If we're going to use the character clause as extra credit in a way, I can definitely make this argument. That's probably why this news was so devastating to me, because Musial was such a great human being.

I have no idea how to check, but I presume he holds the record for most games played without an.ejection.

If character is enough extra credit to make up for an 1800 game deficit, isn't MLK, or Mother Theresa the best LF?

Musial missed only one season during the war. Ted missed almost 5 seasons during 2 wars, yet Ted's Career WAR is still right there with Musial. Combine this with the fact that Stan was not a full time LFer for most of his career and there's no way that he was better than Ted, let alone Bonds.

he was athletic enough to play over 300 games in center field

Was he athletic enough to steal 500 bases, too?

Dunno, but apparently he was quite the speedster when young. Back then, SBs weren't really part of the game, were they? I remember guys leading their leagues with a couple of dozen at most, seems like.

He must have had some wheels, he led the league in triples 5 times. I thought Sportsman's park was good for triples but for his career he hit 87 on the road, 90 at home.

But Stan Musial? What’s your image of Stan the Man?

The batting stance. How the hell could anybody hit like that? Much less hit like that hitting like that.

Ricky Henderson was churlish? I thought he was just loony.

Rickey was a pain in the ass. Whenever someone else signed a contract for more than Rickey was making there was an excellent chance Rickey would be pissed off.

Whenever someone else signed a contract for more than Rickey was making there was an excellent chance Rickey would be pissed off.

Yep, just like a great many readers here, and John Q. Citizens out in the "real" world. O! The temerity!

A contemporary of Rickey Henderson described Rickey's megalomaniacal proclamations as just a façade, a false bravado much like they had put on amongst each other as kids playing on a sandlot. It wasn't no thing.

Either he was the best ever or not. "Might have been" articles aren't worth the keystrokes.

Yes, because its much better to be definitive and wrong. George W. Bush is going up on Mt. Rushmore soon...

Forget WAR and just consider overall skill sets, and the order looks like this:

Batting for average: Williams, Musial, Bonds, Henderson
Power: Bonds, Williams, Musial, Henderson
Batting eye: Williams, Bonds, Henderson, Musial
Overall batting: Williams (by a hair), Bonds, Musial, Henderson
Baserunning: Henderson, Bonds, Musial, Williams
Overall offense: Bonds, Williams, Musial, Henderson
Fielding: Bonds, Henderson, Musial, Williams
Arm: Henderson/Bonds, Musial/Williams (no great ones in there)

Overall I'd go with Bonds, Williams, Musial and Henderson. Williams' batting skill makes up for pretty much everything else relative to Musial and Henderson.

  11. booond Posted: January 20, 2013 at 03:10 PM (#4350984)
Either he was the best ever or not. "Might have been" articles aren't worth the keystrokes.

There is no definitive answer to something like this. You have the moron's way of looking at it, which is just raw war, then you have the way most intelligent people would look at it, which is anything and everything possible. You also have the arguments about position, since he didn't play as much left field as the others, and you have arguments about timelining etc...

An article that is definitive isn't worth the keystrokes, the debate and the reasoning is the entire point of an article like this. Accepting that it's not definitive is a plus to the writer.

Arm: Henderson/Bonds, Musial/Williams (no great ones in there)

???? Musial may not have been Clemente, but I find it hard to believe that a former pitcher had a arm on par with Rickey/Ted.

Well, he hurt it to the degree he couldn't pitch anymore. The injury might have been bad enough to damage his arm in the same way that Don Baylor's shoulder ruined his arm.

Rickey was a pain in the ass.

there is what evidence to support this statement?

i can recall many a statement about rickey but not that phrase.

Williams had a good arm since he pitched in high school.

there is what evidence to support this statement?

i can recall many a statement about rickey but not that phrase.

I can see how he'd have been a pain with the Mets. He got pulled from a game after a half-hearted attempt to score against the Braves, and he famously went to play cards after being taken out of game six of the NLCS.

I go on about the role of positional playing time in positional lists a bit more than a sane person should but Musial is pretty much the archetype.

Now, first, let me say I don't really care if we distinguish LF from RF and we can lump 1B and now DH in there as well. They are the positions that almost anybody can play. Lots of guys spend their early career in RF then get shifted to the slightly less demanding LF/1B later in their careers. Lots of guys switch within a season although maybe this is less common than it used to be.

