Going Postal

its hard to say that, because so much has changed... more money, more pressure, more exposure... no idea if he would have been able to get in shape and be a great player today, or if he'd even be playing pro ball...

yeah, I don't know. his drinking was pretty bad. just imagine how much better he and mantle could have been without booze in their lifes or atleast not in the vast quantities they had it.

yeah, ruth had a pretty bad childhood that probably contributed to a lot of his problems, and it'd just be hard to just tranplant all his circumstances into today and even make a wild guess as too what would happen...

the average player today is better, but that's because there's more money and more exposure (which brings more competition), so i'm not even sure a stat to stat comparision is even that useful... hell, his drinking may have bounced him out of the league and left him in a shelter... who knows?

yeah, ruth had a pretty bad childhood that probably contributed to a lot of his problems, and it'd just be hard to just tranplant all his circumstances into today and even make a wild guess as too what would happen...

the average player today is better, but that's because there's more money and more exposure (which brings more competition), so i'm not even sure a stat to stat comparision is even that useful... hell, his drinking may have bounced him out of the league and left him in a shelter... who knows?

plus players now put a lot more time in the gym than they did back in the day. and in ruths time, leagues were still segregated so he never really played with and against the complete mixture of the best ballplayers.

you mean he never played puerto ricans (;))?

(sorry)

I hate to rain on the Armstrong parade but I was listening to Mike and Mike in the morning once and they had a cycling expert on. The guy said that Armstrong is not all that he's cracked up to be simply because he basically only rides in the Tour De France.

He doesn't compete in many other major races and when he does he picks races that are similar to the Tour for training purposes. The 'expert' (forget his name) made the analogy to Tiger Woods and if he only played in the Masters every year and stayed away from all the other majors.

He said that Armstrong is very good, but not in the all-time greats of cyclists.

It was an interesting point of view to hear. Especially when he made the Tiger analogy. Don't get me wrong I think he's a great athlete, but from the sounds of it he picks the biggest race of the year and focuses all his energy on just that one race.

Would we all think Tiger is the great golfer he is if he just played in one tournament a year? Probably not.

I heard this same argument. That Armstrong skips so many other races that it's easier for him come Tour de France time. It's an interesting argument. Just wondering though, to what extent do the other cyclists compete in other races? Because if the majority of the top cyclists are focusing on the Tour de France doesn't that level the field?

I'm not a cycling fan so I couldn't say, but from what that guy on Mike and Mike was saying there are quite a few other major races that he chooses to not race in.

I'd imagine it's just like other sports like tennis and golf where there are many big tournaments per year. Sounds like Armstrong chooses to only take part in the Super Bowl of cycling.

i don't think any other races have nearly the prestige of the tour de france, or else we'd know their names ;)

i'm sure he could do well if he did a fuller schedule, but tiger loses a lot, and he's still considered the best. I think if he did do a lot of other races, and only really dominated the tour de france, he'd still be considered the best, since thats the only household bike race.

if a team only played in the superbowl, but won 6 times in a row (against the best team each year), i'd say that even though the team took a shortcut, they must be pretty damn good...

plus if other cycling races r anywhere near as long as the tour de france(close to a month long), I can understand why he'd devote most of his energies to the TdF. it is a good point but no one can fault him for training and devoting his energies to a race that is run over a period of a month while choosing not to race in other events.