forget he took advantage of the San Diego Padres decision to fire manager Bruce Bochy by quickly signing Bochy to oversee things at AT&T Park.

Not bad for a franchise being run by an “idiot.’’

'via Blog this'

Follow the Facts, the facts are your friend. Don't be afraid!!

How many more of these knuckle-heads have to be classified as leftist loons or government manufactured defects before we get some REAL accountability out of DC on the gun-control (grab?) issue? 

The LAPD cop (former Navy with high security clearance).

The Fort Hood shooter (military)

The Colorado theater joker was working on DARPA (Government project to create better killing machines out of soldiers)

Shouldn't it be clear to even Herrs Bloomberg, Feinstein,et. al.  that ordinary citizens need protection FROM the state criminals and mental defectives as well as normal, every-day, garden variety criminals and mental defectives? 

Seems like many of these lunatics are coming back stamped "Made by the U.S.A." And the media is always waiting to pounce on the first one that shows any prior history of conservative America written on them, all the while ignoring the crazies that bear the stamp of the leftist, lunatic fringe. 

PSYCHOSIS: a mental disorder characterized by symptoms, such as delusions or hallucinations, that indicate impaired contact with reality.

It appears as if we are seeing what the after-effects of a decade worth of wars can do the the collective psyche and mental-health of a nation. We saw some of the same in the aftermath of the Vietnam war. 

FYI: Coming attractions: Iraq and Afghanistan wars are ending. PSTD tidal wave beginning

from abcnews.com

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/death-navy-seal-chris-kyle-puts-spotlight-ptsd/story?id=18393163

While the details of Routh's mental health are unclear, up to 20 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from PTSD, according to a 2008 RAND study.

from minutemennews.com

http://minutemennews.com/2013/02/does-psycho-cop-mean-police-weapons-should-be-banned/

So here is a man who, despite some kind of vetting process to serve on the police force, has gone "postal." He has already murdered a couple because the woman was on the panel that recommended his termination. A cop has died in a shootout with him. Others have been wounded. He is promising to kill more.

So where is the anti-second amendment media? Shouldn't they all be screaming about how American needs gun control and all police, or at least ex-police, need to be disarmed? Why isn't Piers Morgan asking "Why does anyone need that much firepower."

Well, as far as I can tell, the gun grabbers are remaining silent. They know that, in order to grab guns, gun grabbers need to be armed. And like all self-respecting people, no police officer is going to work willingly while being told he can't be trusted. Nothing Dorner does will make it acceptable to treat all other cops as if they are obligated to prove that they are better than Dorner.

from clashdaily.com

http://clashdaily.com/2013/01/the-5-worst-mass-murders-in-the-usa-with-a-firearm-came-from-democrats/

Ft Hood: Registered Democrat/Muslim.

Columbine: Too young to vote; both families were registered Democrats and progressive liberals.

Virginia Tech: Wrote hate mail to President Bush and to his staff; Registered Democrat.

Colorado Theater: Registered Democrat; staff worker on the Obama campaign; Occupy Wall Street participant; progressive liberal.

Connecticut School Shooter: Registered Democrat; hated Christians.

Common thread is that all of these shooters were progressive liberal Democrats.

Also, of the worst killings in the last several decades, only one was a female, all the rest were boys, barely men, and none of them had a strong male father or role model in the household. Their role models were rappers, action movies, comics and violent video games.

Our problem isn't weapons, it's boys without boundaries. Who live in 'progressive' households.

You Can't Think and Hit at the Same Time - Who you gonna believe?

A study was published in Pub Med (whatever that is) with that specific title which mimics Yogi Berra's famous quote and it got me thinking a bit about coaching theories and approaches.

You basically have to pick one of two choices -- the Yogi Berra, baseball traditionalist, empirical evidence approach ( they have been promoting this 'theory' since 1947 or thereabouts ) or the Bill Nye, The Science Guy, scientific evidence and proof approach.

I suppose you could pick and choose from both approaches as you wish, but that seems like it would leave you hopelessly confused

So do we go with Yogi....

from quoteinvestigator.com
You Can’t Think and Hit at the Same Time |:

How can you think and hit at the same time?” Yogi Berra once said, which like many of the quotes attributed to the former Yankees catcher, even the malapropisms, contains an essential truth. You can’t think and hit because there’s not time for both.

