All Time Greatest Line Up.

In honor of tonight’s all star game I wanted to come up with my all time greatest line up. The best player at every position is in the line up. It was too hard to narrow it down to just one player per position so I assigned a reserve for each position as well.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, making all time baseball lists is a challenging feat. Everyone knows the many factors that go into these lists including: steroids, segregation, the designated hitter, juiced balls, raised and lowered mounds, big and small ball parks, weight training, improved technology and so much more. For example just last night, while watching the home run derby, I learned that at the old Polo Grounds the center field wall was 484 feet from home plate! The center field wall at the old Yankee Stadium was 463 feet from home plate! Those are like almost 100 feet further than some of the smaller parks today. Anyways here we go…
First Base-Lou Gehrig. This was one of the easiest choices. He has the best overall numbers. His consecutive game streak is the most impressive in baseball. Ripken’s doesn’t even compare when you think about how long ago Gehrig played and Gehrig’s health issues. He has a disease named after him! His career was cut short.
RESERVE: Pete Rose- Baseball’s hit king. Baseball’s jack ass.

Second Base-Rogers Hornsby. This one was a little closer. He has the best overall numbers by far; however, think about what Jackie Robinson could have done. Jackie’s career was cut in half. I would give this to Jackie just for having the courage to step on the field. If he played 20 years he would have had the best numbers. *sorry Mac your boy Ryno is probably 4th on the list. Joe Morgan has better numbers.
RESERVE: Jackie Robinson

Shortstop- Honus Wagner. A little bit easier choice I guess. He has the overall best numbers. Plus his baseball card is the most expensive of all time going for almost 2 million bucks.
RESERVE: ARod- I couldn’t decide whether to put ARod at short or third. His glove work at third is making him look like a shortstop. When it’s all said and done he should eclipse Wagner as long as he doesn’t pull a Ken Griffey Jr. on us. *note if I move ARod over to third Ernie Banks would probably get the nod at short.

Third Base- Mike Schmidt. This was the hardest one so far. You got Schmidt probably the best hitting third basemen of all time (unless you count ARod). Then you have Brooks Robinson a decent hitter and one of the best defensive players of all time. Then I ran into someone named Christy Mathews who hit 512 homers in like the 1950’s and 60’s. I need my older readers to chime in and help me with this one.
RESERVE: Brooks Robinson.

Catcher- Roy Campanella. They just keep getting harder to do. I was all set to put Johnny Bench here but then I read some more on Campanella. His career was cut short by segregation for 7 years on the front end and then on the back end his career was cut short by a car accident. He was a better hitter than Bench and a great defender. He was a pioneer in breaking the color line.
RESERVE: Johnny Bench- But wait a minute then I read about JOSH GIBSON. Who was probably better than both of these guys. He died two years before baseball allowed Jackie Robinson to play. Probably the greatest Negro League player of all time.

Pitcher- Oh lord this one is too confusing I’ll have to do that later.

Before I move into the outfield these three positions were all difficult to choose. At first I wasn’t exactly clear on who played what position for the bulk of their career. I was then able to find that out but there are other problems. The list of outfielders is staggering. It seems like most of the all time greats played out there. I’m sure I’m leaving some people out but look who I had to choose from:
Willie Mays
Babe Ruth
Ted Williams
Hank Aaron
Barry Bonds
Ty Cobb
Joe Dimaggio
Frank Robinson
Mickey Mantle
Stan Musial
Shoeless Joe Jackson
Roberto Clemente
Rickey Henderson
Reggie Jackson

Left Field- Ted Williams. Maybe the best all around hitter of all time.
RESERVE: Barry Bonds. The only supposed steroid user on the list so far. I think he would have done just fine without them.

Center Field- Willy Mays. What, maybe the third best hitter of all time? One of the best fielders of all time.
RESERVE: Ty Cobb. Baseball’s hit king. Baseball’s jack ass.

Right Field- Babe Ruth. Probably the best player of all time (sorry Rickey). Definitely the most popular player of all time.
RESERVE: Hank Aaron. How does the home run king get reserved?

O.K. I guess it’s on to the pitchers. I confess I didn’t know as much about pitchers to start with. It is hard for me to put pitchers that pitched a hundred years ago on the list because I’ve never even seen any kind of footage on them. Secondly, some of these guys used to pitch almost every other day. It’s not fair to compare modern day pitchers to these guys. How hard were they throwing? We don’t know. How many different pitches did they have? Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Lefty Grove, Christy Mathewson may have been better than the guys on my list but too bad they are too old. Obviously I couldn’t just put one pitcher on here so I narrowed it down to three lefties and three righties.

Left Handers- Sandy Koufax, Warren Spahn, Steve Carlton
Right Handers- Roger Clemens, Tom Seaver, Bob Gibson.

Like I said I don’t know as much about pitchers so let the arguing begin. Let me know if I left anyone out. Tomorrow I may do the same list but only taking active players into account.