"The present crop of big leaguers does not think enough. He feels he has arrived. The result is less intelligent baseball and a bit of laziness."

That was Hall of Famer Tris Speaker, in 1926.

It's interesting turning the tables on these comparisons, to talk with current or recent players about the players of the past. I've talked to several. For the most part, they're incredulous that anyone could think baseball players were better fifty years ago. Every player I've ever talked to finds that notion so ludicrous as to not even be worthy of discussion.

Once, I was having this discussion with Jim Dwyer, a utility outfielder and accomplished pinch hitter whom I knew when he played for the Red Sox and later the Orioles. Jim and I talked about baseball in the 1920s and 1930s, when it was not unusual for the better hitters to bat .400.

"The pitching must have been terrible," Jim commented.

"How could that be?" I replied. "Walter Johnson and those guys supposedly threw as hard as anybody has ever thrown."

"Then they didn't throw sliders and forkballs," Dwyer said.

We talked some more. And Jim finally said, "Jon, how could those guys have been better than us? That was seventy years ago! How could they have been better than us?"

For Jim Dwyer, it was impossible to take seriously the proposition that a guy could hit .424 -- as Rogers Hornsby did in 1924 -- if the pitching then had been as good as it is today. In other words, when the athletes in every sport are bigger and stronger and faster than ever before, how could the best baseball players have finished their careers in the twenties and thirties?

"Leo Durocher [says] that Willie Mays was the greatest ball-player who ever lived. Evidently Mr. Durocher never saw Mr. Cobb, Mr. Ruth, or Mr. Harry Heilmann. [Mays] is a great fielder and he can run, but he couldn't carry the bat of many a player."

Lefty O'Doul, who played against Mr. Ruth, Mr. Cobb, and Mr. Heilmann, said that in 1960.

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