Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

This has to be one of the best things to help baseball fans, especially those with a deep love for the history of the game, make it through the cold winter months until opening day next year. Joe Posnanski writing for "The Athletic" has compiled a list of his top 100 players of all time, and he's writing a lengthy piece about each one. So far we are at #80. He says he's tried and failed to do this twice before, the ranking is arbitrary.

But the point of this for me is not the ranking but the stories. Every one of these players has a fascinating story — about persistence, about confidence, about pure talent, about amazing moments, about the lengths people will go to become quote-unquote “great.” The stories are what inspired me to do this bonkers thing.

I'm loving this. Joe is a great sportswriter. The comments are hilarious at times as people get all worked up about whether a particular player should be on the list, and where he should be ranked. I wasn't going to renew my subscription to the Athletic, but now I'm glad I did - especially for the stories about baseball's all-time greats I may only be somewhat familiar with playing this online simulated game version. Here's the list so far ...

No. 100: Ichiro Suzuki
No. 99: Mike Mussina
No. 98: Carlos Beltrán
No. 97: Roberto Alomar
No. 96: Larry Walker
No. 95: Tony Gwynn
No. 94: Roy Campanella
No. 93: Ozzie Smith
No. 92: Bullet Rogan
No. 91: Mariano Rivera
No. 90: Max Scherzer
No. 89: Mike Piazza
No. 88: Curt Schilling
No. 87: Charlie Gehringer
No. 86: Gary Carter
No. 85: Sadaharu Oh
No. 84: Cool Papa Bell
No. 83: Phil Niekro
No. 82: Kid Nichols
No. 81: Ferguson Jenkins
No. 80: Carlton Fisk

I've been enjoying it, too. Love the Athletic, it's an excellent product.

For example, reading all those accounts about how exceptionally fast Cool Papa Bell was, his SOM card doesn't do justice to his reputation.

supertyphoon wrote:For example, reading all those accounts about how exceptionally fast Cool Papa Bell was, his SOM card doesn't do justice to his reputation.

He could turn off the light switch and be in bed before the room got dark.

Like the story they said he got a base hit up the middle but was called out cause the ball hit him going into second base.

i love the Athletic great articles and insight on ALL sports. i've been following the top 100 players column too, but i've missed a couple of articles. anyone know how to retrieve past articles?

scorehouse wrote:i love the Athletic great articles and insight on ALL sports. i've been following the top 100 players column too, but i've missed a couple of articles. anyone know how to retrieve past articles?

I think if you click on one of the current 100 player columns, at the very beginning there's a paragraph talking about "the countdown". Click on the countdown, and a list of all the prior columns will come up.

found it thanks!!!!

Johnny Mize #64

There is one player in baseball history, just one, who hit more than 50 homers and struck out less than 50 times in a single season. That was Johnny Mize in 1947.

And he did that as a 34-year-old who had come back from war.

And yet we don't have his very best seasons ( pick any of 1938, 1939 or 1940 ) in the All-Time Greats set . My personal favorite would be 1938 leading the league in triples ! and slugging, a rare post dead ball era combination indeed.

not to mention he was related to Ty Cobb and his first cousin Clara Merritt married Babe Ruth!