On the interesting thread about raising the basket to 11 feet, some posters indicated that if dunks were eliminated, scoring would be much lower. I took a look at yearly NCAA statistics from 1955 to the present to see if they would show any correlation between dunks and scoring averages, and I also looked at the effect of three-point shooting and the shot clock on scoring averages.

[U]1955 – 1967: When dunks were allowed [/U]
Field Goal percentage increased steadily from 36.9% in 1955 to 43.8% in 1967. Scoring increased from 69.3 points per game in 1955 to 74.9 ppg in 1967.

[U]1968 – 1976: When dunks were no longer allowed [/U]
FG% again increased steadily from 43.7% in 1968 to 46.7% in 1976. Scoring increased from 74.9 ppg in 1967 to a high of 77.7 ppg in 1971 and 1972, and then decreased back to 75.7 in 1976. I would not have expected shooting percentage and scoring to have increased at all when players were not allowed to dunk the ball, but that is what happened.

[U]1977 – 1986: When dunks were again allowed [/U]
FG% continued to increase, but less dramatically, from 46.7% in 1976 to 47.7% in 1986. Scoring steadily decreased from 75.7 ppg in 1976 to 69.4 ppg in 1986. I would not have expected such a dramatic decrease in scoring, but that is what happened.

[U]1987 – 2013: When dunks are allowed, the 3-point shot and the shot clock added (1986)[/U]
FG% decreased steadily from 47.7% in 1986 to a low last season (2013) of 43.3%. We have to go back all the way to 1965 with a FG% of 43.1%, to find such a low percentage. Scoring in this period increased from 72.8 ppg to a high of 76.7 ppg in 1991, and then decreased steadily and dramatically to 67.5 ppg in 2013. We have to go back all the way to 1952, to find a lower scoring average, at 63.3 ppg.

This is a little misleading, because teams are shooting more and more 3 pointers, which lowers the over all FG%. In 1987, teams shot 9.2 threes per game, increasing steadily to 2013, when teams shot 18.1 threes per game. Removing the threes from field goals, the FG% inside the three point line was 47.9% in 1987, and 47.7% in 2013.

An interesting fact from the shot clock years is that Field Goal Attempts went from 57.0 per game in 1985 to 55.0 in 2013. I would have expected attempts to increase, not decrease. Back in the 1950’s, teams were averaging about 70 shots per game, which surprised me, but then I realized that even though much more defense was played on the West Coast, the rest of the country was largely playing the fast break offense.

Some of the decrease in scoring and FG% can be attributed to changing defensive strategies, and to the NBA robbing Division One of some of its best players, the weaker fundamentals of today, and the fact that there are fewer good players on average playing the game now. I say this, because in 1955, there were 162 Division One teams, and today there are 345 teams. So the talent pool is spread around, and many teams play with players not so skilled. Still, I think it is fair to say that dunking the ball does not necessarily increase a team’s scoring average or affect its field goal percentage by much, if at all. The reasons for allowing or disallowing the dunk are subjective, and have nothing to do with scoring more points per game. Nor does the dunk result in a markedly higher overall shooting percentage, and maybe lowers it a little.

Here is the NCAA’s reference for the stats above:

http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/m_basketball_RB/Reports/All-time%20Statistical%20Trends%20chart.pdf

SFCB, thanks for your work here!

It would be interesting to see the population change in US when comparing Division I players, 1955 to 2013. Also, the number of foreign players playing at these different times.

Regarding all of your different periods, there are likely so many variables in addition to the obvious and important ones you cite, that there will likely be a lot of different notions about causality and the ability of the players in the different eras.

Go Bears!

IIRC, the shot clock was introduced because of the offensive changes that followed Dean Smith's development of the "Four Corners" offense. Essentially, games would be all but over once a team got a 2+ possession lead in the 2nd half. BORING. Of course, not everyone used that offense, but when it was used...

south bender;842125866 said:

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SFCB, thanks for your work here!

It would be interesting to see the population change in US when comparing Division I players, 1955 to 2013. Also, the number of foreign players playing at these different times.

Regarding all of your different periods, there are likely so many variables in addition to the obvious and important ones you cite, that there will likely be a lot of different notions about causality and the ability of the players in the different eras.

Go Bears!

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The US population nearly doubled from 166 million to 313 million from 1955-2013. And the number of foreign players increased substantially(not doing that research). Which ignores the most important point, which is the full racial integration of the game. The idea that talent is diluted since 1955 is not correct. Quite the contrary.

I agree that there are so many variables that comparisons are difficult. One thing to note is that if you watch old basketball games, there is little to no help defense. When you add in the increased athleticism of the modern player, it is now clearly more difficult to score.

Sluggo

UrsaMajor;842125872 said:

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IIRC, the shot clock was introduced because of the offensive changes that followed Dean Smith's development of the "Four Corners" offense. Essentially, games would be all but over once a team got a 2+ possession lead in the 2nd half. BORING. Of course, not everyone used that offense, but when it was used...

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The basketball shot clock was introduced first in the NBA to generate scoring. Even with a 48 minute game, they were not scoring enough points, or selling enough tickets, and teams were close to going broke. An objective was to get the scores over 100 points for each team. Refs overlooked traveling and palming violations to encourage scoring. All of this eventually found its way into the college game. The three point line was another invention of the NBA to sell tickets, and after some years, it too, found its way into the college game.

When players and teams got better and better, and scores were getting up into the 120’s and higher, the NBA had to dial it back and let players play some defense. Refs turned their heads, and allowed bumping, banging, and fouling, and now the NBA allows zone defenses. Scores came way down, and they found out that aggressive physical contact can help sell tickets as well as lots of scoring. In the 1960's, I saw a game at the Cow Palace between the Lakers and the Warriors, where Baylor scored 60, and Chamberlain scored 75. The score was in the 140's. That would not be possible in today's NBA. Fans might like to see that kind of scoring, but they would have to give up some physical contact and defense to get it.

The shot clock was finally introduced by the NCAA to put an end to delay tactics, after they had tried everything they could to stop them, such as the 5 second rule about guarding a player who had the ball. There had been concern for at least 20 years over offenses using delay tactics. Newell had Hagler hold a ball for 8 minutes against USF to draw Russell out of the key, and all teams went into a form of stall at the end of a game if they had a lead. Jimmy Needles or Pete Newell invented the Four Corners offense, and Newell used it in the early ‘50s. Dean Smith refined it a little, and popularized it, and it led to the final nail in the coffins of all the stalls, the shot clock.

sluggo_Cal;842125874 said:

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The US population nearly doubled from 166 million to 313 million from 1955-2013. And the number of foreign players increased substantially(not doing that research). Which ignores the most important point, which is the full racial integration of the game. The idea that talent is diluted since 1955 is not correct. Quite the contrary.

I agree that there are so many variables that comparisons are difficult. One thing to note is that if you watch old basketball games, there is little to no help defense. When you add in the increased athleticism of the modern player, it is now clearly more difficult to score.

Sluggo

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Just because the population doubled does not mean the number of talented players doubled as well. Talent is diluted, in nearly every team sport, and that is a fact. Look at baseball. There are so many more teams now, and it has become so expensive to have a big minor league system, that we find players on Major League teams who should be in Triple A or Double A ball. Players who are not well coordinated, and others who lack fundamentals, throw to the wrong base, outfielders who run in to catch a ball, and then have to jump high to catch it, and on and on. And baseball has seen the same increase in population, the same racial integration, and maybe even a bigger influx of foreign born players.

Kids today have a lot of distractions. They have all sorts of activities that players of old never had. They are distracted by video games, social media, porn, drugs, sex, and crime, hardly any of which was a distraction in the 1950's. I know kids who would rather play a video game than play a sport in person. There is less money available for sports in high school, and fewer good players are going into high school coaching.

As a result, we see kids arriving in college without the basic fundamentals in their sport. Cal had a team last season that competed for the title, and yet out of 16 players, there were hardly a handful who could have played on a Cal team 60 years ago. Some players arrive at Cal unable to correctly make a layup, set a hard pick, box out, move without the ball, or play simple man defense. Their footwork is poor.

In Newell's best years, he had 18 players on his team, and all were fundamentally sound. Some were better at scoring, some better at defense. But all were good at taking care of the ball and not losing it. Some were better at passing, but all were good at it. There wasn't anyone that Newell would have been reluctant to put into a game. And Newell had another 15 players on his Junior Varsity Team that he was grooming to bring up to the varsity to replace his graduating seniors. Newell had an additional 18 players on his Freshman Team, one or two of whom might move up to the Varsity, and many who would move up to the Junior Varsity. And all or nearly all of those players had sound fundamentals when they arrived at Cal. So that was a lot of players with good fundamentals. It wasn't just Newell. Every coach had plenty of players at USF, Santa Clara, St Mary's and Stanford, most or all with good fundamentals.

In the Montgomery era, we've had many players whose fundamentals are poor. Players whom Monty is reluctant to play. And some of those he does play could not have made the team in Newell's day, and some could not have made his Junior Varsity, in terms of having decent fundamentals. I don't follow other teams closely, but I watch our opponents play us, and I see plenty of fundamental mistakes from them as well.

I don't know what old films you were watching, but if you were watching films of Eastern and Midwestern teams from the '50s, then you would have seen scoring in the 80's and 90's, and very little defense. Kind of like watching the NBA of the day. If you had watched films of the West Coast teams, you'd have seen scores in the 40's, 50's and 60's and all defense. It was Newell who brought defense to the rest of the country, and it was Russell and Jones who brought defense to the NBA.

And what, you think "help defense" is a modern concept? It is just sort of a disguised zone, and is used today to protect players who don't have sound individual defensive skills. Do you think Jorge needed any help guarding his man? Hell no. Ask Damian Lillard. Now try and imagine 5 guys playing defense like Jorge, and you have a Pete Newell team or a Bill Russell-KC Jones team. They did not need help. Sure they double teamed, they switched men, they trapped. But it was the teams who had weaker man-to man defenders who had to play a kind of "help defense".

SFCB,

If you take a look at any NBA Finals series from the late 50's, when Russell and Jones were Celtics, and compare to the Heat-Pacers series now in progress, do you want to make the case that the players of the 50's were more talented?

Go Bears!

Your position is absurd. 80% of the NBA is black. Of the all-NBA teams, 14 out of 15 players are either black or foreign (or black and foreign). Americans whites did not forget how to play, they were replaced by superior players. The players in the 50s may have been fundamentally sound, whatever that means, but they were slow and short and could not shoot. See your own statistics.

Scoring is mostly a function of the number of possessions in a game. High or low scores that are not scaled for the number of possessions do not have much meaning.

Help defense is not a disguised zone. It is working together as a team, just like the best offenses. It is progress. Wilt scored 50 points a game, 20 more than anyone in a typical year these days. That is because defense was so primitive. The hybrid defenses played by teams like Chicago and Indiana are fantastic.

Cal's problem has not been recruiting players with bad fundamentals. Rather, it has been recruiting players who cannot play. But that seems to be over. I am looking forward to the future and expecting it to be better than the past.

Sluggo

sluggo_Cal;842126185 said:

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Your position is absurd. 80% of the NBA is black. Of the all-NBA teams, 14 out of 15 players are either black or foreign (or black and foreign). Americans whites did not forget how to play, they were replaced by superior players. The players in the 50s may have been fundamentally sound, whatever that means, but they were slow and short and could not shoot. See your own statistics.

Scoring is mostly a function of the number of possessions in a game. High or low scores that are not scaled for the number of possessions do not have much meaning.

Help defense is not a disguised zone. It is working together as a team, just like the best offenses. It is progress. Wilt scored 50 points a game, 20 more than anyone in a typical year these days. That is because defense was so primitive. The hybrid defenses played by teams like Chicago and Indiana are fantastic.

Cal's problem has not been recruiting players with bad fundamentals. Rather, it has been recruiting players who cannot play. But that seems to be over. I am looking forward to the future and expecting it to be better than the past.

Sluggo

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Sweet River Baines would agree with you:

Dunks have more of a psychological impact

SFCityBear;842126112 said:

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Just because the population doubled does not mean the number of talented players doubled as well. Talent is diluted, in nearly every team sport, and that is a fact. Look at baseball. There are so many more teams now, and it has become so expensive to have a big minor league system, that we find players on Major League teams who should be in Triple A or Double A ball. Players who are not well coordinated, and others who lack fundamentals, throw to the wrong base, outfielders who run in to catch a ball, and then have to jump high to catch it, and on and on. And baseball has seen the same increase in population, the same racial integration, and maybe even a bigger influx of foreign born players.

Kids today have a lot of distractions. They have all sorts of activities that players of old never had. They are distracted by video games, social media, porn, drugs, sex, and crime, hardly any of which was a distraction in the 1950's. I know kids who would rather play a video game than play a sport in person. There is less money available for sports in high school, and fewer good players are going into high school coaching.

As a result, we see kids arriving in college without the basic fundamentals in their sport. Cal had a team last season that competed for the title, and yet out of 16 players, there were hardly a handful who could have played on a Cal team 60 years ago. Some players arrive at Cal unable to correctly make a layup, set a hard pick, box out, move without the ball, or play simple man defense. Their footwork is poor.

In Newell's best years, he had 18 players on his team, and all were fundamentally sound. Some were better at scoring, some better at defense. But all were good at taking care of the ball and not losing it. Some were better at passing, but all were good at it. There wasn't anyone that Newell would have been reluctant to put into a game. And Newell had another 15 players on his Junior Varsity Team that he was grooming to bring up to the varsity to replace his graduating seniors. Newell had an additional 18 players on his Freshman Team, one or two of whom might move up to the Varsity, and many who would move up to the Junior Varsity. And all or nearly all of those players had sound fundamentals when they arrived at Cal. So that was a lot of players with good fundamentals. It wasn't just Newell. Every coach had plenty of players at USF, Santa Clara, St Mary's and Stanford, most or all with good fundamentals.

In the Montgomery era, we've had many players whose fundamentals are poor. Players whom Monty is reluctant to play. And some of those he does play could not have made the team in Newell's day, and some could not have made his Junior Varsity, in terms of having decent fundamentals. I don't follow other teams closely, but I watch our opponents play us, and I see plenty of fundamental mistakes from them as well.

I don't know what old films you were watching, but if you were watching films of Eastern and Midwestern teams from the '50s, then you would have seen scoring in the 80's and 90's, and very little defense. Kind of like watching the NBA of the day. If you had watched films of the West Coast teams, you'd have seen scores in the 40's, 50's and 60's and all defense. It was Newell who brought defense to the rest of the country, and it was Russell and Jones who brought defense to the NBA.

And what, you think "help defense" is a modern concept? It is just sort of a disguised zone, and is used today to protect players who don't have sound individual defensive skills. Do you think Jorge needed any help guarding his man? Hell no. Ask Damian Lillard. Now try and imagine 5 guys playing defense like Jorge, and you have a Pete Newell team or a Bill Russell-KC Jones team. They did not need help. Sure they double teamed, they switched men, they trapped. But it was the teams who had weaker man-to man defenders who had to play a kind of "help defense".

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Get off my lawn! :=)

Talent and fundamentals are two different things. Basketball players today as a whole are more physically talented and I'd argue also more skilled than players in the 1960's. You talk about fundamentals, but the sheer speed of the game now would make a lot of 1960's players unable to compete. And of course a key point you ignored is the full integration of the sport, which includes the influx of inner city kids and foreign players to college ball.