Musial had 989 starts at 1B, 868 in LF, 680 in RF and 305 in CF. Why is he being rated as an LF? He has as much claim to being the best 1B as he does the best LF although we'll settle on Gehrig there. Call him an RF and he's the 2nd greatest RF of all-time.

But it doesn't reflect his reality. Ages and positional dominance:

21: LF
22: RF
23: RF
25: 1B
26: 1B
27: LF/CF/RF (equally)
28: RF/CF equally
29: 1B/LF (and 23 starts in RF/CF)
30: LF/1B
31: CF
32: LF
33: RF
34: 1B (1/3 time in RF)
35: 1B (1/3 time in RF)
36-38: 1B
39-42: LF

He wasn't a regular LF until ages 39-42 (about 40% of his LF starts). The only reason folks ascribe him to LF is to keep him out of the way of Ruth and Gehrig.

Without question, Musial could have been one of the top 3 LF, one of the top 2 1B and (unless I'm forgetting somebody) one of the top 2 RF of all time. But in reality he wasn't any of those things because he never even made it to 1000 starts at any position. He was surely the greatest multiple-position player of all time, especially multiple positions within a season and across years.

What he was, of course, was one of the greatest players of all time. There's no need to squeeze him into the top of positional lists where he doesn't belong to be able to show how great he was. Celebrate the man for the great player that he actually was, not the great leftfielder that he wasn't.

(unless I'm forgetting somebody) one of the top 2 RF of all time.

You're either forgetting someone, or you're ranking Musial ahead of Aaron.

Is it even worth pointing out any more that you simply look at positional rankings differently than almost everyone else who does them, and that neither way is inherently correct?

The premise is absurd. Of course he wasn't. I don't know why these even get linked.

He was strictly worse, than a direct peer.

If you give Saint Stan the benefit of any reasonable doubt he is still not the best.

Musial did not have a good arm. But, then, if you have a player of Musial's quality and he has to have a flaw, make it a weak arm. It was not better than Williams's, though, and Williams was probably better than Rickey and Bonds's.

Otherwise, post #13 is a quite judicious post. It always has to be remembered, if we're going away from objective data, that Williams's career was simply mutilated by factors beyond his control, and he's still inner circle. If that doesn't impress you, you have some very special requirements for being impressed. Give him those full five years (or even just three), and his stats . . . .

Please don't take this, though, as a knock on Stan, especially at this time of all times.

A case can certainly be made that Stan should rank ahead of Aaron. It's close, though, but still.

You're either forgetting someone, or you're ranking Musial ahead of Aaron.

Ruth played almost as much LF as RF. Maybe we shouldn't squeeze him onto some silly positional list either.

Here is Musial's Hall of Merit thread. There wasn't much to say, but we did manage to get in 50 posts. Some part of it was discussing the positional issues. One of the comments I made there was something to this effect: it's the norm for a superstar franchise player to be firmly planted at one position and in one role on a team, with the rest of the team being made to fit around him. Thus it's a little odd to see Musial be the one who was moved around to accommodate other (and lesser) players.

Musial was VERY fast. In fact, his early nickname was "The Donora Greyhound", not "The Man." That's a later term that came from his beating up on Brooklyn pitching. He could certainly have stolen bases if he hadn't played during a time when that facet of the game had all but disappeared. Actually, when he first reached the majors, Musial had center field ability, but was blocked by Terry Moore, who is one of the handful of players who can contend for the title "best defensive outfielder ever." Absent Moore, Musial would have probably been a career CF, clogging up the Hall of Fame logjam at the spot in the 40s and 50s even more than it is. As it was, he played in a ballpark (Sportsmans' Park) that had a small right field territory, making LF actually a harder position to play than RF, since you didn't need a big arm in RF. Musial's moving around was because he could - and would without complaint - play anywhere a lefty can play. His managers would decide who else could play best where, and Stan got what was left over, including first base in some years where it was clear that he was a noticeably better outfielder than some of the starters.

Boy, isn't it odd to think that, when Stan Musial first arrived in the Major leagues, the ability that he had that most impressed spectators was his running speed? And yet, it clearly was. - Brock Hanke

Is it even worth pointing out any more that you simply look at positional rankings differently than almost everyone else who does them, and that neither way is inherently correct?

No matter how many times it gets said, Walt continues to insist that his way is the only correct way, so...no.

I have no problem with Walt's way, BTW. It just attempts to answer a different question than most people are focused on.

In the case of Musial, he was clearly and outfielder. Of the OF slots, he played more LF. That's why he's considered a LF. Pretty simple.

