Sunday, November 21, 2010

In baseball...

Derrick Goold takes a look at the 10 greatest living baseball players.
By definition, any list is doomed to be incomplete, like asking Tony La Russa to select his 10 favorite lineups.

Start with the sainted trinity of Musial, Mays and Aaron and then...where? Longevity like Nolan Ryan's has to be considered, but so too should brief brilliant bursts of excellence like Sandy Koufax's. Postseason performance, pennants and the glittering rings of championships should be a factor, but why penalize some of the game's best individuals who toiled on teams not good enough for October? Steroids stain the best pitcher and best hitter of the past 20 years, just as a lifetime ban for gambling keeps Pete Rose out of Cooperstown. Does that discolor their numbers, undermine their careers, diminish their greatness?

To help celebrate Stan Musial's 90th birthday, the Post-Dispatch considered all of the above and more in order to sort through all of the game's retired players and select baseball's 10 greatest living players.
The list includes Hank Aaron, Yogi Berra, Barry Bonds, Rickey Henderson, Sandy Koufax, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Frank Robinson, Tom Seaver, and Mike Schmidt.

It's a pretty good list. However, I have to take issue with Bonds' inclusion on the list. The guy cheated and then lies about cheating.

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