The evidence is not completely clear because Yogi himself has made confusing pronouncements about this saying. The earliest citation located by QI is an Associated Press newswire story dated August 1, 1947 [MCYB]:

'via Blog this'



...or The Bill Bye the Science Guy crowd -- who will not act until something is scientifically proven, peer  reviewed and accepted by the pocket-protector crowd.

from PubMed:
You Can't Think and Hit at the Same Time: Neu... [Front Neurosci. 2012] - PubMed - NCBI:

Abstract

Hitting a baseball is often described as the most difficult thing to do in sports. A key aptitude of a good hitter is the ability to determine which pitch is coming. This rapid decision requires the batter to make a judgment in a fraction of a second based largely on the trajectory and spin of the ball. When does this decision occur relative to the ball's trajectory and is it possible to identify neural correlates that represent how the decision evolves over a split second?

'via Blog this'

It seems to me that if you relied too much on science (not that there's anything wrong with that) you would have wasted 65 years waiting for an answer. To break the tie, we went to the two smartest guys we could find.

Both are also a scientists by nature so neither one would appear to have a built in pro-baseball guy bias.

from wikiwuote:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman

A great deal more is known than has been proved. 

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy — and when he talks about a nonscientific matter, he will sound as naive as anyone untrained in the matter. 

Thanks Messrs. Einstein and Feyman. CASE CLOSED. Yogi wins. 

THE HEDGEHOG AND THE FOX

The Hedgehog Concept

In his famous essay "The Hedgehog and the Fox," Isaiah Berlin divided the world into hedgehogs and foxes, based upon an ancient Greek parable: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."

The fox is a cunning creature, able to devise a myriad of complex strategies for sneak attacks upon the hedgehog. Day in and day out, the fox circles around the hedgehog's den, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. Fast, sleek, beautiful, fleet of foot, and crafty—the fox looks like the sure winner. The hedgehog, on the other hand, is a dowdier creature, looking like a genetic mix-up between a porcupine and a small armadillo. He waddles along, going about his simple day, searching for lunch and taking care of his home.

The fox waits in cunning silence at the juncture in the trail. The hedgehog, minding his own business, wanders right into the path of the fox. "Aha, I've got you now!" thinks the fox. He leaps out, bounding across the ground, lightning fast. The little hedgehog, sensing danger, looks up and thinks, "Here we go again. Will he ever learn?" Rolling up into a perfect little ball, the hedgehog becomes a sphere of sharp spikes, pointing outward in all directions. The fox, bounding toward his prey, sees the hedgehog defense and calls off the attack. Retreating back to the forest, the fox begins to calculate a new line of attack. Each day, some version of this battle between the hedgehog and the fox takes place, and despite the greater cunning of the fox, the hedgehog always wins.

Berlin extrapolated from this little parable to divide people into two basic groups: foxes and hedgehogs. Foxes pursue many ends at the same time and see the world in all its complexity. They are "scattered or diffused, moving on many levels," says Berlin, never integrating their thinking into one overall concept or unifying vision. Hedgehogs, on the other hand, simplify a complex world into a single organizing idea, a basic principle or concept that unifies and guides everything. It doesn't matter how complex the world, a hedgehog reduces all challenges and dilemmas to simple—indeed almost simplistic—hedgehog ideas. For a hedgehog, anything that does not somehow relate to the hedgehog idea holds no relevance.

Princeton professor Marvin Bressler pointed out the power of the hedgehog during one of our long conversations: "You want to know what separates those who make the biggest impact from all the others who are just as smart? They're hedgehogs." Freud and the unconscious, Darwin and natural selection, Marx and class struggle, Einstein and relativity, Adam Smith and division of labor—they were all hedgehogs. They took a complex world and simplified it. "Those who leave the biggest footprints," said Bressler, "have thousands calling after them, 'Good idea, but you went too far!' "

To be clear, hedgehogs are not stupid. Quite the contrary. They understand that the essence of profound insight is simplicity. What could be more simple than e = mc2? What could be simpler than the idea of the unconscious, organized into an id, ego, and superego? What could be more elegant than Adam Smith's pin factory and "invisible hand?" No, the hedgehogs aren't simpletons; they have a piercing insight that allows them to see through complexity and discern underlying patterns. Hedgehogs see what is essential, and ignore the rest.