Thus it's a little odd to see Musial be the one who was moved around to accommodate other (and lesser) players.

without reading the HoM thread or knowing much of the story, I'd assume that Musial bounced around more than more franchise superstars because he had less of an ego than most franchise superstars. A guy who won't kick up a fuss is far more likely to bounce around the diamond than a guy determined to play where he wants to play.

cercopithecus aethiops Posted: January 20, 2013 at 01:33 PM (#4350937)

But Stan Musial? What’s your image of Stan the Man?


The batting stance. How the hell could anybody hit like that? Much less hit like that hitting like that.

- the astros had a guy who had the same exact stance - todd self - career minor leaguer who got basically no chance after failing to hit 1000 in a couple of pinch hit ABs -

or at least that what a couple of cards fans - 2 old ladies who had SEEN stan the man actually play, told me

The main reason that Musial never played center field when he first came up was named Terry Moore, one of the short list of candidates for best defensive outfielder of all time. Part of the oddities of Musial's playing position when in his late 30s have to do with Solly Hemus' idea of managing. He apparently thought that Stan had slowed up too much to play the outfield, and kept trying him at first base, putting Bill White and Joe Cunningham in the outfield. Neither White (who was fast but couldn't judge fly balls) nor Cunningham (who was just slow) was an outfielder. When Solly went away, Johnny Keane realized that Stan could still play the outfield, and that Bill White was a Gold Glove 1B. That's the basic story. My memory in the Hall of Merit is that we assigned Stan to LF because that was where he had accumulated the most value, not the most games. - Brock Hanke (who thinks that it's very dangerous to argue with Walt Davis' mathematical analysis - Walt REALLY knows his math, and there's always a good chance that he's just seeing something that many of the rest of us, including me, aren't equipped to handle)

No matter how many times it gets said, Walt continues to insist that his way is the only correct way

This is not true. I insist the other way is inherently incorrect, because it is. I don't have a "way" to be correct if for no other reason than I don't concoct lists of the greatest X of all time.

Seriously, what's the rationale for comparing a player who played a position for half of their career (but counting their whole career) to someone who played that position for their entire career? Other than it being simpler? What is the logic behind comparing Musial, who played 2/3 of his games elsewhere, to Bonds and Williams but not Ruth, Aaron, Gehrig, etc.

Why should games played at a position be ignored in compiling lists of the greatest at a position?

It just attempts to answer a different question than most people are focused on.

What question are other people focused on? I thought the question a list of the greatest LFs was focused on was to list the greatest LFs. To do so, it would be handy to start with the list of guys who actually played LF not guys who played 1/3 of their career in LF and 2/3 of it elsewhere.

And let's be completely clear about something. You are doing a DISSERVICE to the actual Musial when you create your pretend LF Musial. One of the things that made Musial unique, even among most of the greats, was his ability to bounce around the field. The man got 105 starts in CF at age 31 and you want to call him a LF.

This is distinct from the way these things usually go. Pretending Yount and Banks were SS for their entire careers makes them look better. Treating Brett as if he doesn't have 500 fewer starts at 3B than Boggs makes Brett look better. Labeling Musial just a LF makes him look worse.

In the case of Musial, he was clearly an outfielder. Of the OF slots, he played more LF. That's why he's considered a LF. Pretty simple.

Musial played 2900+ games in the field (by b-r). 2/3 of them were not in LF. As I also pointed out, he was only a regular LF from ages 39-42, the very end of his career, accounting for 40% of his LF career games. For the bulk of his career, when he had his most value, he was in LF only about 20% of the time so I assume nobody thought of Musial as a LF during his career (Brock care to comment?). That's why he should not be considered (solely) a LF.

Pretty simple and it has the benefit of being accurate.

He won the MVP in 1943 and 122 of his 155 starts came in RF. He won it in 46 and 114 of his 156 starts were at 1B. He won it in 1948 playing all 3 OF positions with 114 of his 155 starts not in LF. His "peak" was ages 22-33 for a staggering 88 WAR during which he had just 408 starts in LF, nearly 1/3 of them in his age 32 season.

So 3 MVPs, none as a LF. 11 years of greatness, 20% of it spent in LF. Not that it's a great measure but near as I can tell, Musial got 14 AS starts, only 5 of them in LF. Yep, definitely an LF because "analysts" are too lazy to do anything more complex.

