The Golden Age of Baseball

Why the best players in history are on the field right now

Remember the golden age of baseball? Of course, we all do. It was a time when giants walked between the lines, when the most important records were set, when the standards of performance were established for hitters, pitchers and teams. When was that, exactly?

Perhaps the era from the turn of the 20th century to 1920, when Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner and Walter Johnson were the greatest stars of the "scientific" (i.e., dead ball) era of baseball? Or the next two decades, maybe, when Babe Ruth changed the game with the home run, when Rogers Hornsby hit .424 in 1924, when Lefty Grove posted a career won-lost percentage of .680? Or 1940 to 1960, when Joe DiMaggio hit safely in 56 straight games, when Ted Williams became the last man to hit .400, when Stan Musial, Bob Feller, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were at their peaks?

Perhaps you're a neoclassicist and prefer the Silver Age of Hank Aaron, Sandy Koufax, Johnny Bench, Mike Schmidt and Joe Morgan.

Many sportswriters who grew up after World War II recall the game of their fathers through a nostalgic haze. They never saw baseball's real problems of all-white teams, the near abolition of the home run, and rampant cheating and violence—to say nothing of betting scandals and fixes. Attendance dropped sharply in the Fifties, and for good reason. The game itself was one-dimensional—offense consisted mostly of solo homers with hardly anyone stealing or hitting the ball in the gaps. Off the field, baseball was a tragedy for fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants and several other major league teams that were uprooted after decades of loyal fan support. In the Sixties, pitchers had an enormous edge and run-scoring was at an all-time low, with one hitter winning a batting crown with a .301 average.

Now consider something thoroughly radical—that the real, genuine golden age of baseball is the one we're in right now. Our own era—one marked by mind-numbing debates about big markets versus small markets, revenue sharing and salary caps. A time of free agents following the buck from town to town? A period of owners who aren't satisfied with stadiums that cost only $150 million of someone else's money? An epoch branded forever by two seasons shortened and a World Series lost to blind self-interest?

All of which is true, and all of which has distracted us from what went on out there on the field. For instance:

• Pennant races. Never has a decade produced more great pennant races and World Series than the Nineties, even counting the black hole of October 1994. Twins–Braves in 1991, Jays–Braves in 1992 and Jays–Phillies in 1993 compare favorably with any consecutive trio in Series history. And the year of the least exciting race produced perhaps the greatest team in baseball history, the 1998 Yankees. On paper the 2000 Yankees won the series in a walk. On the field, the Yankees and Mets were separated by just three runs over 47 innings.

• Players. Next time your grandfather starts telling you how great the game was before he left to fight Hitler (or the Kaiser), remind him that his heroes never faced anyone named Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Bonds, Robbie Alomar, Frank Thomas, Edgar Martinez, Tony Gwynn, Alex Rodriguez, Mariano Rivera or Pedro Martinez. There has never been more of an ethnic mix among players than in today's game. Soon we'll see influxes of talent from Australia, Japan, Korea and maybe even Russia. There were a lot of white guys who missed out on some of those earlier golden eras until the major leagues began to mine the gold in California and the rest of the far Western states. Not until the last 30-odd years did major league baseball take notice of the suburbs of the country—namely, the South, the Southwest and the West. Expansion hasn't diluted talent, it's swelled the talent base.

• Stability. Forget that bunk you read in the papers that one third or two thirds of major league teams lose money. Never have there been more franchises on solid financial footing. Yes, several franchises have lost money in recent years, but do you measure the success of an entire industry by a few franchises that are in the red, or by baseball's overall revenue? No major league baseball team has ever gone out of business.

Not only has no franchise gone out of business, none has relocated since the second incarnation of the Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers in 1972. The NFL—with its supposedly firm financial foundation of revenue sharing and salary caps—moves teams around like musical chairs. (Quick: Who were the Baltimore Ravens in their earlier incarnation? What city did the Houston Oilers move to?) Baseball has reached new markets not by relocating but by expanding, which is a sure sign of financial health. Major league baseball has managed to expand to almost every major market in the country without damaging its minor league base, which is in better financial shape than at any time since World War II.

• Popularity. Average attendance at major league games rose from 26,000 in 1990 to 31,000 in 1993, and was on a 32,000 pace in 1994. It fell to about 25,000 during the strike's aftershock in 1995, but it's been on the rise ever since, with last season up to almost 30,000. Back in 1969, the year the Amazin' Mets captured the imagination of the country, attendance averaged just 14,000. When the Brooklyn Dodgers won their only World Series in 1955, at a time when baseball had no rival for the public's attention, attendance was just 13,600 per game at only 16 parks.

From the Twenties to the Forties, baseball had no rivals for sports page ink and fan attention. There was no pro football or basketball to speak of, and even college football didn't begin to boom as a national phenomenon until after World War II. While baseball commands a much smaller share of the overall pro sports market today than 70, 50 or even 30 years ago, it draws many more fans on average to far more teams than in any past decade.

• Postseason. Fans today have more to look forward to in the postseason. Only purists argue that the playoffs haven't introduced a whole new level of excitement. Everyone agrees that there are better ways to organize the postseason, but who can deny that the recent playoffs have brought an unprecedented amount of excitement to the game in all parts of the country? So much attention was given to the fact that the World Series was played entirely in New York that few in the sports media noticed how unpredictable the playoffs proved to be. The American League wild card team, Seattle, came within two victories of making it to the World Series; the National League's wild card team, the Mets, did make it.

• Competitive balance. For all the talk about big-market teams dominating the game, the difference between the best and the worst has never been smaller. The 2000 season was the first time in baseball history every team finished under .600 and over .400—in other words, nobody was more than 20 percentage points better than anybody else. It's true that the teams from the biggest market—the Yankees and Mets—ended up in the World Series, but who can say they were dominant? Four AL teams had better records than the Yankees and three NL teams had better records than the Mets. The comparatively small-market Oakland A's and Seattle Mariners both came within a wisp of eliminating the world champion Yankees.

Since everyone with access to an Internet chat room or radio call-in show seems to think that competitive balance is destroyed by economic imbalances, last season is worth looking at in more detail. Only three of the 10 highest-payroll teams (the Yankees, Mets and Braves) made the playoffs—but so did Seattle, St. Louis, Oakland, the White Sox and the Giants. Commissioner Bud Selig told Congress last November that more than half the clubs in baseball were out of the race before opening day. But on opening day he couldn't have predicted which clubs those would have been, because two of the six last-place division teams, Texas and Tampa Bay, spent more money on salaries than the eight eventual playoff teams averaged, including the Yankees and Braves.

• The game. There has never been more diversity in the game itself—hitting, running and pitching have never been so balanced. And there's never been an era with so many outstanding performances at every level.

The era had some great base stealers, but none, neither Ty Cobb nor Honus Wagner, were as great as Rickey (continued on page 171)Baseball(continued from page 142) Henderson—and certainly none could hit with Rickey Henderson's power. Sluggers in the early Thirties had years like Frank Thomas, Manny Ramirez and Mark McGwire have today, but there were no pitchers, not even the great Lefty Grove, who shut down hitters the way Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez have over the last few seasons. Each golden era has had catlike middle infielders and rock-steady third basemen, but there have never been so many complete packages at those positions: Chipper Jones and Troy Glaus (in his second full year he set an American League record for home runs hit by a third baseman with 47), Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra, Roberto Alomar and Craig Biggio. What catcher ever combined the hitting consistency and power of Mike Piazza or the all-around ability of Pudge Rodriguez?

If you're tired of reading about money squabbles and boorish players and rock-brained owners, and the politics and economics of baseball, you have every right to be. Stop reading about those things and focus on the game.

There's a cure for what's wrong with baseball. It's called baseball, and here's an all-star team of contemporary greats who rank with the greatest of any era:

First base: Is Mark McGwire the greatest home run hitter in baseball history? He's the all-time single-season home run champ (70), the all-time two-season champ (135: 70 plus 65 in 1999), the all-time three-season champ (193: 1999, 1998 and 1997, when he hit 58), the all-time four-season champ (245; taking together 1999, 1998, 1997 and 1987, when he hit 49 with Oakland), the all-time five-year home run champ (287; including 1999, 1998, 1997, 1987 and 1992, when he hit 42).