My favorite QB (sorry Eli) does it again!!!

YOU GO, TIMMY BOY!! 7-1 AS A STARTER. NOT BAD FOR A FIFTH STRING QB WITH CRAPPY MECHANICS.

In fairness, he is converting many of the skeptics, even if they have to compliment him begrudgingly or in a back-handed manner. Even Merill Hoge is giving him a chance to be better than Kyle Orton and Brady Quinn now. The Broncos water-boy may still be better. But we're making progress.

Given the events of the last few weeks in sports -- notably the growing child-abuse scandals at Penn State, Syracuse and the newest AAU coach -- it is strange that it is Tebow who is referred to as the most "polarizing" figure in sports today.

Not the self-centered narcissists we usually hear way too much about and glorify way too much.

Even while many others have mocked and disparaged him, Tebow has remained confident, secure and humble. The kids a leader and a winner.

So Stephen Tulloch's mocking (who the hell is Stephen Tulloch anyway?)

 turns into the newest craze "Tebowing"

What is Tebowing?
(vb) to get down on a knee and start praying, even if everyone else around you is doing something completely different.

Talk radio chimed in with comments from that notable chuckle-head, Charles Barkley to the effect that he wished the Bears would stop the Tebow train this weekend, that he was tired of hearing about him. (Sorry Chuck) You would think that Tebow was all that was wrong with sports today.

After watching the scandalous behavior that manifested itself at the end of the Cincinnati - Xavier mens basketball game, perhaps the problem is not with the evangelical, Christian right but the uber-permissive, anything goes mantra that emanates from the loons on the liberal left.

Perhaps the comments from Jake Plummer and like comments from gifted author John Feinstein recently that maybe things would be better if Tebow would just stay silent about his faith and his views are representative of where the vitriol is coming from and why.

I'm going to go all JFK on those comments and say I see it it more as a problem -- in sports in particular and society at large -- that folks like Tim Tebow and their outlook and views have been silenced and marginalized for far too long. And maybe that needs to change.

Our society would be far better off in many, many ways. For far too long those who look, act and sound like Tebow have been silent and our society has not advanced, it has retarded.

TIME FOR CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN.

I wonder why those who supposedly present themselves as bastions of tolerance -- while practicing the most pernicious form of intolerance -- do not follow the example of Joakim Noah posted below. Way to go Joakim.

Some of these folks need to start looking elsewhere if they want to identify and fix some of the things that are wrong in sports. Many could start by taking a good, long, hard look in the mirror.


----
The Jake Plummer comments
From USA Today:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/thehuddle/post/2011/11/tim-tebow-responds-to-jake-plummers-comments-on-his-faith/1

Asked about Plummer's remarks in an interview on ESPN's First Take, Tebow said:

"If you're married, and you have a wife, and you really love your wife, is it good enough to only say to your wife 'I love her' the day you get married? Or should you tell her every single day when you wake up and every opportunity?

"And that's how I feel about my relationship with Jesus Christ is that it is the most important thing in my life. So any time I get an opportunity to tell him that I love him or given an opportunity to shout him out on national TV, I'm gonna take that opportunity. And so I look at it as a relationship that I have with him that I want to give him the honor and glory anytime I have the opportunity. And then right after I give him the honor and glory, I always try to give my teammates the honor and glory.

"And that's how it works because Christ comes first in my life, and then my family, and then my teammates. I respect Jake's opinion, and I really appreciate his compliment of calling me a winner. But I feel like anytime I get the opportunity to give the Lord some praise, he is due for it."

Plummer had this to say Monday on XTRA Sports 910 in Phoenix:

"Tebow, regardless of whether I wish he'd just shut up after a game and go hug his teammates, I think he's a winner and I respect that about him. I think that when he accepts the fact that we know that he loves Jesus Christ, then I think I'll like him a little better. I don't hate him because of that, I just would rather not have to hear that every single time he takes a good snap or makes a good handoff.

"Like you know, I understand dude where you're coming from ... but he is a baller."

---
Jaokim Noah chimes in via ESPN:
Noah supports fellow Gator Tim Tebow - Chicago Bulls Blog - ESPN Chicago:

"Noah admits that the two don't see eye-to-eye on certain issues, but the Bulls center appreciates that Tebow stays true to his values.

"Me personally, I have completely different beliefs than him," Noah said. "But at the same time I respect the fact that he speaks his truth. He speaks his truth and he's a warrior. He's a winner. At the end of the day, his teammates respect that.”

----


From Culture Watch:

Why Tim Tebow Keeps Smiling

by Jennifer Marshall

When Pam Tebow was counseled to abort her baby to save her own life, the doctor referred to him as a "mass of fetal tissue."

"(M)aybe she just called me that to toughen us up for the names I would be called the first time I played at LSU," Tim Tebow, who became the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback for the University of Florida, writes in his 2011 book Through My Eyes.

Now that Tebow is a Denver Bronco and under intense scrutiny in the role of starting quarterback, his congenital instinct to push through adversity and ignore the naysayers is again at work.

"Polarizing" is the sports commentariat's typical term to describe national reaction to Tebow since he went pro. The negativity flows in part from his initially rocky performance. But much more seems to be reaction to Tebow's Christian faith. Critics want him to keep it to himself, a pattern that is increasingly common in American public life.

Of course, there's already plenty of God-talk in professional football. (Type "Green Bay Packers" into Twitter and see how many players give God a shout out in their profiles.)

Talking is one thing. Walking the talk is another. That's where Tim Tebow stands out. Born in the Philippines to missionary parents, he not only is outspoken about his faith, referencing it frequently in word and symbol - such as biblical citations in his eye black. He's also as intense about living out his faith as he is about playing football—and winning.

And he's done a good bit of winning. For a 24-year-old who's been, in his words, "the center of so much spilled ink" since his high school days (before graduating he was the subject of a documentary), it's amazing he's full of anything other than himself. Instead, he brims over about his faith, family, football and teammates.

While the attention hasn't gone to his head, it does seem to have gone to his heart.
Tebow takes seriously the burden of his "platform" - a word he uses frequently in his book to refer to his opportunity to influence others for good. Such disciplined, purposeful stewardship of a leadership role is rare in anyone, but particularly someone so young in a field rampant with narcissism and bad behavior.

Even for observers who consider the eye-black evangelism corny or juvenile, it's simply no comparison to the "youthful indiscretions" that haunt so many public figures for years.

And even through jaded eyes, the trademark Tebow kneel to give gratitude to God after a great play hardly can be as obnoxious as others' on-field (not to mention off-field) antics and outbursts.

DOES SIZE REALLY MATTER? Today's major leaguers are bigger and stronger than those of earlier eras - physical size of baseball players | Baseball Digest | Find Articles at BNET

The debate surfaces periodically and revolves around the "is today's player better than players from other eras", whether it be the 70's and 80's -- the WWI era -- or the Ruth / Cobb era.

For certain, I believe the quality of the athlete that baseball is recruiting is better now than ever before. Whether that always translates into better players centers around my belief that coaching, especially at the major league level -- but in the minors as well -- has not kept up.

Coaching may be as good or better than ever at the collegiate and HS level. The youth level, IMO still leaves something to be desired. Generally speaking the level of coaching is improving there, if only sporadically.

Putting aside for a moment the segue arguments
- "Do bigger players equal better players?"
and the pejorative fallback argument
- "How did they get bigger and stronger?"

clearly the trend toward bigger, stronger, faster equaling "more productive" players has pretty much been settled. "Better" is in the eye of the beholder and is dependent on many variables that can not be extracted or accounted for through statistical analysis or the dreaded "eyeball" test.

Some fans will prefer 1-0, 2-0 pitching duels and some will continue to prefer the "chicks dig the long ball" era. The pendulum tends to swing from one extreme to another and back again.

The following article touches on many of the relevant areas of discussion.