Now, if you want to lump LF and RF together, be my guest. That will simplify your life a lot without doing a lot of harm to the point of your analysis although Musial will still be "problematic." Lots of guys play at both positions for big chunks of their careers. If you want to treat them as separate positions be my guest just assign players in a way that is at least reasonably consistent with the facts (which, for a lot of guys, would mean splitting their careers between positions). And, yes, Ruth should be treated the same way as Musial.

To sum up:

2/3 of his starts were not in LF
2/3 of his starts were not in LF
2/3 of his starts were not in LF
2/3 of his starts were not in LF

ergo

not a LF for anything remotely resembling his entire career.

If you've got a fact-based counter-argument, I'd love to hear it.

Brock, thanks for the compliment, but this has nothing to do with math beyond being able to count up the number of games and do percentages and b-r/retrosheet have already done the hard counting bit. This is just common sense -- third basemen are guys who play third base, not guys who play first base.

I usually disagree with you on this subject, but in this particular case I think you are right.

People want to rank all the baseball players, and they want to do so by ranking them at positions. You therefore have to select a position to rank players at. If you don't select a position for Musial he won't be ranked. This makes people far more unhappy than the fact that any position you select for him won't be a perfect fit.

People consider the values of the PLAYER to be the most important thing, and don't care very much about the value accumulated by a player at each individual position - except as it contributes to the value of the player.

That is: you want to rank value by players at positions. Most people want to rank players by value, dividing them among positions.

It doesn't make Musial "look worse" to call him a leftfielder. Because people want to rank the whole value of the player. Calling him a leftfielder is a mechanism for sorting.

I really don't get what is so complicated about this.

Boy, isn't it odd to think that, when Stan Musial first arrived in the Major leagues, the ability that he had that most impressed spectators was his running speed? And yet, it clearly was.

Mantle as well. There's a bit in his biography about how when he first came up (pre-knee injury) he was timed running the bases in 13 seconds or something like that. Which is pretty ridiculously fast. Casey Stengel thought the watch was broken and made him run it a few times more for confirmation.

I think I agree with Baldrick.

Walt, another way of looking at it is that if you're putting together the all-time team, who would be your starting left-fielder? It doesn't necessarily have to be a guy who played the majority of his games there, just a player who can play there and did play there a fair bit. Nobody would argue if you were putting together your all-time team and stuck Musial in left field. When people say "who was the greatest left fielder" they mean "who was the greatest overall player, who could be reasonably placed in left field?"

I think for Musial, the fact that he started his career in left field and ended it there is part of it, and while his 5 ASG starts in LF are not a majority out of 14 starts, they are more than any other position (this is another awesome Musial fact:) LF: 5, 1B: 4, RF: 3, CF: 2

Walt - Contemporary opinion is a VERY good issue to bring up, but I can't cover all of it, and a lot of it was just downright strange. When I first started following baseball, Stan was 33 (1954) and I was 6. That year, he played Right Field and was considered a RF. I can say that he was still considered a RF during the next few years, when he was playing 1B, because everyone knew that there was something wrong in who was playing where. The Cards in the late 50s had weak weird managers and a farm system that kept churning out odd players, like Ray Jablonski and Bill Virdon, so the manager had to keep figuring out where the rookies could play. The last year of Stan at 1B, 1959, was, according to Curt Flood, the result of racism. Solly Hemus wanted to avoid playing black guys, so he took a pool of Flood, Musial, Bill White and Joe Cunningham, and put Stan at 1B, White in CF (where he was certain to fail), Cunningham in RF, and Flood on the bench. This collapsed as a system, and Hemus got fired, so Stan went back to the OF so that Bill White could play Gold Glove 1B instead of failing at CF, and Flood could play CF, and Cunningham became the tradable guy who was left over. The next few years, Stan played LF, but I think that was because the Cards understood that, in Sportsmans' Park, LF was actually harder to play than RF, because RF was a small territory, similar to Fenway's LF. I think that's the important factor. In his ballpark, he was the best corner OF, but seldom the best CF because the Cards had either Moore or Flood or Virdon or somebody. So he played mostly LF because that was the hardest corner spot in his park. If the team had had weaker CFs, Stan would probably have played more there. But Moore, Virdon and Flood is stiff competition. When they didn't have one of those guys - those were the years Stan played in center.

