The Five Best Baseball Players of All Time

Several years ago, my beer league softball comrades and I engaged in a pleasant time-wasting activity - building the best 25-man MLB roster possible. At the time no one involved excluded any players for transgressions against the game, and so the teams we built included people who could be said to have "irreparably" damaged the game - a murderer (Ty Cobb), a fellow who took money to throw a World Series (Joe Jackson), steroid cheats, some unexposed at the time (Alex Rodriguez and Roger Clemens), and a player who bet on the team he was managing (Pete Rose). In picking the five best players of all time, I would argue that all these players should still be eligible because the effects of their transgressions are essentially unquantifiable in any precise way - as are the transgressions of those who haven't been "caught." Thus, everybody into the pool...with an additional rule - at least one pitcher has to be named.

#5 - Roberto Clemente: Why not start controversially? Clemente makes almost nobody's top-five list because the outfield has been clogged by over a hundred years' worth of great players, many of whom posted better numbers better than the rifle-armed Pirates right-fielder. The only player for whom the Hall of Fame rules were suspended to allow immediate induction (following his tragic early death), Clemente came to play every day and every day brought all of the sacred five tools - the abilities to hit, hit with power, run, field, and throw at extraordinary levels. He "merely" maintained a .317 career average, and his home run total (240) was suppressed by his home venue, Forbes Field, where his own power alley (to right center, the opposite field) measured another time's impossible 457 feet to the wall. Indeed, the wall in right center was so far away that the Pirates stored the batting cage against it during games. (It was in play.) In interviews, however, Philadelphia Daily News columnist Bill Conlin tells of a home run Clemente hit at Veterans Stadium - a line drive to center that found an entrance ramp on the second level. It flew into the space about seven or eight feet off the elevated floor and was finally stopped by the wall across the interior concourse, an approximate 460-foot smash, if you do the math, stopped about 60 feet above the ground. His lifetime on-base-plus-slugging percentage was .834 and hit a peak of .963 in 1970. Having seen The Great One play many times in person, I can say that there has never been a player I'd rather have at bat with the game on the line. As for off-the-field activities, considering the circumstances of Clemente's death (attempting to fly relief supplies into an earthquake-ravaged Managua, Nicaragua), it remains a curiosity that no one has ever suggested that he be named a saint by the Church of Rome as a Martyr to Humanity.

#4 - Sandy Koufax: The operative question here is simply: whom do you want on the mound for the seventh game of a World Series? It's Koufax. With an rising, 98-mph fastball and a knee-buckling curve, he compiled an other-worldly 129-47 record between 1961 and 1966, including three seasonal won-lost records that seem transplanted from the 1910's or 20's: 25-5 in 1963, 26-8 in 1965, and 27-9 in 1966. On two-days rest for game seven of the 1965 World Series, and suffering from the arthritic left elbow that eventually prompted his retirement, Koufax three-hit the Twins using only his fastball. As has been documented by various writers, his grip on a baseball might well have killed an anaconda, and the pressure he applied with his fingertips aggravated a vascular problem in his middle fingers. Occasionally, he pitched with splits in the ends those fingers that did not bleed because of an inhibited blood flow. End of discussion. He might be termed a comet because of his truncated career, but for game seven, he'd be the choice.

#3, #2, #1: We'll be briefer here: Shoeless Joe Jackson, Willie Mays, Babe Ruth. Books have been written about all of them.

The problematic choice here, for some, would be Jackson, who took money to help throw the 1919 World Series. Eliot Asinof puts the figure at $5000, a huge sum for the time. The fact remains, though, that in that Series Jackson hit .375, including the Series' only home run, and historians have been scratching through materials for nearly 90 years, trying to find a single play involving him that can clearly be called "thrown." Thus, the last question here is: was he as "stupid" as the fact of his illiteracy suggested, or did he, in fact, take the gamblers involved in the Black Sox fiasco for the proverbial ride? The last statement is: Babe Ruth copied his swing.

As for Mays, say hey, Mr. Major Leaguer? Can you hit 660 home runs, track down anything in your zip code, and compile a .941 on-base-plus-slugging percentage for 22 years? No, you can't. How many other players have been named to 20 All-Star teams, 12 times by their peers, managers and coachesalone? You can cut off one hand. You won't need those fingers.

For Ruth, Jim Bouton's famous remark is useful: "Give your stats and shut up."

In addition to his World Series pitching records, The Sultan of Swat posted these lifetime hitting numbers: 714 HRs, .342 BA, .690 SLG, and an eerie 1.164 OPS as an 11-time HR leader, 6-time RBI champ, and holder of the single-season HR record for 34 years. The best player ever remains the guy who really looked as though he should have been playing beer league softball.

Sources:

"All-Star Game." Baseball-Almanac.com, 21 July 2009.

Asinof, Eliot. Eight Men Out. New York: Henry Holt, 1963.

"Babe Ruth," "Roberto Clemente" & "Willie Mays." Baseball-Reference.com, 21 July 2009.