Also, using baseball as the basis of an argument that talent is diluted in team sports is off the mark. First, talent in college baseball is way higher than it was even in the early 1970's when I was playing. The really good players tended to go directly into the minor leagues and skip college. College players were for the most part considered to be guys who weren't good enough to get drafted, or drafted high enough. And another thing that has happened with baseball is that the same inner city kids who are much more present in college basketball don't play baseball any more. Baseball survives because it's international and we now have so many players from Latin and Asian countries, but a big part of any dilution in that sport has to do with the fact that American city kids are playing basketball, not baseball. And even then, I'd say current MLB players are better than in the "glory days" simply because of better early coaching, better training, and better funding.

I have the same problems with the way young players are coached and groomed these days as you do. However, I think the combination of population growth and new sources of talent that did not exist 50 or 60 years ago has more than kept up with demand. I would say the only dropoff in talent in college basketball between 1950 and now occurred when the NBA changed its entry rules and we started losing the very top players to the pros out of high school or, in recent years, after a year of college. Other than that, the talent level has more than kept up with expansion.

Right about the NBA and the background history. There were times in the 60's when college ball (especially the ACC) was unwatchable.

I found a couple of areas interesting in this data: 1) foul shooting, which most of us would consider a "fundamental" has been remarkably stable; 2) the number of fouls per game seem to have declined over the span of this display from a high in 1952 to a low in 2013 in spite of a) increased physicality in the game (particularly in post play) and b) the use of intentional fouls in the current era to gain possession. Also, there seems to have been relatively little effect on 3 pt shooting when the distance was increased from 19'9'' to 20'9''. Other aspects of the game which have changed but don't show in statistics are the greater latitude in "palming", which is almost universal but rarely called, and what I perceive as a more lax treatment of travelling.

sluggo_Cal;842126185 said:

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Your position is absurd. 80% of the NBA is black. Of the all-NBA teams, 14 out of 15 players are either black or foreign (or black and foreign). Americans whites did not forget how to play, they were replaced by superior players. The players in the 50s may have been fundamentally sound, whatever that means, but they were slow and short and could not shoot. See your own statistics.

Scoring is mostly a function of the number of possessions in a game. High or low scores that are not scaled for the number of possessions do not have much meaning.

Help defense is not a disguised zone. It is working together as a team, just like the best offenses. It is progress. Wilt scored 50 points a game, 20 more than anyone in a typical year these days. That is because defense was so primitive. The hybrid defenses played by teams like Chicago and Indiana are fantastic.

Cal's problem has not been recruiting players with bad fundamentals. Rather, it has been recruiting players who cannot play. But that seems to be over. I am looking forward to the future and expecting it to be better than the past.

Sluggo

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Why are you having to bring the NBA into this discussion? And then cite my college statistics to somehow back up your NBA argument? The NBA is and was a different game, different styles, rules, and different enforcement of rules. Not only have you misunderstood all of my points, I find your comments mildly racially offensive. You say you don't know what sound basketball fundamentals are, and yet you want to dismiss my point about today's players in general arriving in college without some of them. If you say you don't know what fundamentals are, how can you discuss this point? I'll give you a few: fake sometimes before you pass or shoot. On a shot attempt, get between an opposing player and the basket, and put a hand on him so you can feel if he moves. Proper defensive position is butt down, hands up. When you guard a player on the baseline, lead with the foot closest to the baseline, so the player can't drive baseline on you. Next time you watch a game, look for just these few fundamentals. You won't see them nearly as often as you would have seen them in a game 50 years ago.

You continue to try and bring race into this discussion. You apparently have not seen games in the '50s, and yet you make comments about players of the '50s being slow, short, and couldn't shoot. Those are not only racist code words for those players being white (I'm surprised you didn't also say white players can't jump), but they are, in the case of "slow" and "short", slight exaggerations, and in the case of can't shoot, just plain false. There were plenty of tall centers on college teams back then. Just about every team had a player from 6'-8" to over seven feet. The so-called power forward was usually about 6'-6" or 6'-7", and the guards were usually 6'-0" to 6'-4". A small forward back then was 6'-3" to 6'-6". Shorter yes, but only slightly so. The '59 Cal frosh had two centers, 6'-10", and 6'-11", and 2 forwards at 6'-8". Players were slower, yes, but the faster speed of the game today has greatly increased the number of turnovers. Many players just can not play this fast without committing them. Compared to the '50s, it is a sloppy game we play today, even with all our fabulous athleticism.

The players of today are skilled shooters from the 3 point line. There are a few who are skilled at tipins, or at floaters and running shots in the lane. That's it. The dunk requires no skill. The shooters in the '50s were skilled in one or two-hand set shots, mid-range jump shots, running one-hand shots, floaters, and some of the tall centers were also skilled in finger rolls. Nearly all of these shots have disappeared, with the mid-range jumper fast becoming extinct. Where is the hook, and where is the sky hook? Those two shots would be effective today, and yet players of today were never taught these shots, or don't want to learn them. In a short time, the Cal coaching staff taught the hook to Harper Kamp, and maybe to MSF, and they were effective. Even Jorge learned to shoot a baby hook. Wallace is working on one. But they are the exceptions.

One fundamental measure of shooting is the free throw, player and basket, with no defender. It is the only shot in basketball, with the exception of the layup, that has not changed over the last 60 years. And you know what? The free throw percentage for players has stayed constant at around 69% for over 50 years. The shooting ability of players then is the same as now. Field Goal percentage was 43% in the '60s, when there was a lot of team defense, rose to a high of 48% when there was less defense, and now has dropped back to 43%, in an era where defense is again emphasized.

I say the help defense is a zone, because the weak side player sags off his man to be ready to help, and gets out of proper man-to-man defensive position by standing up, with his hands down. He no longer is focused on his man. He has a combination man-zone focus, partly on his man, and partly on a zone where he may have to go and help out. In 1956, in high school, we played a rotating zone, almost identical to the help defense of today.

You bring up Wilt Chamberlain. You want to bring up the NBA again, but your facts are dead wrong. Wilt averaged 30.1 points over his career in the NBA, not 50 points. Kevin Durant averaged 30.8 points per game this year. Not much difference. Wilt could score 50 just about any time he wanted to, but didn't, because he was a team player. Wilt averaged 29.9 points per game in college. In 1957, Kansas lost the NCAA title game, with Wilt scoring 23. Wilt averaged 29.6 points that year. Chet Forte averaged 28.9, and Len Rosenbluth 27.9. In neither the NBA or college was Wilt averaging 20 points more than anyone playing then or now. Newell's Cal team nearly beat Kansas, slowing Wilt down in the first half, but then he went off in the second half, and ended with about 21 points, if I remember right. In 1958, Cal nearly beat Kansas and Wilt again. Wilt Chamberlain had only one 50-point game in his entire college career, against a weak Northwestern team.

I also never said that Cal's problem was recruiting players with bad fundamentals. I think it is every coach's problem. Many coaches have bemoaned this fact. Even NBA coaches have a problem with this. Geoff Petrie, a fine player and GM of the Kings talked often about this.

bluesaxe;842126240 said:

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Get off my lawn! :=)

Talent and fundamentals are two different things. Basketball players today as a whole are more physically talented and I'd argue also more skilled than players in the 1960's. You talk about fundamentals, but the sheer speed of the game now would make a lot of 1960's players unable to compete. And of course a key point you ignored is the full integration of the sport, which includes the influx of inner city kids and foreign players to college ball.

Also, using baseball as the basis of an argument that talent is diluted in team sports is off the mark. First, talent in college baseball is way higher than it was even in the early 1970's when I was playing. The really good players tended to go directly into the minor leagues and skip college. College players were for the most part considered to be guys who weren't good enough to get drafted, or drafted high enough. And another thing that has happened with baseball is that the same inner city kids who are much more present in college basketball don't play baseball any more. Baseball survives because it's international and we now have so many players from Latin and Asian countries, but a big part of any dilution in that sport has to do with the fact that American city kids are playing basketball, not baseball. And even then, I'd say current MLB players are better than in the "glory days" simply because of better early coaching, better training, and better funding.

