Monday, June 21, 2010

Booknotes (NBR): H.G. Wells

I just finished reading a collection of H.G. Wells' short fiction, called A Dream of Armageddon:  The Complete Supernatural Tales.  The following passage struck me; it's from a story entitled "The Queer Story of Brownlow's Newspaper."  One morning, instead of receiving a newspaper for the current year, 1931, he receives a paper from the future:  1971.  His maid accidentally throws it away, and so he can only describe bits and pieces of it to the narrator.  Here's the narrator's response after hearing that the idea of individual nations was more or less obselete in 1971:

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Where Does Griffey Rank?

Since Ken Griffey, Jr. retired a few days ago, he’s been referred to consistently as a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer.  I’m not so deluded as to disagree with this.  What I’d like to know is where he ranks all-time. 

Because of an injury-ridden second half of his career, I don’t really think we can call Griffey one of the best players of all time.  A more substantive question is whether or not Griffey is the best center fielder of all time.  He’s got some stiff competition for that title, but let’s take a look at the facts and see if we can’t shed some light on the subject.

I figured that a good point of comparison would be to rank Griffey against the center fielders currently enshrined in the Hall of Fame (excluding Negro Leaguers, for whom the statistical record is spotty).

Here is a list of the MLB Hall-of-Famers who spent most of their careers as a center fielder: