Greatest Catcher in Baseball History

DiMaggio is equally as scary with the strikeout stat.

That is probably my favorite stat in all of sports - to almost have as many home runs as strikeouts for your career.

 

Ted Simmons was well on his way till Whitey traded him to Brewers gulag hell, dammit.

 

Not knocking Gibson. I'm sure he'd have been an all-time great if he'd have played in the majors. But one thing that always annoys me when people bring up the Negro Leaguers' stats is they never mention how much barnstorming they did. Those guys often played two or sometimes three games a day. It's a lot easier to hit 800 home runs when you play 250 or 300 games a year.

 

You could also make the opposite argument -- that they played a more grueling schedule than the Major Leaguers and therefore should have been more worn down.

In general, it's remarkable how we generally ignore segregation when we talk about the greatest baseball players ever. The accomplishments of Major Leaguers before the color line was broken really should be looked at with more skepticism.

 

Josh Gibson. Fuckabuncha Johnny Bench.

 

Sorry, Bat. When the poll went up, Gibson wasn't on it. I was merely pointing out the oversight.

 

I have no problem with his inclusion. Just saying the stats thing bothers me when it comes to the Negro Leagues players.

 

In 1950 Yogi only struck out 12 times in 597 AB while still hitting 28 HR. He should have been the MVP that year but Rizzuto walked away with the award (even though Rizzuto was at best the 3rd best player on his own team behind Yogi and DiMaggio). If Yogi had won that 4th MVP - are we even having this discussion?

 

Jake Taylor

 

In the immortal words of Sparky Anderson, "Leave us not embarrass anyone by comparing him to John Bench."

Bench gets my vote.

 

Because he couldn't throw your grandmother out at second.