I have the same problems with the way young players are coached and groomed these days as you do. However, I think the combination of population growth and new sources of talent that did not exist 50 or 60 years ago has more than kept up with demand. I would say the only dropoff in talent in college basketball between 1950 and now occurred when the NBA changed its entry rules and we started losing the very top players to the pros out of high school or, in recent years, after a year of college. Other than that, the talent level has more than kept up with expansion.

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Of course you are right in saying that talent and fundamentals are two different things. I didn't mean to confuse the two. In my opinion, kids are born with a certain talent or talents, which it is their responsibility to develop. Talents are developed by learning fundamentals, among other things. I'd only say that a player who comes to college as a freshman, should have learned most basketball fundamentals by then, and incorporated them into his developing talent.

I'd also agree about the speed. But I would say the speed is not well used and causes way too many turnovers. I used to cringe whenever I saw, Cobbs, Smith, or Wallace tear full speed up the floor on a fast break into a one on two or one on three, and lose the ball, instead of backing the ball out and waiting for teammates to catch up to start the offense, because the hoop was too well defended. So many times they thought pure speed was going to get them to the hoop faster than the opponent, and too many times they lost the ball or blew the shot. Speed has its time and place, but should only be used when it gives you an advantage.

I certainly decry the fact that so few Blacks are playing baseball now. The Giants don't have a single American Black player. With the great history of the Negro Leagues, and after all the trials of players like Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier, it is sad that fewer Black kids will now take up the game. It would seem the odds of playing pro baseball might be better than playing pro basketball, even with the addition of all the overseas basketball leagues as opportunities. Baseball is a game that can be played by both tall and short players, fast and slow players, strong ones and not so strong, alike. The short and the slow especially have a really tough time making it in pro basketball.

I go to Giants' games with a former major leaguer, and to Cal baseball games with a former Cal player. They say what I've said about the skill level in the majors. We also hear the Giants' announcers pointing out bonehead plays, where they just can't understand why players make some of the decisions they make. I just repeated what I heard. I never played baseball, so you have me at a disadvantage. You say that players today had better early coaching, but then later you say you have the same problems I do with the coaching of young basketball players. I don't quite follow what you've said here. Is it because the inner city kids who play basketball are not getting good early coaching, but the kids who play baseball are mostly white and affluent enough to get into programs with good coaching? I never thought about it that way, but there may be a good point there, if that is what you meant. I can remember in the '50s playing on all-white church, playground and club teams, and we often traveled to inner city areas to play all-Black teams. We marveled at their athleticism, but we always beat them easily. The reason was just coaching. We had plays and we passed. They didn't. If one of their players wanted to take a shot, the only way he was going to get one was to grab a rebound, dribble the length of the floor, and shoot it. By the time I reached high school, teams were integrated, and most of the Blacks, or at least the ones we had on our teams, had learned to run plays, pass and play defense as well or better than the rest of us. I suspect there are fewer good basketball coaches in the inner city schools, especially at the 5th to 9th grade levels, for example.

south bender;842126182 said:

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SFCB,

If you take a look at any NBA Finals series from the late 50's, when Russell and Jones were Celtics, and compare to the Heat-Pacers series now in progress, do you want to make the case that the players of the 50's were more talented?

Go Bears!

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SB, where did I write that players of the '50s would be more talented? And where did I write anything in this thread about the NBA players of the '50s not being as talented as today's NBA players? This thread was intended to be about college basketball, but it is drifting off into the NBA. C'est la vie.

I suspect the flattening in FG% in the last 20 years or so has much to do with the increase in the number of 3 pt shots being taken. If you take out the 3 pt results, I believe the residual 2 pt% will compare favorably with the years before the 3 pt shot came into effect, possibly because of the easy scores on fast breaks. Yes, up tempo brings more TOs but also more uncontested lay-ups. I also sometimes wonder when I hear people decry the erosion of fundamentals if that is less true than that the up tempo game has changed the nature of what fundamentals are. Perhaps the game has not been degraded, it has just changed because of the skill sets of the players.

SFCityBear;842126401 said:

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SB, where did I write that players of the '50s would be more talented? And where did I write anything in this thread about the NBA players of the '50s not being as talented as today's NBA players? This thread was intended to be about college basketball, but it is drifting off into the NBA. C'est la vie.

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You said in an earlier post that talent is diluted in every team sport. I think you used MLB to explain your reasoning, but it was merely the example of a general claim.

Go Bears!

SFCityBear;842126383 said:

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Of course you are right in saying that talent and fundamentals are two different things. I didn't mean to confuse the two. In my opinion, kids are born with a certain talent or talents, which it is their responsibility to develop. Talents are developed by learning fundamentals, among other things. I'd only say that a player who comes to college as a freshman, should have learned most basketball fundamentals by then, and incorporated them into his developing talent.

I'd also agree about the speed. But I would say the speed is not well used and causes way too many turnovers. I used to cringe whenever I saw, Cobbs, Smith, or Wallace tear full speed up the floor on a fast break into a one on two or one on three, and lose the ball, instead of backing the ball out and waiting for teammates to catch up to start the offense, because the hoop was too well defended. So many times they thought pure speed was going to get them to the hoop faster than the opponent, and too many times they lost the ball or blew the shot. Speed has its time and place, but should only be used when it gives you an advantage.

I certainly decry the fact that so few Blacks are playing baseball now. The Giants don't have a single American Black player. With the great history of the Negro Leagues, and after all the trials of players like Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier, it is sad that fewer Black kids will now take up the game. It would seem the odds of playing pro baseball might be better than playing pro basketball, even with the addition of all the overseas basketball leagues as opportunities. Baseball is a game that can be played by both tall and short players, fast and slow players, strong ones and not so strong, alike. The short and the slow especially have a really tough time making it in pro basketball.

I go to Giants' games with a former major leaguer, and to Cal baseball games with a former Cal player. They say what I've said about the skill level in the majors. We also hear the Giants' announcers pointing out bonehead plays, where they just can't understand why players make some of the decisions they make. I just repeated what I heard. I never played baseball, so you have me at a disadvantage. You say that players today had better early coaching, but then later you say you have the same problems I do with the coaching of young basketball players. I don't quite follow what you've said here. Is it because the inner city kids who play basketball are not getting good early coaching, but the kids who play baseball are mostly white and affluent enough to get into programs with good coaching? I never thought about it that way, but there may be a good point there, if that is what you meant. I can remember in the '50s playing on all-white church, playground and club teams, and we often traveled to inner city areas to play all-Black teams. We marveled at their athleticism, but we always beat them easily. The reason was just coaching. We had plays and we passed. They didn't. If one of their players wanted to take a shot, the only way he was going to get one was to grab a rebound, dribble the length of the floor, and shoot it. By the time I reached high school, teams were integrated, and most of the Blacks, or at least the ones we had on our teams, had learned to run plays, pass and play defense as well or better than the rest of us. I suspect there are fewer good basketball coaches in the inner city schools, especially at the 5th to 9th grade levels, for example.

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On the coaching point, I think the coaching of fundamentals in basketball has deteriorated as AAU and club ball has replaced high school as the focus in high school. It's also had something to do with the glamorization of certain aspects of the game as espn SportsCenter and other highlight shows evolved over time. It's also more fun to play, to run and dunk, than to spend hours working on footwork and ballhandling drills, but I think that's always been true.

Work on fundamentals also requires some very good coaching. I see a few high school programs that manage to pull it off, De La Salle being one, but high school coaching these days is a thankless job and high school coaches mostly don't have the control over the offseason like they did when I was young.

As for baseball, there's a wealth of technical instruction available and way, way more games with decent commentary on technical aspects of the game than during the 60's and 70's. If you watch Giants games you'll hear more about the mental aspects of the game in a week of broadcasts than I heard from tv during my entire youth and more than I heard from any coach until high school. And the higher end travel teams in baseball do seem to focus a lot more on fundamental play than the basketball teams do. However, it's probably true that at the major league level guys are coming in no better prepared or worse prepared fundamentally than in my day because most of them aren't coming from those travel teams. They're coming from all over the world and from backgrounds where they might not even have a glove to play with.

