EVIL~! alkeiper

Let's say it's 1906. Are the Chicago Cubs of that year at that point not the greatest team of all time?

PhuturePhillies.com is doing a reader poll to develop a top Phillies' prospect list. Quite a few of the readers are keen on J.A. Happ, since he's certain to become an MLB caliber pitcher. Please. He's a #5 starter, and hardly proven. A 26 year old as a top prospect just because he's penciled into a rotation slot? I have my own rough top 30 in my blog if anyone is interested.

Nice deal for the Sox as well, to help rebuild their barren farm system. Vazquez lost favor in Chicago when Ozzie Guillen called him out on not winning the big games.

Re: Veterans Committee. I think Santo is going to miss out once again. Apparently the HOFers can vote for four players out of a ballot of ten. Six of those players have arguments as at least borderline Hall of Famers. When all the players are of similar quality, it is hard for a group to reach a consensus. This process really needs a runoff. As far as the pre-1943 group goes, I have a feeling that Joe Gordon gets elected.

Rickey Henderson Tim Raines Bert Blyleven Mark McGwire Alan Trammell Andre Dawson Henderson is obvious. Raines was a great, great player. Blyleven I'm sure we've discussed a dozen times. McGwire is deserving based on the numbers. I choose not to led the PEDs influence his worthiness, but the other argument is perfectly. reasonable. Trammell contributed more across the board than most power hitters. Dawson I think deserves induction based on being a power-hitting, gold glove center fielder in his prime. Since this is the Hall of Fame thread, I can not emphasize enough how bad a selection Jim Rice would be. He put up big numbers in a couple of seasons as a right handed hitter in Fenway Park. His stats have been cherry picked to make him look more impressive. On the whole, he was no better than Greg Luzinski, George Foster, or a bunch of other contemporary power hitters nowhere near the Hall.

MLB Talk I see six teams with a legitimate argument as the best ever. 1906 Chicago Cubs: Though they lost the World Series, they went on to win the next two. Any way you slice up win/loss records (one year, two, three, five, etc.), they have the highest on record. No team was ever more adept at turning balls in play into outs. 1927 New York Yankees: 110 wins and a World Series sweep. I personally think the team is overrated, and I'll touch on that later on. 1939 New York Yankees. 106-45, and a World Series sweep. This team won four consecutive World Series, and every single year they led the league in both runs scored and allowed. The caveat with this club is that the Great Depression severely depressed competition. An eight team league, and both the Browns and Athletics were blatantly uncompetitive. 1970 Baltimore Orioles: 109 and 108 wins in back-to-back seasons. That two year stretch is matched only by the Cubs, and the O's don't face the same quality of competition argument. 1975 Cincinnati Reds: The best lineup in history, practically an All-Star at every position. 1998 New York Yankees: 114 wins and then an 11-2 run in the postseason. Their '99 postseason run was even better, and they won four World Series in five years. Probably the most complete team of the bunch, with a deep bench and bullpen. In regards to the '27 Yankees, it strikes me that they kept the team largely intact and two years later they could not crack 90 wins. The team won a lot of games thanks to flukeish performances by their pitching staff. They had a 30 year old rookie relief ace who never produced another season like that in his life. If you could somehow put the team together again, I'm not sure they could duplicate that performance. My personal pick is the 1970 Orioles. A deep team with all the elements. They had a great offense led by Hall of Famer Frank Robinson. Their defense was also great, headed by another Hall of Famer in Brooks Robinson. Their pitching staff featured three 20 game winners. Their bullpen was solid. Their bench was good, and they had a Hall of Fame manager to put it all together. For two years, they were the most dominant team ever.

I definately call bullshit on that trade. B level pitching prospects for Peavy?

