First of all I am not a NY Yankee fan but I appreciate the great players they have had such as Mickey Mantle
It galls me when they keep talking about AROD passing Mickey Mantle on the NY Yankees All Time HR list---Mantle hit ALL his dingers as a NY Yankee adn we all know that AROD has not
Your thoughts!!!!
TRhit
Posts: 19140 | Location: Manchester, CT USA | Registered: December 26, 2002
I just do not like it when I hear people put ARod in the same sentence as a guy like Mantle. To me there is no comparison in the two. Yes ARod has more all time HR's. But he could not hold Mick's jock as a ball player. Plain and simple no way. Mick was a Yankee always was and always will be. ARod is a hired gun that just happens to play for the Yankees right now.
I know I am an Old Timer. I am not a Yankee fan. I am a baseball fan.
First of all I am not a NY Yankee fan but I appreciate the great players they have had such as Mickey Mantle
It galls me when they keep talking about AROD passing Mickey Mantle on the NY Yankees All Time HR list---Mantle hit ALL his dingers as a NY Yankee adn we all know that AROD has not
Comparing Mantle to anybody is impossible because he was the greatest 5-tool player of all-time. Nobody could hit a ball as far and run as fast as Mantle. Plus his 18 World Series home runs, where greatness is measured .And all this greatness by scrwing up his body all those years. If he played in today's game, trained like they do today, he would've hit 800-900 homers and there'd be no question who the greatest player ever would've been.
However Arod is the best 5-tool player of this era and as for Mantle doing it with the Yankees only, he had little chioice since there was no free agency and ballplayers were slaves to the owners thru the reserve clause. While Arod's no Mantle, he will be among the greatest Yankees of all-time
quote:
ARod is a hired gun that just happens to play for the Yankees right now.
and the next 10 years which will give him 15 in Pinstripes. Far more than any team he will have played with.He will be the all-time home run king and will do it in pinstripes and go into the hall of fame as a Yankee.
Hardly a hired gun here.
Being a Yankee fan myself, it's puzzling on why non-Yankee fans care how Arod's homeruns are accumulated. Yankee fans measure their players based on playoffs and World Series success. While Arod hasn't quite lived up to that yet, he has 10 seasons to do it.
Posts: 163 | Location: NJ | Registered: October 27, 2007
Reggie Jackson..wasn't a Yankee every minute.. If I want ach-typical Yankee, I look to A Rods left...at the captain. A Rod is an amazing thing, he's the best "player" but he is also the proto-typical modern player, his uniform is made up starting at the wallet...what you guys seem to be looking at, desiring, is Jeter, whose uniform starts at the heart.
Posts: 237 | Location: Green Cove Springs Fl. | Registered: October 30, 2007
zomby did`nt you call Alex MAYROD when he filed as a free agent last fall.I think he is a great regular season player, but he aint no Reggie when October rolls around.
Posts: 81 | Location: Sierra Nevada Mountains | Registered: November 01, 2007
ARod is doing his thing during a time when there are more 95-104 MPH pitchers then when Mantle played. Now pitchers are pulled if they don't have their stuff faster than you can say "relief pitcher". They didn't use middle relievers and closers during Mickey's time like they do now. I noticed that ARod stole 2nd and third the other day. You might want to remember that ARod ignored his agent's advise and ended up taking less money to stay with the Yankees. I think he would have looked good in an Angels uniform and he wouldn't get booed by fair-weathered fans.
Posts: 226 | Location: SoSoCAL | Registered: October 22, 2007
One more thing. ARod belongs to the very exclusive 40 40 club (40 homeruns 40 stolen bases) in which there are 4 members Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco and Alfonso Soriano. Mickey didn't even make it to the 30 30 club which has 23 members (inclusive of the 40 40 club members). Mickey's contemporaries Hank Aaron (once) and Willie Mays (twice) made it.
Posts: 226 | Location: SoSoCAL | Registered: October 22, 2007
Boy oh Boy --you make a simple statement and ask for thoughts and all of a sudden we have Reggie in the mix, we talk about AROD's Stolen bases
By the way MTS, if you check it out AROD probably got more $$ in the end because he had no agent to pay--_Arenas (NBA) did the same with the Wizards and openly admitted it
By the way watch for a baseball blog upcoming that will eliminate this nonsense
TRhit
Posts: 19140 | Location: Manchester, CT USA | Registered: December 26, 2002
Unless he gets the post season monkey off his back and performs to his ability, he will be known as this generations Harmon Killebrew, a great hitter without playoff success. Mantle was an incredible player, who might have put up 50 homers a year, if he lived like Dale Murphy.
Posts: 4783 | Location: Florida | Registered: December 26, 2002
Comparing players across the eras loses a lot in the translation.
Players today have the benefit of modern medicine, while players of yesteryear had to either retire or make do with what they had left after resting.
Traveling over the years from city to city by train took longer causing players to sleep the night before games on the train.
Traveling by air plane took less time, when technology advanced, but was still no comparison to the jet travel of today.
Each stadium had its own peculiarities. Right handed hitters playing half their games in Yankee Stadium had to contend with a left center field gap that was 463 feet to the wall. Not many hitters put balls over that wall. I recall Mantle doing it and Jackson as well (500 foot homers). A ball hit 450 feet was either extra bases or caught by a speedy savy outfielder.