DOES SIZE REALLY MATTER? Today's major leaguers are bigger and stronger than those of earlier eras - physical size of baseball players | Baseball Digest | Find Articles at BNET:

"Current baseball scouts generally focus their attention on larger prospects, particularly pitchers

BABE RUTH STILL STANDS AS ONE of the legendary giants of baseball, but if he were alive today, he would stand taller than only 48 percent of the players who were on major-league 40-man rosters at the start of spring training.

The Bambino was listed at 6-2 and 195 pounds before his weight became a major problem during the second half of his career. He is remembered as a much larger man because most newsreel footage of him was taken during his last few seasons-- and because he was always much bigger than the average player of his time.

But if the young, strapping Ruth were magically transported into the 21st century, he would not stand out in the team picture of any major-league club. His wonderful baseball skills aside, he would be--in terms of vital statistics--a very average guy."

The 1927 "Murderers' Row" New York Yankees were one of the most dominating, intimidating teams in history, yet the average height and weight of a member of that storied group, even with such big bruisers as Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Bob Meusel at the heart of the lineup, was just 5-11 and 176 pounds.

The 1975 world champion Cincinnati Reds--immortalized as "The Big Red Machine"--illustrated what a difference a half-century can make. The players on that Reds club averaged 6-1 and 188 pounds.

The 2001 three-time defending world champion Yankees are not really known as one of the most physically imposing teams on the planet, but they weigh in with an average height and weight of 6-2 and 204 pounds.

Changes.....through the years. Sometimes, it's difficult to see the forest for the trees and remember how things used to be in the 'good old days'. Then you see an old ESPN classic and you realize that "Hey, Jennie Finch actually looks more athletic than some major leaguers from the 70's appeared.

BUD HARRELSON - 1969 METS 5'11", 165 POUNDS (MAYBE)

JENNIE FINCH - USA!!! USA!!! - 6'1", 170 POUNDS

Advantage Finch!!!!

My money is on Finch even if it goes this far...

Specialization and AAU-ization...always a factor. Participation in other sports, in conjunction with or to the exclusion of other sports has changed the landscape somewhat.

If it were totally a matter of evolution, the process presumably would take place at a much slower rate. It appears, in this case, that the Darwinian notion of natural selection has been replaced with just plain selection. Baseball players are taller because scouts are out looking for taller baseball players.

"In our industry, as far as evaluating talent, you're driven to larger bodies," said Cardinals director of baseball operations John Mozeliak. "When you go to the Dominican Republic, for instance, you get all these kids at the tryouts. The first thing you look at is how a guy looks in the uniform. You're very unlikely to give any money to a guy who's 5-9 and 170 pounds."

This isn't necessarily a new concept, but several other factors may contribution to the greater availability of tall athletes during the past decade or so--most notably a vast increase in the number and diversity of youth sports programs.

The average 1960s kid played Little League and maybe Pop Warner football. The 1980s kid also had soccer, basketball and other team and individual sports to keep them active year-round.

"I think one thing that's happening is that participation is at its highest level as far as youth sports, so the pool of talent to choose from has grown," said Cardinals trainer Barry Weinstein. "And you're developing a more well-rounded athlete, so a kid doesn't have to like basketball just because he's 6-9."

And the generational shift from sandlot sports to highly organized youth programs probably has the added effect of weeding out kids with less natural athletic ability much earlier--creating a better youth talent pool at the expense of some of the young people they were supposed to benefit.

You can see from the following table that HR champs have been getting bigger over the course of the last few decades. The typical HR slugger from the good old days would be average sized today.

BIG LEAGUE SLUGGERS ARE GETTING BIGGER--Despite the fact that league home run champions have had little change in size over the last 80 years, the most dramatic change has been the number of power hitters. From 1921 through 1940, hitting 40 or more homers in a season was accomplished 32 times by 12 different players. From 1941 through 1960, it was accomplished 44 times by 17 different sluggers. From 1961 through 1980, the number rose to 54 times that a player hit 40 homers in a season, reached by 30 different players. And during the last 20 years (1981-2000), the number of 40-homer hitters jumped to 98 times accomplished by 49 different players. Below is a chart of the average size of league home run champions dating back to 1921.

