The games are still composed of nine innings and 27 outs. Marc-Edouard Vlasic Canada Jersey . There are still 90 feet between bases, and .300 has always been a benchmark of accomplishment for hitters. But one longtime pitcher who started his career in the 1990s laughed off the idea that you could possibly compare the game he played with the brand of baseball that occurred 100 years ago.If you look back at pictures of those games, the catcher is standing up, he said. Do you think that strike zone is the same size as it is now?Nope. This is why measuring players of today against those who played a century ago is ridiculously imprecise, unfair and mostly an empty exercise.But its also a lot of fun.With that caveat: My top 10 players of all time.10. Rickey HendersonWhen Henderson was up for election for the Hall of Fame in 2009, it was shocking ?he was left off the ballots of 28 voters. Its just as stunning that he is not higher on this list. The aim of every game is to score as many runs as possible, and Henderson did that more than anyone -- 2,295 in his career. He reached base more than 5,000 times. He stole 1,406 bases --?over 500 more than Ty Cobb. He hit 297 homers. He won a Gold Glove Award. He is one of the best players of all time.9. Lou GehrigHe played alongside Babe Ruth in the 1920s and 30s, and yet he was so great he managed to distinguish himself long before the onset of the illness that would take his life. Gehrig hit for a high average -- .340 in his career --?and he had about 50 percent more extra-base hits than he did strikeouts. Gehrig finished in the top 10 in the MVP voting in nine seasons, and while playing in seven World Series, he batted .361 with an OPS of more than 1.200. And he didnt miss a game for almost 14 years. Think about that.8. Ty CobbIn some of the oral histories from players of Cobbs generation, there are many references to his personality --?how disliked he was, how difficult he could be. That conversation about Cobb has come to overshadow just how great a player he was, in spite of his other faults, with 4,189 hits and?a .366 career batting average, which is the greatest of all time. Think about this: He won the American League batting title in all but one season from 1907 through 1919, and until Rickey Hendersons arrival, Cobb held the MLB record for stolen bases with 897.7. Stan MusialThe Cardinals Musial formed the most perfect statistic in MLB history. During his career, Musial generated 1,815 hits in home games and 1,815 hits on the road. Thats 3,630 in all, which was the most in National League history before Pete Rose broke it. Stan The Man also ranks in the top 10 all time in runs, RBI and doubles, among others.6. Walter JohnsonHis peers liked and respected him, yet they feared him as well because of how hard he threw and how he dominated, even while pitching for mostly forgettable teams between 1907 and 1927. He led the American League in strikeouts in 12 seasons and in ERA?during five seasons, including the year he turned 36. Only Cy Young compiled more victories, and Big Train threw nearly 6,000 innings, rolling on and on.5. Ted WilliamsThere could be a robust argument about who the actual forefathers of this era of analytics were. But all moneyball DNA could probably be traced back to Williams, who seemed to have the earliest understanding of on-base percentage before it was called that. He continues to inspire hitters into the current generation, including Joey Votto. Either he or Barry Bonds should be viewed as the greatest hitters of all time.4. Barry BondsHe might not gain induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, but if you asked most players from the 90s and early 2000s about the best player they ever saw -- and Ive had a lot of those kinds of conversations with a lot of players -- the vast majority would say Bonds. Tony Gwynn once told me he believed Bonds eyesight was so good that he could identify pitch types while the ball was still in the pitchers hand.3. Babe RuthHis greatest value to baseball wasnt necessarily in his production but in how he captured the imagination of a nation with his power and his personality. He drove baseball beyond the 1919 Black Sox scandal and into a new realm with all of the home runs he hit, creating generations of fans at a time when baseball was, in fact, Americas pastime. But its difficult to put him at the top of this list when he played in an era of segregation.2. Hank AaronAaron will be remembered forever for all of the home runs, of course, and some baseball fans will continue to regard him as the home run king because of Bonds association with performance-enhancing drugs. But he won Gold Gloves, a couple of batting titles, stole 240 bases and finished in the top 10 in the MVP voting in 13 seasons. He scored 2,174?times and drove in a record 2,297 runs. The consistency of his excellence is almost unimaginable now. Think about what it takes to compile 755 homers.1. Willie MaysHe might be as close to a perfect player as weve ever seen in baseball, with the power -- he finished his career third all time in home runs -- and the speed and the