In general, though, I think there's a tendency to overstate the level of fundamental play that occurred in the past, probably because the guys you remember from the past were the ones who were that good. And some of those guys in the past played in a methodical system and did not have to get a shot off in 30 seconds against five guys who can play above the rim and have the speed and strength to constantly apply pressure defense at today's speed. So it's apples and oranges in my mind.

I like today's game better. I think a lot of today's players work harder at their games than players in the past, but I do wish some of them would work more on the basics in order to maximize what I think is a higher level of talent.

SFCityBear;842126383 said:

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I go to Giants' games with a former major leaguer, and to Cal baseball games with a former Cal player. They say what I've said about the skill level in the majors.

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All old players believe the fundamentals were stronger in their day. This has been true ever since there were old players; it doesn't mean they were all right.

Is there any other evidence that baseball players today are less talented and/or fundamentally skilled than in an earlier era? I have to say that I don't see it. For example, fielding errors have actually declined since the 1950s:

http://www.mfooz.com/bblog/?p=179

Now, some of this might be because official scorers are less likely to assign errors these days, but it sure as hell doesn't support the idea that today's fielders are worse. At worst, they are probably about even with players from 50 years ago.

south bender;842126495 said:

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You said in an earlier post that talent is diluted in every team sport. I think you used MLB to explain your reasoning, but it was merely the example of a general claim.

Go Bears!

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South Bender, Sluggo, Bluesaxe, and Everyone else,

I have written something that has been totally misunderstood by nearly everyone. First, I must apologize. I had no intention of being critical in any way of modern players. Please let me take another stab at explaining what I meant about "the talent pool is spread out" among many more teams, or "diluted". I should certainly have chosen more suitable words, and I realize that now.

First, the basketball program under Pete Newell in the 1950's was much bigger than the current program at Cal under Mike Montgomery. The same was true at most larger division 1 schools. Newell had 50 or so players on scholarship every year. Today, Montgomery has 13. Newell had three full teams, a Varsity of 18 players, a Freshman team of 18 players, and a Junior Varsity team of 15 or so players. He had 17 new scholarships to give out every year. Montgomery has had between 2 and 5 new scholarships to give out every year. In the 1950's, freshmen were not allowed to play on the Varsity by NCAA rule.

The way Newell's program worked was if you played well enough in your freshman season, you would invited to play your sophomore year on the Junior Varsity. If you played really well, you might be immediately promoted to the Varsity team. You might even start, as a soph, although I think Earl Robinson was the only one who ever did. On Newell's 1959 Freshman team, there were 5 out of the 18 players who eventually worked their way up to be starters on the Varsity under Rene Herrerias. Each year, a few players might be promoted from the Junior Varsity team to the Varsity, and several would become starters at some point in their careers. Bob Dalton was one such player who started as soon as he made the Varsity in his junior year..

So Newell had talented players on all three teams who would play a lot of minutes for him and did. When I use the word "talented", I mean talented enough for the 1950's, when compared other players in the 1950's. Talented enough to be able to play important minutes in a big game in the 1950's, for one of the premier basketball programs in the country in the 1950's. Newell had 18 players on his Varsity who he was not hesitant to put into a big game to play important minutes. And he did play them. He had another 3 or 4 from the Junior Varsity who he was grooming for the Varsity, and another 6 or 7 from the Freshman team, that he was awaiting their varsity eligibility to be able to move them up. Newell had at least 25 players in his program who Newell felt were talented enough to be able to play for him, in their sophomore year or later.

Joe Kapp came to Cal on a basketball scholarship, I believe. He was a third-stringer on the Varsity in both 1957 and 1958. He was down near the end of the bench, perhaps the 15th man, but he played a lot of important minutes, often in crunch time at the end of a big game. He won a couple of games for Cal at the end, and lost the big one in '58, with an errant pass in the final seconds against Seattle, to prevent Cal from getting to their first Final Four under Newell.

Could we imagine a coach today playing his 15th man in crunch time in the biggest game of his season? Would Montgomery? Would Calipari? Very unlikely.

When a coach today plays a player from the end of the bench in crunch time, it is usually because his better players are unable to play. They may be hurt, which hardly ever happened in the 1950's, or they may have fouled out, been tossed from a game by the ref, or are suspended, or some reason not related to the benchwarmer's ability.

Newell and the coaches of the '50s had a huge advantage over today's coaches, in that they had 50 scholarships plus 3-4 walk-ons. He could stockpile players, coach and train them in skills and teamwork for a couple of years before he might need them. His players did not get injured, and they did not transfer. Some quit playing to concentrate on studies. The biggest thing he had to worry about, in terms of keeping his talent level up, was a player flunking out.

So I'd sum up by saying that the good teams today have fewer talented players, fewer only when compared to other players playing today, than the talented players Newell had, talented only in comparison to other players of Newell's era. I don't compare or criticize the talent of any players here, old or modern, but I criticize the system we have that limits the number of scholarships to 13, the style of play that contributes to injuries, and the NCAA that allows easy transfers, and allows the NBA to pilfer some of its best players.

Still, I wonder if coaches today had 50 scholarships, are there enough decent players to fill such a program? Montgomery has had a very hard time filling his entire bench with decent players. There are a lot of coaches in the same boat. I'm not sure coaches today, if given more scholarships, could find enough players they like, and feel they might be able to trust someday to play major minutes, to fill a 15-16 player team with a 10 to 11 player bench. Maybe they could. And would there be enough talented players, "talented" as defined by the modern game and the skill level it requires, to fill a 50-55 player program for twice as many Division 1 schools as there were 60 years ago? Maybe so, but it would be a tall order. Nevertheless, I'd like to see Montgomery and his fellow coaches get at least another 5 scholarships to play with. The fact that they lose so many players to injury, transfer, the NBA, etc. should demand that the limit be raised. There are so many teams' seasons that are ruined or badly affected today with the loss of a couple of players.

:gobears:

Interesting data, SF. I also wonder about the # of programs now v. the 50's. Certainly there were powerful programs then that are no longer in D-1 or even playing (NYU, CCNY are two that come to mind), but there are more so-called "mid-majors" today that might further dilute the talent pool. The player who is 15th at Cal would now be able to start at Montana State or Middle Tennessee and still have a shot at the NCAAs.

50 scholarships at any given time? That seems very unlikely to me. In my first year at Cal, the varsity had 12 players, the "Blues" (your JV team) only 6, although I suspect some little used varsity guys played for them at times. The frosh team that year had 11, only 2 of whom (Earl Robinson, Bernie Simpson) ever earned a varsity letter. 2 stars of that frosh team, Bob Washington and Bob Tealer never lettered on the varsity. The next year the varsity grew to 15, the frosh to 13 and I could find no mention of the "Blues". At least 7 of those frosh went on to earn varsity letters. I did not include any of the "weight" teams, since I don't think any of those guys (Mike White was one) ever won a varsity letter. My point is that if all of these guys were "scholarship" players, which I think unlikely, in those 2 years the number would never have been more than 30. Beyond that, for the entire Newell tenure, only about 40 guys earned varsity letters. If the average was 2 per player, that's 80 letters or so in 6 years, which suggests to me a "playable" talent pool of 13-15, not 50. I realize scholarships of that era were very different (athletes worked at campus jobs then as part of the deal), something like tuition/fees, books, a stipend for room/board. Newell's genius was being able to mod teams that were greater than the sums of their individual parts.