The early 1940s were no better; the Cards just had massive instability in their outfield. For example, Johnny Hopp played 1B in 1942, was a utility man in 1943, and then became the starting CENTER fielder in 1944, when Moore was in WWII. Who moves from 1B to CF? What manager does this? Whoever they were, those were the managers who kept asking Stan to play a different position every year. And they were winning, so who was going to complain? Not Stan. Not his nature.

If you ask me to guess, my guess would be that Stan was considered an "outfielder" who was being played out of position when he played 1B, but could have played any outfield position, so he got moved around because of the unending series of rookies and odd pickups. He was a LF early because Enos Slaughter was in RF, and Stan was by far the better defender and LF was harder to play in that ballpark. Because of that ballpark oddity, I've always considered Stan to be a LF because of the difficulty factor, although he was playing RF and then 1B when I first started following the game. When he played LF, at the beginning and end of his career, that was really a testament to how good a glove he had. Even in his 40s, he was considered a better glove than whoever was playing RF, but Stan wasn't the CF because they had Flood. Early in his career, he was clearly better than Enos, but not as good as Moore, so he ended up in LF.

Best I can do, I call him a LF, thanks for asking! - Brock (Also I admire your work aside from the math. You do understand that the most important thing to do first in any analysis is figure out what is the right question to ask. A lot of the strong math guys don't get that.)

I've been meaning to say this for a couple of weeks, but now would be a good time I guess. Walt Davis has the most informative posts of anyone on BBTF. I also love the old "stories" (i.e. narrative, not stats) from Brock, Harvey, Treder and Andy.

I love Brock's posts, particularly this week in regards to Musial.

And I love Rickey Henderson but he was a notorious pain in the ass. He was always considered selfish and enigmatic. Its part of the reason he bounced around so much. I think it was overblown but he definitely had that rep. In the movie Little Big League the GM passes on a chance to grab Rickey off waivers in his prime because he was concern end about clubhouse chemistry.

I've been meaning to say this for a couple of weeks, but now would be a good time I guess. Walt Davis has the most informative posts of anyone on BBTF. I also love the old "stories" (i.e. narrative, not stats) from Brock, Harvey, Treder and Andy.

Seconded, or thirded.

Was he athletic enough to steal 500 bases, too?

He never stole bases, but I'm pretty sure he was fast as a young man, but lost that speed by his early 30s.

The very late move back to the OF from 1B is interesting, but I think has more to do with the fact that DH had not been invented yet, so the only way to get Bill White's bat in the lineup was to have White play 1B. (though White may actually have been a decent 1B- but he could not play in the OF if his life depended on it*)


*My vague recollection from my youth is that White once told Phil Rizzuto on air exactly that, he couldn't play in the OF if his life depended on it.

Seriously, what's the rationale for comparing a player who played a position for half of their career (but counting their whole career) to someone who played that position for their entire career? Other than it being simpler? What is the logic behind comparing Musial, who played 2/3 of his games elsewhere, to Bonds and Williams but not Ruth, Aaron, Gehrig, etc.

OK, let's try this again.

People like to compare baseball players to each other. Sometimes, they don't want to bother comparing all of the baseball players who have ever played to each other, so they break them into subsets. Typically, they break them into subsets that have something in common. One frequently-used criteria is position played.

Of course, baseball players don't always stay at the same position throughout their careers. So when confronted with someone like, say, Joe Torre, you're left with the question of what to do with someone who was 41% catcher, 35% first baseman, and 24% third baseman (by innings played). You could, of course, say that Torre was (I assume) the best 41% catcher, 35% first baseman, 24% third baseman in the history of baseball, but that's not really a very interesting statement. You could split his value up by position and rank him separately at each one, but then you're not looking at his complete career any more, and that's what people want to do when comparing players. (Also, if you value-split by position, you get Musial not being one of the top 10 left fielders, right fielders or first basemen, despite being arguably one of the 10 best players overall; you can insist on that if you want to, but it's going to sound like nonsense to a lot of people.)

Or, you can assign each player a position, not in an effort to create an alternate universe in which the player didn't spend a single inning at another position, but simply as a convenient sorting mechanism to find similar players. This is generally done in either of two ways - either by listing the player where he spent the most time, or listing him where he accrued the most value. The second option is more common, because nobody wants to put Ernie Banks on the first base list.

So when people list Musial as a left fielder, they're really listing him as a "guy who is generally thought of as a left fielder, even though we fully acknowledge that he played other positions also and that his versatility was an asset to his team," or a "guy who provided more value in left field than at any other position." This is generally shortened to "left fielder" because the other options take longer to write out.