I think the idea that a team is automatically disqualified by not winning their championship is absurd. It's like claiming Leon Spinks was a better boxer than Muhammad Ali. A non-championship does not necessarily make team mediocre, nor does a perfect season necessarily make a team the greatest. Could the '72 Dolphins beat the '85 Bears? Better yet, would they beat them every single game? Of course not. If you took the 32 greatest NFL teams and put them in one league, no team would go undefeated. In fact, most of the league would finish 9-7 and 8-8 due to the high caliber of competition. The last sentence is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room. The better the quality of a sporting league, the harder it is to dominate. If a team can win 11 of 13 championships like the Celtics, it probably says more about the NBA than anything else.

I agree with Czech. This sort of thread is MUCH better done as open debate. Besides, I'd be completely useless evaluating hockey teams beyond looking at win/loss records. I can't see selecting national teams as part of this sort of thing. I think a team has to play in a valid professional season to qualify. Two things to consider in a debate beyond simple win/loss and postseason records. One is the quality of the league, the second is long term success. In the case of the former, let's take an obvious example. The 1884 St. Louis Maroons went 94-19 in the Union Association. This is by far the best winning percentage ever posted in a major league. However, it was a weak league, when baseball was an undeveloped sport. The same team essentially joined the National League the next season and finished last. Along the same line, there is a timeline argument to consider. Now, players in the past would measure up to players of today because they would have access to the same training methods. But often earlier leagues were undeveloped and not as competitive. Two-way players existed in the NFL not because they were superior athletes, but because the leagues were easier to dominate. This is not an integration argument. If you look at today's game, professional and amateur leagues are highly structured, with the best players filtered into the highest leagues. In an earlier era, the system was not as defined, and many MLB caliber stars would make just as much money starring for minor league teams. Long term records are important in separating true talent from the one year wonders. The 1984 Tigers went 104-58 and dominated the postseason. But they only won one other division title the entire decade. A team doesn't need to win back-to-back championships necessarily, but they should post records at or near the top of their completion continuously.

Matches only.

Perhaps a duel foreign version. There were two versions of Dracula, to account for one example.

If they tried to put down the timeline from 1997-02, the dvd would have come with a booklet.

Just to clarify something Enigma wrote, the $25,000 deposit was actually from the National Wrestling Alliance. That came from the days of Lou Thesz.

History of the Intercontinental title is out. Yes, I got the Buddy Roberts edition. That'll be as valuable as a two page insert can get (not very). A lot of duplicate matches but I believe this is the first DVD appearance of both Savage/Steamboat and Warrior/Rude from Summerslam '89, not counting the anthologies.

I figured Edge/Jeff, Cena/Batista and HHH/Undertaker were likely directions. Oddly, they ran HHH/Undertaker the last time they were in the Astrodome too.

George Harrison is the source of one of my all time favorite gags. "Hi Homer. I'm George Harrison." "Oh my god. OH MY GOD! Where did you get that brownie?!" Lance Murdoch is probably the best unpicked character.

I can't wait until they play for the Indianapolis Indians myself.

No Holds Barred: The Match http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD2BGkulQaQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpQPBmQ1mAg The only other matches Zeus wrestled were tag matches at Summerslam and Survivor Series. He never wrestled a singles match.

This. When people spout drivel and filth, they simply are not worth my time.

I'm with Bob on this one. I'm missing why I should be so outraged.

Worth it just to hear Mr. Burns call U2, "wankers."

Honestly, I think this is brilliant by WWE. They have people scouring the internet all day for news leading into a PPV. Exploitation? Jeff was suspended twice for drug use. It's hardly like dicking around with the legacy of a dead wrestler.

Weird Al Yankovic

Princess Kashmir

Real surprise trade here. The Phillies have traded Greg Golson to the Texas Rangers for John Mayberry. Golson was a toolsy prospect who was showing some baseball ability at AA. Mayberry is a career .255 hitter in the minor leagues, and a lot of that accumulated in hitters' parks. He's a huge right handed power hitter though (6'6"), who can play left field. Baseball America before the season remarked that "he could be an everyday big league right fielder who hits 35 home runs." Obviously the Phillies acquired him with an eye towards replacing Pat Burrell, possibly in a platoon role.