59bear;842126862 said:

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50 scholarships at any given time? That seems very unlikely to me. In my first year at Cal, the varsity had 12 players, the "Blues" (your JV team) only 6, although I suspect some little used varsity guys played for them at times. The frosh team that year had 11, only 2 of whom (Earl Robinson, Bernie Simpson) ever earned a varsity letter. 2 stars of that frosh team, Bob Washington and Bob Tealer never lettered on the varsity. The next year the varsity grew to 15, the frosh to 13 and I could find no mention of the "Blues". At least 7 of those frosh went on to earn varsity letters. I did not include any of the "weight" teams, since I don't think any of those guys (Mike White was one) ever won a varsity letter. My point is that if all of these guys were "scholarship" players, which I think unlikely, in those 2 years the number would never have been more than 30. Beyond that, for the entire Newell tenure, only about 40 guys earned varsity letters. If the average was 2 per player, that's 80 letters or so in 6 years, which suggests to me a "playable" talent pool of 13-15, not 50. I realize scholarships of that era were very different (athletes worked at campus jobs then as part of the deal), something like tuition/fees, books, a stipend for room/board. Newell's genius was being able to mod teams that were greater than the sums of their individual parts.

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59Bear,

I certainly have to acknowledge all your points, because it sounds like you were there for nearly all of Newell’s years. I was in school only for Newell’s last year, although I had attended a lot of games in all his previous five years. I can only report for sure what I remember from his last year, and what happened in the following few years as his ’59 Freshman team matured under Herrerias. What I did was take ’59 and extrapolate backwards. There may be some inaccuracy in doing this, because in ’59, Newell’s program was at the height of its popularity, and his coaching reputation was at its peak, as Cal had won the NCAA title the year before. More players might have been attracted to Cal in that year than in the previous five years.

My knowledge of how many freshman scholarships Newell had is based on my time trying out for the freshman team, and what the coaches told us. I became friends with many of those players, and over the next few years, I played a lot with them in pickup games at Harmon and elsewhere. Everyone I knew on the Freshman and JV teams was on scholarship. For certain there were 18 players on the ’59 Frosh, with 17 scholarships and one walk-on. Every player I knew on that team was all-city, all-league, or league MVP in high school. Even the walk-on guy. 10 players from that team earned letters on the Varsity, and two made all-PCC. And Newell didn’t recruit.

Of those 18 players, I can name 4 who went to the JV team. So perhaps 6 or 7 went to the Varsity as sophs. I feel the JV team was 10-15 players. Let’s say it was 10. I can not believe that a coach would take away a player’s scholarship, just because he did not make the Varsity as a soph, but went to the JV team instead. So that is 10 scolarships.

I looked at some Varsity team photos. There were 18 players on the ’58 team, 17 in ’59, and 15 in ’60. With all the players in this three team system to choose from, I also can not believe there were any walk-ons on Newell’s Varsity. There might have been a walk-on or two on the JV team. So I calculate a total of at least 40 players on scholarship in 1960, 17 freshmen, 8 JV’s, and 15 on the Varsity. Three times the number of players allowed to Coach Montgomery today.

Looking at it another way, Newell gave out 17 scholarships to freshmen in 1959. Montgomery has given out 20 scholarships in six years, that is an average of 3.3 scholarships per year. Newell had 5 times as many scholarships as Montgomery, to give out in a single year.

If you include the ’59 Frosh, Newell had 48 players who played for him or who he recruited, who won 100 letters. Bob Washington didn’t earn a letter, perhaps because he flunked out of school, although I think he returned. Mike White did play 145’s at Cal. The lightweight teams had been eliminated from the Cal program by 1959, otherwise I would have tried out for one.

You are also right about the scholarships requiring work. I don’t know about the other sports programs at Cal, but Newell insisted that his players work around campus for every dollar they received in aid. If they received $75, then he would make them work 37.5 hours for $2 per hour. Imagine telling a recruit today that he would have to work for his financial aid.

I suspect the difference in our estimates hinges on a couple of points: 1) what constituted a scholarship in that period when athletes worked, tuition didn't exist and fees were nominal, and 2) the likelihood that Newell had expanded the program over the years leading up to your matriculation. The years I referenced (on the basis of yearbooks) were his first 2 years at Cal and he likely drew more prospects as his success grew and thus larger squad sizes. Also, some players also played other varsity sports in those early years: Arrillaga, Robinson, Simpson, Mayne, Kapp come to mind and perhaps that factored into the scholarship situation. Interestingly, I don't recall the later years as vividly as the first couple. I know I saw players like Dick Doughty, Earl Schultz, Ned Averbuck, Bill McClintock, Denny Fitzpatrick, Joe Hagler and others but I don't remember them as clearly as I do Earl Robinson and Bernie Simpson, who were in my class or Al Buch, Kapp, Larry Friend, Bob Blake, Bob McKeen. Friend, IMO, was the best player during my years at Cal and Imhoff the most amazing success based on what he was at entry.

sycasey;842126590 said:

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All old players believe the fundamentals were stronger in their day. This has been true ever since there were old players; it doesn't mean they were all right.

Is there any other evidence that baseball players today are less talented and/or fundamentally skilled than in an earlier era? I have to say that I don't see it. For example, fielding errors have actually declined since the 1950s:

http://www.mfooz.com/bblog/?p=179

Now, some of this might be because official scorers are less likely to assign errors these days, but it sure as hell doesn't support the idea that today's fielders are worse. At worst, they are probably about even with players from 50 years ago.

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+1. When watching film of old baseball games and comparing it to today, it's kind of obvious the games gotten faster and more refined. Avg fastball speed is 90-92 and every 6'4 rhp kid trying to make it throws 94. Doubt it was that fast all across the board 50 years ago. Swings too, look so much more efficient and polished. As does fielding, especially when you look at Latin infielders who have such flashy footwork and can make the most
difficult of plays look routine.

59bear;842127351 said:

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I suspect the difference in our estimates hinges on a couple of points: 1) what constituted a scholarship in that period when athletes worked, tuition didn't exist and fees were nominal, and 2) the likelihood that Newell had expanded the program over the years leading up to your matriculation. The years I referenced (on the basis of yearbooks) were his first 2 years at Cal and he likely drew more prospects as his success grew and thus larger squad sizes. Also, some players also played other varsity sports in those early years: Arrillaga, Robinson, Simpson, Mayne, Kapp come to mind and perhaps that factored into the scholarship situation. Interestingly, I don't recall the later years as vividly as the first couple. I know I saw players like Dick Doughty, Earl Schultz, Ned Averbuck, Bill McClintock, Denny Fitzpatrick, Joe Hagler and others but I don't remember them as clearly as I do Earl Robinson and Bernie Simpson, who were in my class or Al Buch, Kapp, Larry Friend, Bob Blake, Bob McKeen. Friend, IMO, was the best player during my years at Cal and Imhoff the most amazing success based on what he was at entry.

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Thanks. I absolutely agree.

:beer:

concernedparent;842127359 said:

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+1. When watching film of old baseball games and comparing it to today, it's kind of obvious the games gotten faster and more refined. Avg fastball speed is 90-92 and every 6'4 rhp kid trying to make it throws 94. Doubt it was that fast all across the board 50 years ago. Swings too, look so much more efficient and polished. As does fielding, especially when you look at Latin infielders who have such flashy footwork and can make the most
difficult of plays look routine.

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Here again in baseball, as in basketball, the health of a player has to be factored in, along with talent, athleticism, and fundamental skills, when we talk about the worth or ability of a player to a team. Most athletes in team sports, including baseball players of today are injured much more often than players of yesteryear. It was John Madden who said that all this working out in the weight room to make players more muscular and stronger has the down side of giving them more muscle than their frame can support, and makes them more susceptible to certain injuries. In basketball, players of today play at about 100%-110% of their realistic physical limits and that causes more injuries. I'd guess that basketball players in the '50s played at about 85%-90% of their physical limits, and seldom got injured at all.

Right now, the Giants are really struggling with Angel Pagan injured and out of the lineup, just as they really struggled two years ago with Buster Posey out of the lineup. Cal's basketball team's chances for any serious success last year were killed with the loss of Kreklow and Behrens to injury. What good is an athlete to your team, no matter how talented or skilled he is, if he is sitting on the bench due to injury and not playing? The answer is he is no good at all, except maybe as a cheerleader.

