Who would you start... Babe Ruth or Jack Cust? I'd go with Jack

If there is one thing that really grinds my gears, it's when a sports announcer talks about how the pitchers these days just don't have the guts and mental toughness to pitch the amount of innings that pitchers of older generations could.

All anybody has to do is watch the 2009 playoffs to understand immediately why pitchers don't throw as many innings as they did in the 80's, 70's, 60's, 50's ,1890's ... etc. Every freaking pitcher throws at least 92 mph, with at least 7-10 pitchers per each team throwing mid to upper 90's.

Cy Young once threw 453 innings in a season, and he was 5th in the NL that year in innings. Bill Hutchison was 1st in the NL with 622 innings and a 36 - 36 record to accompany a 2.76 era. Holy shit! 2.76 era and you lose 36 games!! LULZ! Hutchison also had 314 k's that season, which sounds like a lot until you realize that its only a 4.5 k's per nine inning ratio. Cy Young's K per 9 innings was even worse. He only recorded 168 strikeouts that season for a 3.3 k per 9 innings ratio. Players today that record a 3.3 k per nine inning never get called up to the bigs.

Let's compare some of those #'s to todays. Justin Verlander led all of baseball with 240 innings pitched. He had 269 k's in 240 innings for a 10k per 9 inning ratio. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Cy Young and Bill Hutchinson did not throw consistantly 99mph like Verlander. The simple reason for this declaration... the human arm would not be able to handle the stress. Also, players those days and rediculously goofy windups that were more circus than maximizing their body's potential.

Nolan Ryan, who's career high in innings pitched for a season is 332.2 (which would have been good for 20th in just the NL in 1892) His total career innings (5,386) are almost 2,000 innings below Cy Young's career innings pitched. Nolan Ryan is remembered as being an absolute work horse. He sticks in our minds and hearts because he was an absolute rare breed of power and longevity. Key word being "rare". If Nolan Ryan threw more innings than we think is even possible, what does that make Cy Young?

I'll tell you. It makes Cy Young a soft throwing nobody. If Cy Young had any velocity, he simply would not have been able to pitch so many innings. My predictions are that Cy Young threw about 65-70 mph, and relied on a deceptive (and rediculous looking) delivery and the fact that everybody pretty much sucked at baseball back then. To their credit, it was a new sport and people were still learning how to play it more effectively.

However, if Nolan Ryan pitched back then, he would have had a career era of .000000001, with his only run coming from a game in which he walked 4 batters in a row after getting the first two outs on k's and then losing his cool. He would have been the only pitcher in history to never give up a base hit. He would have been looked at as unable to throw a decent amount of innings though. He would have had the reputation of being a pussy. LULZ

So if the pitchers were far less talented back in the hay day of baseball, so were the hitters (and fielders for that matter). Am I the only one who sees Willy Mays' basket catch and feels ripped off that it always gets "best catch ever made"? Jim Edmonds has at least 15 catches better than that one. Also, Jeter's patented catch, spin and throw deep in the hole, did not happen in the early 1900's. Those were base hits. Hitters were hitting off slow pitching, and they themselves had limited skills. Just look at some old video footage of some of the rediculuos batting stances, and hitting approaches. Ty Cobb's hands were spread apart on the bat for instance. There is no way they would have had a sniff of a chance against a 99 mph fastball from Verlander, let alone a 90 mph fastball from low single A prospect, Aaron Jones.

One day Babe Ruth came along and revolutionized baseball. He was pretty much the first player who actually had any force behind his swing. One thing that is never said though, Babe Ruth was facing some brutal pitching. Pitchers still did their goofy devliveries that did not maximize their body's potential, and Babe Ruth was the first player to make them pay for that.

Babe Ruth stands in our minds as a monster sized player. A long running joke in contemporary US culture is when you see a fat kid you call him Babe Ruth. Well hold on, Babe was listed at 6'2'' 215lbs. Hmm, that would be fairly small if you compare to today's stars. Ryan Howard for instance is 6'4'' 260lbs. Could you imagine what the legends would have been of Ryan Howard if he played back in Ruth's day? The story would go... "One time Ryan Howard hit a 645 ft homerun with one hand". Actually Ryan Howard was black and wouldn't have been allowed to play. Another thing to remember, baseball back then was "white people's" best talent. Not the world's best talent like it is today.

Hell, if we took Jack Cust's 6'1'' 240lbs, we realize that Ruth wasn't that fat after all. He was just big for his time. Lucky for Ruth he was also facing shit pitching.

If Babe Ruth were to play today he would be viewed as small, unable to hit high velocity pitching, problem hitting sick curveballs, medium power. So in short, he and Jack Cust would really battle for that last starting spot on the Oakland A's.

I predict that Babe Ruth would eventually lose that spot to Cust, go to the minors, do a few cycles of steroids, come back up and hit 25 homers with a .222 BA and 186 k's during his rookie campaign drawing comparisons to Nick Swisher. After finishing 3rd in the rookie of the year voting, Ruth disapoints with a mediocre sophmore campaign (.232BA 15 HR 55 RBI's 195 k's). After the Pirates take a chance on Ruth on the free agent market, Ruth sets the single season strikeout record with 245K's to go along with .235 BA, 17 Hr's and 62 RBI's. Ruth then gets released and signs with a Japanese team and America would never hear of him again. Lucky for Ruth he played in the era that he did!

Moral of the story: It is rediculous to compare era's. If you did, you will have to accept the fact that athletes are better now than they ever ahve been. In 50 years, they will be better than they are today and so on and so forth.