Baseball: Bonds better than the Babe?

Originally posted by HOOTIE

First off this whole topic is impossible, You cannot compare players from different ages, it is impossible,
Secondly Baseball did get the best athletes back then, but they were nothing compared to the athletes of nowadays, Ruth was a DRUNK himself,
Barry Bonds Is Great, Bab Ruth is Great, the comparisons need to end there, because they cannot go any further!

You can compare player's from different ages, by comparing them to their peers. OPS+ and ERA+ does this pretty well. And it's park adjusted.

What does Ruth being a drunk have to do with anything? Many stars have been drunks, coke heads, and suck down greenies. Athletes might be bigger and faster now, but are they really better? SP can't even throw 9 innings, or log 300 innings like those old (inferior) players.

game has changed so much, so many different variables for both days, impossible unless somone comes up with a formula, and ops+ and era+ isnt very helpful because the league standards are different, such as more kansas city caliber pitchers nowadays.

face of game

It is very hard to tell if Barry Bonds was better than Babe Ruth. First of all, many reporters these days are constantly speculating on that subject, yet none of them actually saw Ruth play (except Peter Gammons). So, basically, these reporters are looking at the stats only, which don't entirly tell the whole story. It was avery differen't game then, and what Ruth did was revolutionary. He set the standard of greatness in Major League Baseball. You can say what you want about the stars of the 1800s such as cap anson and roger conner, but the truch of the matter is it was a VERY different game then, so they are not exactly revolutionaries. Now on the other hand you have Bonds, who people are comparing to Babe Ruth. Bonds probably will break Ruths records, and already has broken some of them, posting a good argument that he IS actually better than Ruth. Although, Ruthwas playing in a steroid free environment, not to say that Bonds took steroids but it is a possibility. This possibility makes what Ruth did even more speacial. Although it does take a pretty special player like Barry Bonds to even come close to Ruth's records, as no modern player has really yet to do.