Friday, April 16, 2010

preview of the greats



thursday night is usually 'the office' night. unfortunately nbc is stringing the season out and playing with its viewers' emotions though, so in case you haven't noticed it's been a few weeks since they've unleashed a new episode. instead of 'the office' this means thursday night has temporarily become braves night.

(rant: i know, you say if i was truly a hardcore braves/baseball fan that would be the case on any thursday night; however, some of my friends aren't quite in love with the sport as much as i am. so i sacrifice borderline obsession with a sport for building real relationships with friends. seems like a pretty good tradeoff, even though i do miss the days i could quote the batting averages of every braves starter - aka when i was six.)

so this week during braves night, one of the more curious girls posed an extremely dangerous, age-old question..."who is the greatest baseball player of all time?" this question is one that, if examined in the middle of braves night, could have potentially led to loud, extremely divisive arguments. not to mention we probably would not have expressed truly individual opinions (again in attempts to practice some level of civility in the debate). we chose to forego the divisive "greatest player" question and save it for later.

well, it's now 'later'. and i've decided to voice my opinion in writing instead of arguing or shouting. there's a catch though. in order to definitively state whom i believe to be the greatest baseball player of all time, you've gotta understand the gravity and depth of this question better. so to help you do that, i'm gonna break down my lists of the greatest players over the next week or two: greatest players of certain eras, greatest players at specific positions, maybe some greatest players of certain teams, maybe greats from certain countries/regions, and hopefully somewhere in that mix i can come to a confident conclusion about who i believe really is the greatest player we've ever seen take the diamond.

for now, baseball fans, keep salivating. keep tuning in for your favorite team's nightly match-ups. keep up with your fantasy teams, for cryin' out loud. and for the duration of this string of 'the greats' posts, take some downtime to ponder who you believe actually deserves some love on the lists of 'the greats.'

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