Greatest Baseball Player Of All Time

By Billy_Perlmutter
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Updated: December 8, 2012

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The debate of “best ever” happens in every sport. In Basketball it’s LeBron vs. Michael. vs. Kobe. In football the debate is best quarterback of all time. In hockey, there would be a debate, but Wayne Gretzky is far and away the best hockey player ever. The debate of “best ever” happens in golf between Tiger and Jack, tennis between Roger and Pete, and it’s even starting to creep into soccer every once in a while between Messi and Pele. But it doesn’t happen in baseball. It’s not a common debate to have, unlike any of the sports above, but why? Maybe the why is a topic for next time, but the who is a topic for the next paragraph. Now let the never-ending debate begin.

The best baseball player of all time is Willie Howard Mays Jr. Look at the numbers. He is the best. And if you want to look at the accolades, fine, he has a record 24 all-star game appearances, a Rookie of the Year trophy, two MVP awards, and owns ELEVEN Gold Gloves. Mays defined the term all-around. There isn’t one thing that man could not do great on the baseball diamond. During the span of 1958-1965, he had at least a .380 on-base percentage, 100 RBI, a batting average of .295 or higher, 30-plus home runs each year. Not to mention how he led the league in Stolen Bases, Runs, Slugging Percentage, and Total Bases twice over that 1958-1965 span. If you want to boast, (which I do), he led Major League Baseball in Home Runs and OPS three times during that stretch, and happened to win a Gold Glove all of those eight seasons. And that’s just an eight year period of time, he led the league in stolen bases two times before that, and triples in three consecutive years.
And guess what, his sabremetrics are just as impressive. He has six seasons in his career with a WAR 10 or above, Joe Dimaggio, Carl Yastrzemski, Pete Rose, and Yogi Berra never had one season with a WAR above 10. Sure, Ruth had more seasons above 10 than Mays, but Mays whoops him in dWAR, otherwise known as Defensive WAR.
Willie Mays is the greatest baseball player to walk the face of the Earth. He might not have the heavy-weight by a unanimous decision, but he is the greatest. A, 24 time all-star, two time MVP and batting title champion, who in his day made swiping a base look like swiping candy from a baby. Willie Mays at one point in his career led the league in stolen bases four years in a row, not even Ricky Henderson, Lou Brock, or Ty Cobb ever did that. None of those guys hit 660 Home Runs either.

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Billy_Perlmutter

I'm Billy Perlmutter, a 14 year old boy from New York who loves sports. My favorite teams are the Knicks, Rangers, Yankees, and Giants. You'll see that I write about every different sport, so no matter what your favorite sport may be, I hope that I have an interesting article for you. Comment your thoughts, or tweet me.