Total Avg. Avg. Avg.
ERA HR Champs Height Weight HR Output

1991-2000 15 6-3 218 48
1981-1990 20 6-3 208 40
1971-1980 13 6-2 201 40
1961-1970 11 6-1 202 46
1951-1960 15 6-1 194 42
1941-1950 13 6-0 195 36
1931-1940 11 6-0 194 40
1921-1930 10 6-0 187 41

Largest HR Smallest HR
ERA Champion Champion

1991-2000 Mark McGwire (6-5, 250) Howard Johnson (5-11, 178)
1981-1990 Jose Canseco (6-4, 240) Kevin Mitchell (5-11, 210)
1971-1980 Dave Kingman (6-6, 210) Dick Allen (5-11, 190)
1961-1970 Frank Howard (6-7, 255) Willie Mays (5-11, 180)
1951-1960 Hank Sauer (6-4, 200) Al Rosen (5-10, 180)
1941-1950 Hank Greenberg (6-3-210) Mel Ott (5-9, 170)
1931-1940 Hank Greenberg (6-3, 210) Ripper Collins (5-9, 165)
1921-1930 Babe Ruth (6-2, 215) Hack Wilson (5-6, 190)

COPYRIGHT 2001 Century Publishing
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group

From the table in this article, the player of today has to compete against more potential players today than ever before, even with expansion. Although they do accommodate for the exclusion of black and Hispanic players in the past, the pre-war major leaguer did not see the diversity of talent culled from around the globe that today's player competes against.



Another factor, to be considered but not readily apparent from the table above is the effect of the various wars on the availability of 18 - 30 year old males, a crucial variable at times.

Think of how much that talent pool was diluted during the war years -- a time during which "One-armed" Pete Gray played.

Pete Gray, Universal Newsreels, 1945.ogv
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pete_Gray,_Universal_Newsreels,_1945.ogv

Other current stars gave up years of their career to the war effort, as illustrated in the following two articles.

Baseball in Wartime
http://www.baseballinwartime.com/

Baseball in Wartime is dedicated to preserving the memories of all baseball players (major league, negro league, minor league, semi-pro, college, amateur and high school), who served with the military between 1940 and 1946.

World War II was a trying time for the United States and equally so for baseball. More than 4,500 professional players swapped flannels for military uniforms to serve their nation and future Hall of Famers like Bob Feller, Hank Greenberg, Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams lost vital playing time in the prime of their careers. What is far less commonly known is that at least 130 minor league players lost their lives while serving their country.

Major League Baseball's Popularity During WWII by Joey Corso
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/161265-major-league-baseballs-popularity-during-wwii

Before WWII began, Major League Baseball enjoyed record popularity. Ted Williams batted a record-setting .406, Joe DiMaggio, set a record with hits in 56 consecutive games, 41-year-old Lefty Grove won his 300th career win, and the New York Yankees collected an unprecedented ninth World Series championship.(Baseball in Wartime)

Following Pearl Harbor, overwhelming patriotism spread throughout the nation, causing many young men to enlist including future Hall of Fame players Hank Greenburg and Bob Feller who gave up the prime their careers to be a part of the war effort.

Greenburg summed up what all players at the time were feeling, telling the Sporting News that “If there's any last message to be given to the public, let it be that I'm going to be a good soldier.”

Although a small minority of Americans expressed displeasure towards apparently fit men participating in sports and shirking military duties, Private John E Stevenson, expressed the more widely held view that, "baseball is part of the American way of life. Remove it and you remove something from the lives of American citizens, soldiers and sailors."

Along with future Hall of Famers, many other quality major league players enlisted or were drafted, significantly lowering the quality of play. Average players were now stars, and scrubs who were destined to be career minor leaguers received opportunities to play significant roles on big league clubs.

Using David Finoli’s highly embraced statistical formula, as seen in For the Good of the Country: World War II Baseball in the Major and Minor Leagues, a list of the top 64 ball players during the war seasons (1942-1945) was developed, headed by a Roy Sanders.

Although a fine player, it was clear a somewhat obscure player today, benefited playing against lesser competition. This can be seen by comparing his statistics during and after the war.