And as much as you admire the Latin infielders for making such spectacular plays, there is no one around today that I can think of who is playing the outfield with such fluidity and grace as DiMaggio, Mays, or Mantle, making the difficult plays look easy. I saw a lot of Willie Mays, I can't think of a player today who could do everything that Mays could do, with his glove, his bat, his arm, his speed, and his mind on a daily basis.

SFCityBear;842127438 said:

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Here again in baseball, as in basketball, the health of a player has to be factored in, along with talent, athleticism, and fundamental skills, when we talk about the worth or ability of a player to a team. Most athletes in team sports, including baseball players of today are injured much more often than players of yesteryear. It was John Madden who said that all this working out in the weight room to make players more muscular and stronger has the down side of giving them more muscle than their frame can support, and makes them more susceptible to certain injuries. In basketball, players of today play at about 100%-110% of their realistic physical limits and that causes more injuries. I’d guess that basketball players in the ‘50s played at about 85%-90% of their physical limits, and seldom got injured at all.

Right now, the Giants are really struggling with Angel Pagan injured and out of the lineup, just as they really struggled two years ago with Buster Posey out of the lineup. Cal’s basketball team’s chances for any serious success last year were killed with the loss of Kreklow and Behrens to injury. What good is an athlete to your team, no matter how talented or skilled he is, if he is sitting on the bench due to injury and not playing? The answer is he is no good at all, except maybe as a cheerleader.

And as much as you admire the Latin infielders for making such spectacular plays, there is no one around today that I can think of who is playing the outfield with such fluidity and grace as DiMaggio, Mays, or Mantle, making the difficult plays look easy. I saw a lot of Willie Mays, I can’t think of a player today who could do everything that Mays could do, with his glove, his bat, his arm, his speed, and his mind on a daily basis.

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I could agree that today's athletes may get injured more than before; highly structured and rigorous training programs that push the human body to its physical limits would do that. But I'm not sure what it has to do with today's players being more advanced, more athletic in almost every sport.

The only case I can think of where previous generation of athletes were arguably superior are the big men of yesteryear. The NBA game has changed into up-tempo run and gun, isolation dribble driving, 3 point shooting, so much so that raw athleticism has been prioritized over post-skills. You can see a 38 year old Timmy or KG absolutely schooling kids nearly half their age on a nightly basis.

Cherry-picking the best players of a generation doesn't say much about the skill-level of the league as a whole, but it's a fun argument so I'll play:


3:10 especially. He's not even the best fielding outfielder on his team, let alone in baseball. Just as an irrelevant aside, this is also in conjunction to the absolutely stupid .326/.399/.963 slashline he put up at age 20 (also 30 HR, 49 stolen bases in 140 games).

SFCityBear;842127438 said:

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Here again in baseball, as in basketball, the health of a player has to be factored in, along with talent, athleticism, and fundamental skills, when we talk about the worth or ability of a player to a team. Most athletes in team sports, including baseball players of today are injured much more often than players of yesteryear. It was John Madden who said that all this working out in the weight room to make players more muscular and stronger has the down side of giving them more muscle than their frame can support, and makes them more susceptible to certain injuries. In basketball, players of today play at about 100%-110% of their realistic physical limits and that causes more injuries. I'd guess that basketball players in the '50s played at about 85%-90% of their physical limits, and seldom got injured at all.

Right now, the Giants are really struggling with Angel Pagan injured and out of the lineup, just as they really struggled two years ago with Buster Posey out of the lineup. Cal's basketball team's chances for any serious success last year were killed with the loss of Kreklow and Behrens to injury. What good is an athlete to your team, no matter how talented or skilled he is, if he is sitting on the bench due to injury and not playing? The answer is he is no good at all, except maybe as a cheerleader.

And as much as you admire the Latin infielders for making such spectacular plays, there is no one around today that I can think of who is playing the outfield with such fluidity and grace as DiMaggio, Mays, or Mantle, making the difficult plays look easy. I saw a lot of Willie Mays, I can't think of a player today who could do everything that Mays could do, with his glove, his bat, his arm, his speed, and his mind on a daily basis.

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I saw a great deal of Mantle from the moment he joined the Yankees. Compared to many center fielders, the best of whom were Mays and Piersall of the Red Sox in the 1950's, Mantle was a decent center fielder, far from great, not because of grace and fluidity, but simply from his amazing speed. The guys and I who watched him then used to remark how often he broke the wrong way or took longer than the great ballhawks to see where a ball was hit, but then would turn on his jets and outrun his initial mistakes.

Piersall, on the other hand, before physical injuries and mental deterioration, played the shallowest centerfield I have ever seen, but his uncanny jump on the batted ball, despite his unimpressive speed (compared to The Mick), made it next to impossible to hit a ball successfully deep beyond his grasp.

Go Bears!

I always felt that Mantle was overrated compared to Mays. The only thing Mantle did better than Willie was bat left handed. This might have been different if Mantle's injuries and fondness for bright lights and booze not eroded his considerable abilities but that's speculative revisionism.

59bear;842127594 said:

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I always felt that Mantle was overrated compared to Mays. The only thing Mantle did better than Willie was bat left handed. This might have been different if Mantle's injuries and fondness for bright lights and booze not eroded his considerable abilities but that's speculative revisionism.

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Mantle's raw tools when he and Mays came up were more startling. Mantle was the most powerful hitter I have ever seen, and still holds the major league record for longest home run, some 562' iirc.

And at the same time that he could hit the ball farther than anyone else, he had the fastest time in the majors from home to first.

Has anyone else ever had that combination?

These raw skills did not make him a better player than Mays, but with his amazing power and speed package and playing with far and away the dominant team of his time, it is not surprising that he got so much attention.

I may be wrong, but in his best batting average season, he batted ,365, higher than Mays ever did (iirc and I may not).

On balance, Mays did more things well over a longer period. Much better base runner, much better base thief, much better fielder, much better arm.

As a White Sox fan, I saw much more of Mantle up close than I did Mays, and I can attest that Mantle was a great clutch/big game hitter. It was a frequent painful experience to witness Mantle's jacking one into the upper deck at Comiskey Park, effectively deciding the game in the hated Yankees' favor.

It appears that over time more baseball people rate Mays higher. Mantle overrated relatively? I think an argument could be made that in his prime Mantle was about as valuable as was Mays.

Go Bears!

south bender;842127550 said:

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I saw a great deal of Mantle from the moment he joined the Yankees. Compared to many center fielders, the best of whom were Mays and Piersall of the Red Sox in the 1950's, Mantle was a decent center fielder, far from great, not because of grace and fluidity, but simply from his amazing speed. The guys and I who watched him then used to remark how often he broke the wrong way or took longer than the great ballhawks to see where a ball was hit, but then would turn on his jets and outrun his initial mistakes.

Piersall, on the other hand, before physical injuries and mental deterioration, played the shallowest centerfield I have ever seen, but his uncanny jump on the batted ball, despite his unimpressive speed (compared to The Mick), made it next to impossible to hit a ball successfully deep beyond his grasp.

Go Bears!

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Wow, a real blast from the past with old Fear Strikes Out himself played by Tony Perkins before Psycho fame. Well done.

south bender;842127612 said:

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Mantle's raw tools when he and Mays came up were more startling. Mantle was the most powerful hitter I have ever seen, and still holds the major league record for longest home run, some 562' iirc.

And at the same time that he could hit the ball farther than anyone else, he had the fastest time in the majors from home to first.

Has anyone else ever had that combination?

These raw skills did not make him a better player than Mays, but with his amazing power and speed package and playing with far and away the dominant team of his time, it is not surprising that he got so much attention.

I may be wrong, but in his best batting average season, he batted ,365, higher than Mays ever did (iirc and I may not).

On balance, Mays did more things well over a longer period. Much better base runner, much better base thief, much better fielder, much better arm.