Second base: Forget the spitting incident that has hounded him—Roberto Alomar is one of the five or six best ever at his position and the American League's best second baseman in more than half a century. He's an eight-time Gold Glove winner, an 11-time All Star and a career .304 hitter with eight seasons over .300, and he has one of the highest stolen base percentages (416 of 516 for 81 percent) in baseball history. If Roberto Alomar and Rogers Hornsby both tried out for your second base job, who would you pick? Both. But you'd ask Hornsby to play first base.

Shortstop: Alex Rodriguez is such a good fielder you'd play him for his glove. His career batting average is .309 and he has hit 125 home runs over the last three seasons. That makes 189 for his career, and he won't be 26 until after the 2001 All Star game. He has more home runs now than Hall of Fame shortstops Pee Wee Reese and Phil Rizzuto had combined. It's probably too early to call A-Rod the best ever—Honus Wagner played for 21 seasons before his contemporaries gave him that accolade. But at this rate, he should have a spot reserved for a plaque in Cooperstown by the age of 30.

Third base: At the age of 29, the Braves' Chipper Jones has 189 home runs, has driven in 635 runs, hit over .300 four times, won an MVP award and played in three World Series. At the same age, Mike Schmidt, by consensus the greatest all-around third baseman in baseball history, had 190 home runs and 552 RBI and had yet to bat .300, win an MVP or play in a World Series.

Outfield: If Barry Bonds doesn't measure up to the level of his godfather, Willie Mays, he comes close. Bonds is 36 and has 494 home runs; at the same age, Mays had 564. Bonds has had nine seasons of 100-plus RBI; at the same age, Mays had 10. Mays' career average was .302 to Bonds' .289, but Bonds' on-base percentage is .412, 25 points higher than Willie's, and Bonds has more stolen bases, 471 in 15 seasons to Mays' 338 in 23 seasons.

Ken Griffey Jr. is so far ahead of Babe Ruth's and Hank Aaron's home run pace that it no longer seems a case of if he'll pass them up but simply when. Griffey is 31 and has 438 home runs. At the same age, Aaron had 398 and Ruth 356. Junior measures up to the all-time home run kings in other areas of the game as well. He's stolen more bases than either Aaron or Babe at the age of 31, and he's considered by some the best fielder in the outfield's most demanding spot (and has 10 Gold Gloves to prove it).

Boston's Manny Ramirez is on a pace perhaps as remarkable as Griffey's. Ramirez is 29 and in eight major league seasons (totaling 967 games), he's batted in an incredible 804 runs. In his last two seasons, Ramirez has driven in 287 runs in 265 games, a per-game pace worthy of Lou Gehrig at his peak.

Catcher: The Texas Rangers' Pudge Rodriguez might well have won back-to-back MVP awards except for an injury last season that took him out after 91 games. Still, he hit .347 with 27 home runs. Over the last four seasons Pudge has hit .313, .321, .332 and .347 and earned three Gold Gloves. Four more seasons like this and he may be going for the unofficial title of Greatest Catcher Ever.

Pitching: The old-timers will tell you the hitters are hitting so great because the pitchers are so bad. Then how to explain Pedro Martinez? Martinez has now had three seasons more impressive than that of Lefty Grove, the man Bill James called in 1985 "the greatest pitcher of all time, period." In 1931, Grove's best year, Grove posted an ERA of 2.06 while the American League as a whole was 4.38. That means Grove was a remarkable 2.32 better than the average. Last season, Pedro was 1.74, while the AL was 4.91, a difference of 3.17. There is no doubt that Lefty was great, but in his three best seasons so far Pedro Martinez has been better at preventing runs than Grove.

And let's not forget closers. You can't compare the great relievers of modern baseball—Mariano Rivera, Robb Nen, Trevor Hoffman—with the great relievers of Cobb's, Ruth's, DiMaggio's era because there weren't any back then to compare with the great ones today.

So forget what your dad or granddad told you, and start letting your kids in on the greatness they're getting for your money. These are the good old days.

If you're tired of reading about money squabbles and boorish players, stop reading and focus on the game.