Drive Poll – Would Greats From The Past Be Able To Compete Today?
Let's fire up the hypothetical machine for today's Drive Poll, and the time machine while we're at it.
Players from different eras are compared all the time no matter the sport. Tom Brady and Joe Montana. LeBron James and Michael Jordan.
Quite often, you hear the older generations get slammed too. "Bill Russell and the Celtics wouldn't be as dominant if they were playing in today's game." "The Showtime Lakers wouldn't be anything special if they were going up against the peak Golden State Warriors." Stuff like that.
Watching the Red Sox game got me thinking last night, as Detroit brought in their All-Star closer Gregory Soto, a 6'1", 236lbs lefty whose fastball tops out north of 100mph.
Nowadays, we don't really think twice when seeing the next reliever come out of the pen throwing 98mph. It's expected. But guys like that simply didn't exist in past eras. Would Ted Williams still be the greatest hitter of all-time if he was facing lefty specialists who can also hit triple digits?
With all these hypothetical questions, which league's best players do you think would have the best chance of maintaining their greatness if they played today?