defense. Scouts will talk about five-tool players, and Mays was great at everything. He led the National League in homers four times and in steals four times, won 12 Gold Gloves and finished in the top 10 for the MVP 12 times. Jamie Benn Canada Jersey . He says so-called TRT is only one problem and he wants to go even further than the ban. "Its about time," St-Pierre told reporters at a promotional event in Montreal on Friday. "I think its a good thing. Patrick Roy Jersey . Its the second straight game Bell has scored in extra time for Kelowna, which beat the Brandon Wheat Kings 6-5 on Friday, and he now has four game-winning goals on the season. http:///...etzky-Canada-jersey/ .S. Open champion Justin Rose birdied the first hole with a blind shot he hit to a foot of the pin, and he stayed in front Tuesday until he completed a 4-under 67 for a two-shot lead over Jason Dufner in PGA Grand Slam of Golf. SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Notre Dame quarterback DeShone Kizer took it upon himself to address the Fighting Irishs 1-3 start Wednesday, shouldering much of the blame as one of the programs leaders.My mentality heading into the week is just to play free, have fun, Kizer said. I get the opportunity to be the quarterback of University of Notre Dame. That is a privilege that people dream about, that I dreamed about, and I took the fun out of that.Thats my biggest regret in the first four games is I had so much love for this position, love for this team, that I took on a lot more than I ever should, which put a lot of pressure on my back, and thats something that Im going to have to remove and go back to just doing what I love and having a good time.When Im doing that, thats when were playing our best ball as a team. And I believe that our whole team is buying into that understanding and buying into that idea. And practice [Tuesday] was a blast. It was a good time to go out there and play football, to play free and have a good time. And todays practice will be the same. Saturday will be the same. And there will be a W on that column when we go out there and we play the way we know how to.Kizer agreed with coach Brian Kellys assessment earlier in the week that the quarterbacks play has been substandard. Kizer, a redshirt sophomore, has completed better than 62 percent of his passes for 1,096 yards with 11 touchdowns and three interceptions, to go with 186 rushing yards and five touchdowns. He said his biggest personal room for improvement is in needing to play looser.At the quarterback position you naturally take on an extra dose of leadership, an extra dose of trying to take on everything that a coach should be taking on, Kizer said. You go and you idolize guys like Peyton Manning and Tom Brady and all the best who have ever done it and you see how they approach the media, you see how they approach the game, you see how they approach their team.And theyre professionals. They get paid to do that. Theyre in completely different positions than I am. And therefore, they take on a little more responsibility than I do. Maurice Richard Jersey. But me being the kid that I am, I wanted to be like them. I wanted to come up here and talk to you guys as if I was the head coach of this team.But Im just the quarterback. All I gotta do is go out and do whatever the guys upstairs are telling me to do and thats it. If Coach Kelly asked me to come do media, I do media. If Coach Kelly asks me to go throw a touchdown, I need to go out there and rip the ball and throw a touchdown. I dont need to do any more than that, and I think that was my biggest flaw in the beginning of the season is taking on too much. I just need to go out and play and have fun, challenge myself each day and just try to get better.Kizer added that fellow quarterback Montgomery VanGorder is his best friend at Notre Dame and that VanGorder has handled the past three days well after the program fired his father, Brian VanGorder, as defensive coordinator on Sunday.Senior linebacker and captain James Onwualu said he spoke with Brian VanGorder after the firing and thanked him for the opportunity to play for him. Onwualu had been a receiver as a freshman before moving to the defensive side of the ball when VanGorder came aboard in 2014.Everybody was talking about it -- even our student section seemed to have a strong stance on that, Onwualu said of the staff shakeup, which saw analyst Greg Hudson get promoted to defensive coordinator. It was shocking to me. Obviously, this is the only defensive experience Ive ever had. Hes really all I knew defensively. So its difficult for some older guys, you know, and me included to put that aside and just take the next step into something new.Ill continue my relationship with Coach VanGorder and possibly still learn things from him, but Im on to the next step and excited for Coach Hudson to get us rolling.Notre Dame plays 2-2 Syracuse on Saturday in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Cheap NFL JerseysCheap NFL Jerseys ChinaCheap Jerseys From ChinaCheap NFL Jerseys AuthenticWholesale Jerseys ChinaCheap NFL Jerseys ChinaNFL Cheap Jerseys ' ' '