Balls today are livlier. Mounds are lower. Bats are more high tech. Fences are fairly uniform from park to park.
Mantle in particular almost lost a leg to disease as a teen (osteomyelitis from a football injury) but was saved by the new wonder drug of the time (penicilin). He suffered from the effects of the disease for the rest of his life, and it probably led to many other injuries that hampered his accomplishments.
He lived every day waiting to be diagnosed with the disease that killed the men in his family (Hodgkins Disease). His father died of the disease (a form of cancer) at 39.
At 19, he tore the cartilage in his right knee chasing a pop fly hit by Willie Mays during the 1951 World Series. Applying thick wraps to both of his knees became a pre-game ritual, and by the end of his career simply swinging a bat caused him to fall to one knee in pain. Baseball scholars often ponder "what if" he had not been injured, and he was able to lead a healthy career.
He did pretty well for a kid who almost had his leg amputated and was plagued by injury and alcoholism.
Today is a different era, a different set of circumstances and a different game.
Posts: 1644 | Location: Tampa | Registered: August 06, 2005
When I was a kid my dad took me to RFK to see Washington play the Yankees. I saw Mick hit an oppo HR and a ground rule double. In his last ab of the night I saw him K. It was a thrill of a lifetime to actually go to a game and see him play.
ESPN showed a replay on Mantle's 500th...he looked like he could hardly get around the bases...limping worse than Gibson on his HR vs the A's.
There is no telling how even greater Mantle could have been with modern medicine; ...how much longer Koufax could have pitched; ...how great JR Richards would have been with today's diagnostics; ...and I am sure there are many others.
JT
Posts: 3519 | Location: Lynchburg, VA | Registered: January 15, 2003
Originally posted by MTS: One more thing. ARod belongs to the very exclusive 40 40 club (40 homeruns 40 stolen bases) in which there are 4 members Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco and Alfonso Soriano. Mickey didn't even make it to the 30 30 club which has 23 members (inclusive of the 40 40 club members). Mickey's contemporaries Hank Aaron (once) and Willie Mays (twice) made it.
If I thought 40/40 was important I would have done it every year - Willie Mays
Posts: 1632 | Location: Mid-Atlantic | Registered: October 29, 2007
Why can't both Mickey Mantle and Alex Rodriguez be among the greatest players who ever lived... along with Willie Mays, of course, and some others.
What difference does it make who was better?
50 years from now, many people will be saying so and so is great, but he is no ARod!
Mantle was unbelievably talented and very likable, but he had some serious issues with alcohol! Oddly enough, that made him even more popular with many fans. Funny what winning can do!
Not the same kind of results but Bo Jackson was even faster than Mantle and had that kind of power and probably had a better arm.
Also ARod was one of the best shortstops in baseball (gold glove winner) before he came to the Yankees. It's only the post seasons (and just with the Yankees) that leaves any room for debate.
Had the Yankees lost some of those championships years ago. Mantle might have had a few naysayers back then. Granted Mantle had more RBI, runs scored and HRs, but he had some real stinkers in the post season, as have many of the greatest players who ever lived.
Originally posted by TRhit: It galls me when they keep talking about AROD passing Mickey Mantle on the NY Yankees All Time HR list---Mantle hit ALL his dingers as a NY Yankee adn we all know that AROD has not
You can apply this to ANY player today...NOBODY will break any records of note with ONE team only.
***************************** "Hey dad.......wanna have a catch?"
Posts: 2742 | Location: NE Ohio | Registered: January 10, 2004
Originally posted by ECTBDAD: zomby did`nt you call Alex MAYROD when he filed as a free agent last fall.I think he is a great regular season player, but he aint no Reggie when October rolls around.
LOL..You bet I did. His record speaks for itself. Part of that might be Arod trying too do too much and being too high strung playing in NY with Jeter but with Arod locked into the Yanks for 10 years, he should be more relaxed and he should get more shots at the playoffs and World Series and eventually his talent has to come up in these games. However, Arod gets a pass for the last post-season because he did produce when the rest of them includiing Jeter failed.
Posts: 163 | Location: NJ | Registered: October 27, 2007
Zomby always enjoy your post`s never have to wonder if you are a real yankee fan.My team (indians) is in a down cycle,but I never change teams,although I do follow ex-tribesmen CC etc.I admit Jeter is my favorite current yankee and hope he retires a yankee I have never liked Alex,but always admired his ability.
Posts: 81 | Location: Sierra Nevada Mountains | Registered: November 01, 2007
I don't have a problem putting Arod in the same sentence as Mantle or any other great player. Arod was a fan favorite until he signed that $250,000,000.00 contract(that's a lot of zeroes). Is anyone else as amazed as me at how fast Arod got to 537 HR's? 800 HR's seems like a given.
If Arod remains relatively injury free and plays until he is 40 he will probably hold all the important records. HR's, RBI's and many others will be his. Does that make him better than Mantle? Who knows. Aaron didn't become a better baseball player than Ruth because he hit more career HR's.
And even though Bo Jackson could run faster and throw farther than everyone, it didn't make him a great baseball player. In fact, he was a lousy one who couldn't crack a top 10,000 list of Major League players. I would put Bo in the top ten for being able to sell tickets though. Which is the only reason he was in the Majors to begin with.
Posts: 153 | Location: NJ | Registered: January 20, 2006
