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I know that this blog is primarially run as a blog that is a commentary on world events but lately I have been blogging a lot about sports. To be honest, I don’t always have an opinion on world events, or politics at this current time, but I still like to write and it seems I ALWAYS have an opinion on what is going on in sports, so lately I have been talking more about that. So apologies to those who wish otherwise.

I just finished watching a moving documentary on Ted Williams on HBO. It got me thinking ‘who is the best baseball player ever to play the game?’ Now that is a hard thing to determine because there are so many different kinds of players. There are pitchers, and positions players, guys who hit long bombs, guys who hit more for average, and guys who were exceptional on the defensive side of the ball. Sometimes guys had a few of these skill sets merged into one.

Personally I can’t come to a decision. Is it Babe Ruth? Jackie Robinson? Ty Cobb? Hank Aaron? Willie Mays? Ted Williams? Someone Else?

I have a tendency to go with Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, or Nolan Ryan.

Babe Ruth has to be considered because of his dominant hitting in an era where it was much more uncommon. In his 22 year career he posted an AVG of .342, 714 HR, and 2217 RBIs. In addition he won 94 games as a pitcher where he posted an ERA of 2.28 in 148 starts. He also had two 20+ win seasons and one year he had a 1.75 ERA! Probably the best all around ball player to ever play the game. He could effectively play both sides of the ball. The only recent guy I can recall to do that was Rick Ankiel but he isn’t near the player that Babe Ruth was.¹ Ruth also had his only MVP award in 1923.

Jackie Robinson is known as the one who broke the color barrier in baseball. Now normally I would say in such a discussion like this to only focus on the abilities of the ballplayer but what Jackie did not only changed baseball, but it changed sports forever. He still posted career avg of .311, 137 HR, 734 RBI, and 197 steals. He also won the 1947 Rookie of the Year Award and the 1949 Most Valuable Player Award.

I suppose with those stats cited you would have to go with Babe Ruth but his fielding wasn’t exceptional as he posted a career fielding percentage of .968 which puts him well below the elite in that statistic. Ryne Sandberg has the record with .989.

Nolan Ryan can not be counted out either. He was a pitcher for 27 years in the majors. He ended his career with 324 wins, a 3.19 ERA, and 5,714 Ks. The 5,714 strike outs is the all time leader in that category by nearly 1000 strikeouts. The number two in that category is Randy Johnson at 4,869.

So what do you think?

—–ENDNOTES—–

1. Although I compared Ankiel and the Great Bambino I only meant to do so because they both were effective pitchers and hitters. I was not attempting to say he is as good as Babe Ruth. If you look at Ankiel’s stats I think it is safe to say that no statistical comparison could or should be made. Ankiel pitched for four years posting only 13 wins, and a 3.90 ERA. In Ankiel’s career he has posted only an average of .250 with 43 HRs, and 141 RBI. He just became a position player in 2007 so the real stats as an OF are a .255 AVG, 41 HR, and 132 RBI. Clearly not Bambino numbers. Baseball-Reference.com: Rick Ankiel.

All stats provided by Baseball-Reference.com.

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Today is the big milestone for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, it is the 100th ppv show. Hopefully I will be watching on either the Television or the internet. That is the one thing I hate about fighting sports such as MMA or boxing – to watch the big fights, you must purchase the programming which costs an arm and a leg. I am still new to the sport – I have only watched UFC 98, a few reruns on Spike TV, and a couple episodes of The Ultimate Fighter, but I can still make some slightly educated guesses, so without futher ado, here we go:

Brock Lesnar wins in KO/TKO over Frank Mir - I am not sure if you have seen Lesnar in the octagon, but this guy is a giant. I do remember him from the WWE, he was just entering his career there when I stopped watching but he just seemed big, but when Lesnar is next to an actual real fighter he looks even bigger. I saw some highlight tapes of a fight or two of his on youtube and he is just scary and extremely powerful. This isn’t to take anything away from Mir, he already has beaten Lesnar in Lesnar’s first MMA fight, but Lesnar is so big, so strong, and he wants to redeem himself. I definitally would not want to end up on the dangerous side of a Lesnar right hook.

Thiago Alves wins in KO/TKO over George St. Pierre - I will be honest, this is a gut feeling type of thing. I haven’t seen much highlight footage from either of these guys, but I have heard other predictions and read an article or two. I hear that St. Pierre is a great fighter, probably better than Alves, but Alves is is stronger and I just have a feeling he will come out on top and shock the world.

Michael Bisping wins via decision over Dan Henderson - I saw this two men on the couple of episodes of The Ultimate Figher that I caught in July of 2009. I feel like these guys don’t like each other too much and that they will both come out flying. Provided that no one gets a lucky punch or kick in, I think this one will go the distance coming to a final decision by the judges.

Jon Fitch wins in KO/TKO over Paulo Thiago – I will be honest, I wrote these predictions out on Wednesday night. I can’t remember how I came to this conclusion. It probably is some gut feeling I have, we shall have to see how this fight goes.

Yoshirhio Akiyama wins in KO/TKO over Alan Belcher - Apparently many of the Japanese fighters have gotten a poor rap on being soft in comparison to what the UFC puts out on the octagon. I see Akiyama winning as being the legit Japanese sensation in the UFC. This is my secnod big upset pick.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRo2RLYZpXU]

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I went to a showing of this TV show, and this is the episode we saw got taped. My friends and I were in the first three rows so there may be shots of me or my friends being on there. It airs 1030pm PT on Comedy Central.

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I am so excited for tomorrow. It isn’t often that history is made, and we know about it before hand. Tomorrow we, the people of the United States of America, will go to the polls and either elect the first Black President or the first female Vice President. Either way it is history. I hope it goes the way I voted, as then I can say I had a hand in history. Although it won’t be my dream of actually having my name in a history book via some crazy historical act, but I would have contributed to American History. People, please vote if you haven’t already. This is the most historic election to date in our history. We will be crushing barriers with this election. Items like this restore my faith in humanity. I probably won’t sleep tonight, I am so stoked.

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