The list contains several other fine players, but does not include a future Hall of Fame player until the 14th player on the list, Cleveland Indians shortstop Lou Boudreau. Four highly productive seasons along with six to eight above average ones can usually make a player’s case for entry into the Hall of Fame.

Yet none of the top 13 players during the war made the Hall, proving that these players were unable to perform at the same level when up against the best and that statistically speaking the level of play during the time was lower.

Over time, we have seen baseball players, and the game at large, adapt to many significant changes that have collided to bring about many of the observed changes to the perceived caliber of play.

- The mound was lowered in 1969 from 15 inches to 10 inches in height after the dominance of pitching ( think Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA ). As a result, scouts and coaches preferred to select taller pitchers to make up the lost difference in leverage the lower mound provided. The short (under 6-foot) RHP became an endangered species in baseball as a result IMO.

- Free agency and guaranteed contracts resulting from the Curt Flood battle against the Reserve Clause has resulted in players beginning treated as more valuable commodities. Prior to 1969, even star players were considered expendable if productivity diminished even slightly. Players were on year to year contracts, security was day to day. Pitch Counts and increased use of bullpen specialists has been the slow, but inevitable outgrowth.

Structural changes such as Astroturf, Questec and increased use of PED's have brought about both observed and statistical changes and anomalies that can never be fully accounted for and so the debate will continue forever.

If you don't think that Questec was a huge and underrated development in the offense / defense equilibrium, take a look at the "strikes" called in some of those Braves - Twins World Series highlights or the infamous Eric Gregg / Livan Hernandez playoff game. There's a reason why Curt Schilling took a bat to an early version of Questec machinery that was in the Diamondbacks dugout. The handwriting was on the wall that a subtle but important pitching advantage was about to be lost.

It's one reason why I like to look to the Olympic sports, specifically track and field or swimming events, to observe and evaluate macro changes in athletes over different eras. The skill sports are too complex to assess causes and effects. The Olympic sports are ideal for statistical analysis because of their inherent simplicity: Running is a universal and fundamental athletic event. Distances don't change, gravity and friction are constants. Even in swimming, the resistance that water provides doesn't change materially over time.

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In swimming, the 1924 Men's Olympic champion and symbol of virility for machismo for the era, Johnny Weismuller of Tarzan fame, swam a 59.0 sec. 100 meter freestyle.

USA'S JOHNNY WEISMULLER - 1924 PARIS OLYMPICS CHAMPION

In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Germany's Britta Steffen swam the same event in 53.12 seconds. American Natalie Coughlin swan it in 53.39 seconds for an American record. Both times would have obliterated Weismuller's time.

GERMANY'S BRITTE STEFFEN - 2008 BEJING OLYMPIC CHAMPION

In fact, Weismuller's time would have finished 47th in the world in the 2008 100 meter freestyle qualifying heats. In the women's qualifying heats.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_at_the_1924_Summer_Olympics_-_Men%27s_100_metre_freestyle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_at_the_2008_Summer_Olympics_-_Women%27s_100_metre_freestyle


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In track and field, the 1936 Olympic champion Jesse Owens would be challenged to beat the current women's 100 meter champion, Jamaica's Shelly-Ann Fraser. Owens won the 1936 event with a 10.3 sec. time. Fraser's 2008 100 meter time of 10.78 would have placed her sixth in the 1936 men's 100 meter championship heat and made her the fourth fastest American at the time.

Jesse Owens was 5'10" and 165. Fraser tips in at 5'3" and 115. A shorter version, pound for pound of Owens. Looking at some of these comparisons, I am with David Wells -- a Babe Ruth fan -- when he says "15-70-.270" to state what he believes Babe Ruth's stat line would be today.

No night games, no sliders, he may have been exaggerating a little bit, but not by much.

The pre-war American athlete, in many instances, can only compare favorably to female athletes today. Once again demonstrating that the Nixon-era Title IX legislation may have been one of the most underrated pieces of legislation of all time in this country.

There are simply too many factors to consider to make a definitive answer to the underlying question we started with, which is why this question will continue to be fuel for debate for many generations to come.