...though I don't know what the hell I could possibly add to any discussion at the moment.

I never let that stop me.

What if we call it homage, not theft?
The overwhelming majority of the baseball viewing public has never heard of the HOFer, despite his all-around awesomeness*. So, now that a dude's come around with monster speed and some batting skill - I consider it an opportunitity to honor the past, rather than steal from it.

Mind you, opposing viewpoints here make sense to me too.

* He was a definite candidate for my favorite 19th century player when I was a kid and a mainstay of my squads when my friends and I ran all-time sims back in the day.

Reds prospect Billy Hamilton is the fastest man in baseball

When you get close, try thinking about Margaret Thatcher. It worked for a friend of mine who was having the same problem.

battlekow/91: It is (intended to represent a standard deviation, same as the SAT was, etc...).
On the nose, sure - but
1) that may well actually be a standard deviation (or .096 or .103 or...).
2) more importantly, the scale (as used) is what the scale is. I strongly suspect that the value used to represent 10 points wrt batting average is probably not truly a standard deviation, but what matters is actual usage.

I was just saying that, if he's really .6 seconds faster than the average runner, the scale might need to be recalculated, because I doubt he's six standard deviations above average. But as you say, it's already off for other stats, so whatever. It just doesn't seem that useful when you can't use it to accurately depict a player's ability--"He's an 80 like those other guys, but MORE of an 80."

I guess if he's legitimately the fastest guy ever, or at least in a long time, the dissonance makes sense. If one guy, or better a few guys, with a truly superlative tool--better than anyone any scout has seen in their lifetime--show up, does that mean that the scores for other active players have to go down even if their ability level doesn't change?

If one guy, or better a few guys, with a truly superlative tool--better than anyone any scout has seen in their lifetime--show up, does that mean that the scores for other active players have to go down even if their ability level doesn't change?

I'd think it affects future scores, but past scores? I wouldn't think so.

If you see any clips from old Olympics, none of the judged athletes (skaters, gymnasts) would have a prayer against today's athletes; their scores, though, look just as impressive.

I'd think it affects future scores, but past scores? I wouldn't think so.

Not past scores, but scores going forward. For example, if four Billy Hamiltons showed up, you'd have to stop describing the speedster from the previous year's draft as having 80 speed, right?

Four, no. Forty? Yeah.

I don't think the issue (such as there is one) is with the assumptions for the mean or value of a SD (which probably are pretty static), but with presuming normality in the first place.

I remember a few years ago the consensual fastest man in pro baseball was...
Joey Gathright...


I'm impressed that this got left alone. You guys are all more mature than I am.

The non-consensual fastest man was Elijah Dukes.

I don't think the issue (such as there is one) is with the assumptions for the mean or value of a SD (which probably are pretty static), but with presuming normality in the first place.

This would certainly be true of speed in speed-dominant sports. The avg. NFL receiver is way, way out in the right tail, so WR speed shouldn't be close to normally distributed. It's probably very close to an even dist. at that point, slightly downward sloping.

I'm not sure for baseball players. They're obviously faster than the general population, but they're not heavily selected for speed. I don't know how much faster an avg. MLB player is than the average, very in shape, 20-40 y.o.

I'd guess the distribution is skewed, but still has a prominent "bell".

He was a definite candidate for my favorite 19th century player when I was a kid and a mainstay of my squads when my friends and I ran all-time sims back in the day.

How does Chicken Wolf stack up for you?

Wolf was always on my friend Marcus's team. I always ended up w Hamilton, Sam thompsOn, jack Clements, bill Joyce, hughie Jennings, Fred Dunlap, king Kelly, and Hugh Duffy. I identified w the lefty tossing Joyce and Clements and Jennings' getting plunked - but Kelly seemed the most fun.
Mind you, 90% of what I knew came from the bjhba...

I certainly don't think it would look like the distribution for football, but it should look a little humpy, right? Suppose I could spend a few minutes and find out...

Wolf was always on my friend Marcus's team. I always ended up w Hamilton, Sam thompsOn, jack Clements, bill Joyce, hughie Jennings, Fred Dunlap, king Kelly, and Hugh Duffy. I identified w the lefty tossing Joyce and Clements and Jennings' getting plunked - but Kelly seemed the most fun.

My all-time favorite team of guys I never saw play (based primarily on all the anecdote-heavy baseball books I read as a kid):

C - King Kelly
1B - Hank Greenberg
2B - Nap Lajoie
SS - Arky Vaughan
3B - Eddie Mathews
RF - Sam Rice
CF - Tris Speaker
LF - Goose Goslin
SP - Walter Johnson
SP - Bob Feller
SP - Warren Spahn
SP - Satchel Paige
SP - Ted Lyons
RP - Hoyt Wilhelm
DH - Babe Herman

(Rightfield is stacked. I had to shift Kelly to catcher, Herman to DH and Mel Ott, sadly, was left off). Cool Papa Bell was the other most difficult omission, in part because I met, and fell in love with, him at the Hall of Fame years ago. But the best year I ever had playing baseball was a year in center in Senior Babe Ruth ball, when I modeled my play after what I knew about how Spoke played the position, so he had to get the nod.

He was a definite candidate for my favorite 19th century player when I was a kid...

Mine was, and remains, Arlie Latham. Not a great player, but an extremely interesting one, and a true original.

The freshest man on earth! (He sometimes made rosters as a pinch runner type. We didn't park/era/etc... adjust.) Yeah, that's a good one.

Probably don't have a fave now - it was an interesting time, with a lot of interesting dudes.

So who claimed Harry Stovey? Now there was a fast dude and good baserunner. For the most part, they weren't tracking SB in Stovey's time, but he scored plenty of runs.

I had Stovey once. We weren't doing 19th century only, but two or three of us glommed onto a ton of those dudes, market inefficiency and all that.

But enough about dead guys - here's Hamilton's projected numbers for the season as of today: 140 g, 537 ab, 140 r, 216 h, 41 2b, 23 3b, 6 hr, 58 rbi, 82 bb, 105 so, 169 sb, 35 cs (.402/.481/.598)

My favorite 19th-century ballplayers were Bid McPhee and Jack Glasscock. Partly for their infielding wizardry, but partly for the excellent names.