As a White Sox fan, I saw much more of Mantle up close than I did Mays, and I can attest that Mantle was a great clutch/big game hitter. It was a frequent painful experience to witness Mantle's jacking one into the upper deck at Comiskey Park, effectively deciding the game in the hated Yankees' favor.

It appears that over time more baseball people rate Mays higher. Mantle overrated relatively? I think an argument could be made that in his prime Mantle was about as valuable as was Mays.

Go Bears!

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I was accused of cherry-picking when I mentioned DiMaggio, Mays and Mantle. So thanks for adding Jimmy Piersall to the list. I’d add Duke Snider as well. There was a period when three of the best centerfielders of all time were all playing in New York City. It must have been painful for Giant and Dodger fans in NYC when both teams pulled up stakes and moved to the West Coast, leaving those fans to watch the hated Yankees, until the Mets came along years later. My favorite memory of Willie Mays, was a game against the Cubs at Candlestick. The score was 0-0 or 1-1, I can’t remember, with neither team getting hits in the later innings. The game went into extra innings, it was cold, and the fog was rolling in. Willie was up, and I think he just decided enough was enough, and he wanted to go home. He lay down a bunt, and beat it out. (And Willie hardly ever bunted) Then he stole second. Then he stole third. And then he stole home. Game over.

Thanks for all the info on Mantle as well. Power hitters are always a fascinating subject for discussion or debate. Growing up as a Dodger fan, and then a Giants fan, it is hard for me to believe anyone could hit a ball farther than Willie McCovey. He hit the longest home run ever hit in Candlestick, and hit the longest at the time in Busch Stadium.

I have a very close friend, who pitched in the minors and was a starting pitcher on the fabled Arizona State team that won the NCAA world series in 1965. That team had Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Rick Monday. The ballpark in Tempe had a street behind the outfield fence, and across that street was an amusement park. The owners had erected a big billboard of a picture of a bear across the street, facing the ballpark. Jim said that no one, including Reggie Jackson and Bando, had ever hit a ball as far as that bear, and no one had ever hit a ball into that amusement park. ASU played an exhibition game against the Giants, who had their spring training camp nearby. Jim was pitching during the game, and he struck out Willie Mays. Next up was McCovey. Jim threw McCovey a curve ball. Jim said, “I knew I was in trouble when I saw McCovey step up in the box, to hit the curve before it broke.” McCovey hit a line drive over Jim’s head. Jim jumped up for it, and said if he could have jumped a foot higher, he might have gotten a glove on it, and maybe deflected it. As Jim described it, the ball continued to rise, on a line, and was still rising when it cleared the bear on the billboard and landed somewhere beyond in the amusement park.

My favorite confrontation of all time was the great power hitter Frank Howard, and the Giants’ Stu Miller. Miller threw junk, and he said he had three speeds, “Slow, slower, and slowest”. It was so much fun to watch him tie Howard up in knots. Guys who can throw 95 mph are a dime a dozen. It is not how hard you throw, it is where you put it and what kind of stuff it has.

Sorry to digress, SB, but you got me going.

concernedparent;842127477 said:

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I could agree that today's athletes may get injured more than before; highly structured and rigorous training programs that push the human body to its physical limits would do that. But I'm not sure what it has to do with today's players being more advanced, more athletic in almost every sport.

The only case I can think of where previous generation of athletes were arguably superior are the big men of yesteryear. The NBA game has changed into up-tempo run and gun, isolation dribble driving, 3 point shooting, so much so that raw athleticism has been prioritized over post-skills. You can see a 38 year old Timmy or KG absolutely schooling kids nearly half their age on a nightly basis.

Cherry-picking the best players of a generation doesn't say much about the skill-level of the league as a whole, but it's a fun argument so I'll play:


3:10 especially. He's not even the best fielding outfielder on his team, let alone in baseball. Just as an irrelevant aside, this is also in conjunction to the absolutely stupid .326/.399/.963 slashline he put up at age 20 (also 30 HR, 49 stolen bases in 140 games).

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As to injuries, if a player can't answer the bell for every game, and play a full game, then he is not more advanced, or more athletic. If you are a coach, who would you rather have, a great athlete who can play say 75% of the time over his career, or a very good athlete who can play 100% of the time? If it is me, I'd want five of the latter.

As to the NBA "changing to up tempo run and gun", the NBA was all run and gun in the '60s. The Celtics refined it into an art form. Magic Johnson and the Lakers brought us Showtime. When offenses started scoring 130 points the NBA allowed more defense under the rules, and the game slowed down. Now we are speeding up again. I'd concede players are more athletic, but when you start saying "advanced", that is a tough pill to swallow. The game today is as you said "isolation dribble driving", which is nothing more than one-on-one basketball, which was played since before my time. It was the norm in the 1930's, and the fast break was added in the Midwest in the '40s. Then coaches came along and figured out how to stop great individual players, and stop the fast break, and then other coaches came along and figured out how to run patterns, with screens and passes, to beat those defenses. Now we are going backwards to a fast break game with bigger, faster, better jumping athletes, who don't have the team skills of their predecessors. The old Celtics and the Lakers in the fast break excelled in team skills, not so much individual skills. They would make three or four passes up the floor, where now you may see one or two at most.

It is fun to compare players of different eras, but when we start generalizing, we are only making subjective judgments with no facts to back anything up. The eras are so different. The players of today on most sports are so coddled, pampered, and spoiled from an early age, that they become self-centered, but not self-reliant. I'm sure you've seen the long line of double-parked cars in front of every elementary school at 3PM, as parents wait to take their kids to their activities.

In baseball, the starting pitcher rarely goes more than 5 or 6 innings. Every pitcher is held to a pitch count. I'd bet Marichal, Perry, Spahn and Koufax are all laughing at this, because they usually completed games, and often pitched into extra innings. The position players are often platooned now. Bochy rarely uses the same lineup 2 days in a row. In football, on Joe Kapp's '59 Rose Bowl team, all eleven players played both offense and defense. Today, players are all such specialists, that many of them just go in to pass rush, or play on a punt return, or go in to run a pass play, play a nickel defense, etc. Could a player today have the stamina to play 60 minutes of football? I doubt it, not without extensive conditioning year round.

In basketball, each team gets 6 timeouts per game, and there can be 3 or 4 timeouts per half for advertising. That is a possible 20 timeouts per game. That means players would average only 2 minutes of basketball before they might get a break, and that doesn't even factor in a break for free throws. Pete Newell rarely called a timeout, so if the other coach was of a similar mind, you might only have 2 or 3 timeouts in a whole game. When I played, I had pretty severe asthma, and after 3-4 times up and down the floor, I often needed to come out of the game to rest. If I was good enough to play today, I would be able to stay on the court so much longer, with up to 20 timeouts to for me to catch my breath. Also, in Newell's years, all games were played back to back, Friday and Saturday nights, even the NCAA Regionals and the Final Four. Cal nearly lost in the '59 Final, because they had a very tough semi final against Cincy, and nearly collapsed in the second half against West Virginia. In '60, Cal again had a tough semi against Cincy, and Ohio State had a cakewalk against NYU in their semi final. The next night, Cal came out flat against Ohio State in the Final and got clobbered. Could today's players play back to back games with one or two timeouts in the whole game? Do they have the stamina? We really don't know, but I would guess they would be very tired for the second game. I really doubt that Montgomery has to worry much about conditioning and stamina these days. I'd bet there is much less running in the Berkeley Hills.

The Trout video was fun. Thanks. I do know about him, and the kid who plays for Washington. I'd have to see him for several years, before he gets mentioned with the great ones, but it is fun to speculate. As for the Latin infielders changing the game, I guess we have forgotten all about Ozzie Smith, or Luis Aparicio. My point here is that we can have fun comparing players of different eras, but they are just that, products of different times, and can't be honestly, accurately compared, even if you've seen both of them play, because the style and rules and equipment of all the games is so different from era to era.