unga bunga fast track

Those guys were all 5'6 and throwing 75 MPH.

Kevin Goldstein has said on multiple occasions that if an average roster from 1960 played an average roster from 2012, the current team would absolutely wang-whip them.

I have a hard time believing this just based on the dilution of today's talent. Baseball was the sport of the nation and there were half the teams.

Brooks Robinson would be a fumbling oaf in the field today, Sandy Koufax would get lit up, and Hank Aaron would only have warning track power.

that is an ignorant statement. a lot of the parks were bigger. koufax pitched against an era with a lot of HOF. who's in today's game you can say that guy is a HOF hitter like then. Brook could pick it. defense is defense.

That's just not true. Walter Johnson threw as hard as anyone in the game today. He just didn't have an electronic scoreboard to post lies like "104!!!!!!!!" to get the crowd pumped up. Babe Ruth in his prime was more athletic than Barry Bonds. He wasn't fat or small or slow. It's just that most pictures we see of him were from the end of his career and World Series in the 30s.



And Butkus was bigger and faster than Ray Lewis so I'm not sure how exactly Lewis was going to run rings around him. Maybe on a motorized scooter. Lewis does have better knife skills than Butkus ever did.

You're right in that the game of football has changed drastically. Offensive linemen are fat and tall and not very athletic. They don't have to be quick or get out as lead blockers on a sweep. They're simply asked to form a wall around a passing quarterback. So defensive linemen have gotten bigger to counter that. But along with getting larger and stronger, they've gotten slower and less athletic.

I'm pretty sure he wasn't being serious.

Curious, how do you know Walter Johnson could throw that fast?

And are you saying that lineman from the 50s and 60s were more athletic than lineman today?

Amazing how the human body has been genetically improved over the past 3-4 generations. Must be all that selective breeding. Or maybe is it the cloning?

Amazing how the human body has been genetically improved over the past 3-4 generations. Must be all that selective breeding. Or maybe is it the cloning?

Come on, Ted Washington is the example for the modern day lineman?

That is a stretch.

No difference between Peppers and Atkins?

Well considering none of those players were on HGH or going to Germany to get platelets spun into a centrifuge and then injected back into their injuries that is going to be a factor. If you could take all of the training advantages legal and otherwise from todays players maybe things would be closer.

Those players in the 80's were juicing, though.

JORR, I appreciate a lot of what you have to say in these conversations and I do think you help bring some light to the fact that we so often assume modern day is better than the past. But I think you go too far the other direction at times.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support it. No one would argue that Buehrle and Maddux threw harder than Feller and Rusie. There have always been fireballers and soft-tossers. bernstein would probably point out that therr weren't guys coming into games in the late innings throwing 100. That's correct. But not because guys like that didn't exist, but because the couldn't make a team. The philosophy was different. Nobody carried a pitcher to retire a single lefty.

And of course linemen of the 50s and 60s were more athletic. Jerry Kramer was an athlete. Ted Washington was a big fat guy. There's no difference between Doug Atkins and Julius Peppers. Peppers can afford to play heavier because of the style.

Jerry Kramer and Ted Washington are silly comparisons. Compare a guy like Jake Thomas or Jake Long to Jerry Kramer. Jerry Kramer was definitely not more athletic than those guys.

I'd also put JJ Watt's athleticism up against any DE you can find.