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• Wednesday, January 7, 2009 05:50 AM

  I'm With Big Paulie and Jeffrey Brown

  First off, I love these kinds of columns, King. They are great fodder for debate.

  That being said, there is no question that today's athletes are better conditioned, better trained, and, well, just better athletes when judged against their counterparts of another age.

  But give the Wright Brothers access to modern tools, materials and knowledge and it's likely they fly far sooner. Give George Washington's doctors the tools of modern medicine and he doesn't die of a head cold. Really, it's all apples and oranges.

  Barring Einstein, human beings can only work within the limits of their times. And that certainly applies to athletes. As I pointed out a few years back in this column, and as Jeffrey Brown alluded to in the case of the Babe, Wilt Chamberlain would have been great today because he would have matured as a player playing the modern game. His physical capacities being beyond reproach, if he were to play modern basketball, he would have been forced to compete at this level. It would be the only level he knew.

  Conversely, as Big Paulie pointed out, send a modern hitter up, unprotected, against Bob Feller pitching off a 15-inch mound, and maybe he's not so great a hitter. Not that his skills are diminished, but seeing as Feller had some wildness in him, out of pure fear.

  Somehow, I think the Babe and Ty and Ted, given all the advantages of the modern game, would have feasted on the league-average middle reliever from 2008. After all, in the modern game, there are far more teams and far more players. And far more opportunity for mediocrity.

  —Rob H. Read Rob H.'s other letters
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