(Taking a quick look at Musial's career, by the way, it looks like he actually might have provided more value in right field. But he had so many years where he moved all around the outfield on a regular basis that it's tough to make the call.)

I loved Rickey as a ballplayer but he was said to be difficult and indifferent at times. Goose Gossage claimed in his book, when he played for the A's that in his opionion Henderson was a very selfish player and a bad teammate.

#9 The only time I can recall that happening was 1990. Henderson was for some reason not covered by the collusion ruling and was stuck with a lower than market value contract.

Very unhappy. Said (almost word for word) that if they're going to pay me like Mike Gallego maybe I should play like Mike Gallego. Worth noting that while he was unhappy he played great -- won the MVP.

And it didn't cause problems in the team. Gallego in particular took it with humor (said something very close to I had no idea Rickey thought I was so good)

Alderson handled it well for the team. Simply said that Rickey had a contract and that he expected him to honor it.

EDIT: And Rickey was passed around a fair amount because the team picking him up was trying to win. It wasn't a Dick Allen "get him out of here" transaction.

#34 Walt being particularly dense here because Musial could obviously have handled left. Only a moron refuses to count (say) Henderson's (or Raines or Aaron's or ... well most corner OF with good speed spent some time in CF) time in CF when looking at LF.

The specific point of Yount's time in CF is a valid one. He simply couldn't handle SS any longer. But Henderson could have obviously handled LF in 1985.

People want to rank all the baseball players, and they want to do so by ranking them at positions. You therefore have to select a position to rank players at. If you don't select a position for Musial he won't be ranked. This makes people far more unhappy than the fact that any position you select for him won't be a perfect fit.

People consider the values of the PLAYER to be the most important thing, and don't care very much about the value accumulated by a player at each individual position - except as it contributes to the value of the player.

That is: you want to rank value by players at positions. Most people want to rank players by value, dividing them among positions.

It doesn't make Musial "look worse" to call him a leftfielder. Because people want to rank the whole value of the player. Calling him a leftfielder is a mechanism for sorting.

I think I come down on Walt's side...

When people rank 'by position', and when they get specific on OF positions in particular, it seems to me that what they're building is a 'team'...

This shortshrifts Musial --- I think he's a victim of the fact that you could play him 3 - even 4 - positions and he'd be defensive plus (except CF?) and his bat would be top class.

In doing such 'rankings' -- Musial would be my OF/1B... that's not to say he's not as good as my 'standard' set of LF/CF/RF/1B -- just that he could play all 4 of those positions, whereas, say, Ted Williams or Babe Ruth could not. Musial would be in my theoretical lineup as often as Williams-Bonds/Cobb/Ruth/Gehrig-whomever --- it's just that he'd be rotating around those four positions to spell the LF/CF/RF/1B.... in the end, all 5 of them would end up getting roughly the same number of PA's -- Musial might end up actually seeing more defensive innings because I suspect (if Williams were my LF), he'd be shifting over to LF regardless in late innings for defensive purposes.

...of course - in such a scenario, unless we're playing some otherworldly or alternate dimension group of all-stars -- this is all kind of moot, since I can't imagine anyone could play "us" tight enough that I'd even need to care about defensive alignments ;-)

Incidentally my memory said that one reason that people thought of Musial as a LF was that he mostly played left in the AS game. Not quite right.

Starts in AS games: 5 in LF, 4 at 1b, 3 in CF, 2 in RF. Pinch-hit in another 10 AS games and stayed to play the field only twice. LF in both cases.

His last AS start in the OF is interesting. He started in RF with Frank Robinson playing in left. "Everybody" thinks of Frank Robinson as a RF but he only had 1,270 games there. 834 games in left and 101 in center.

I loved Rickey as a ballplayer but he was said to be difficult and indifferent at times. Goose Gossage claimed in his book, when he played for the A's that in his opionion Henderson was a very selfish player and a bad teammate.

That makes me more inclined to view Henderson in a favorable light.

47:

Which were on TV?

When people rank 'by position', and when they get specific on OF positions in particular, it seems to me that what they're building is a 'team'...

Correct, they're constructing a "Dream Team" or a series of teams (1st team, 2nd Team, 3rd team, etc.).

I think it's perfectly legitimate to say your "Dream Team" has Mantle in LF, Cobb in CF and Mays in RF (with Ruth at DH).

Especially with LF. There really is no such thing as a "LF". Any decent CF or RF can play LF.