Author Picks 60s as Best Baseball Decade

Written by: Jerry Milani on 12th November 2009

Author Picks 60s as Best Baseball Decade | read this item

The argument has raged for decades as to which was the “Golden Age” of baseball? Was it the 1920s, when Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Rogers Hornsby posted huge offensive numbers? The 1950s, with Willie, Mickey and the Duke? The 1980s, during which nine different franchises won the World Series? In a pair of new self-published books, Carroll Conklin (aka “Hardball Bob”), argues that the 1960s, led by Mays, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, dozens of other star hitters and pitchers like Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson and Juan Marichal, actually had the best brand of ball.

Baseball’s Real Golden Age? You Decide and its companion volume 60 from the ‘60s: 60 Players Who Made the 1960s Baseball’s Real Golden Age, take a mostly statistical look at the game from the 20s through the rest of the century. Conklin adds some theories and proposes some reasons for the differences in the decades to flesh out the texts, which are available at the “Hardball Bob” Website, www.1960sbaseball.com.

“Hardball Bob” recently took some time to talk to BaseballDigest.com about the You Decide project and 1960s baseball in general.

BBD: What made you want to compare the best decades?
HB: In my mind, and as the Website reflects, the 1960s were the “Golden Age of Baseball.” Growing up, I always heard that about the 20s or 30s, and if you go online now, everyone has a favorite era, and it’s fun to debate. But I wanted to see if there was a way to look at those decades; the hitting in the 20s was so unbelievable, but was it because the pitching that bad? The hitting in 90s was good, but how much did expansion affect that? I wanted to look at MLB as a whole, to maybe make a case why the 60s or another decade had the best baseball. Baseball success is measured over 162 games, over 10 year careers for the Hall of Fame. So I thought that a decade would give the best trends.

BBD: What are the major factors that led you to believe the 1960′s were the best?
HB: In the book I wanted to collect data for make their own decisions, to look at numbers and see if they have a different conclusion. I see two thing about the 60s that stand out. Number one, the decade had great pitching throughout both leagues. The ERA was the best in that period, other than the deadball era. Combine that great pitching of the Koufaxes, Gibsons, [Whitey] Fords with the great hitters, Hank Aaron in his prime, Mays, Clemente, [Harmon] Killebrew, Frank Howard. With many of the best hitters ever going up against the best pitching in the modern era. How did that happen? That combination made it, for me, the best.

BBD: For reasons including improved nutrition, equipment, training, and others, swimmers, track and field athletes, and others with measurable results have all improved dramatically over time. The worst NFL team in 2009 is so much physically stronger than its 1970s counterparts. Why is baseball different?
HB: I think also in terms of nutrition, training, discipline, strategy for being in better shape, these have indeed improved a lot for all sports in the last 30 years. But in the 1960s, there still hadn’t been many breakthroughs in that area. They played ball for 6-9 months, then got a job in the off season. Then all of a sudden, there was so much more money for the players that they were in essence paid to train all year. Even though players today are in better shape, and have the vitamin and technological advantages, you can’t tell me that hitters today are better than Willie Mays, Frank Robinson in the 60s. How much would those guys make today? I have depended on statistics because the game rules are the same, they can be compared. Even though you can never go back in time, I feel that looking over a 10-year period, you can tell the test of time is the test of greatness.

BBD: How does PED use play into this?
HB: It’s hard to know. In analyzing the statistics, I had to use my best judgment. With PEDs, I have to assume that both pitchers and hitters were using them. I don’t want to get into that too much, since it wasn’t an issue in the 60s. Baseball has always been about smart people trying to bend the rules if they can get away with it. If they get caught, they get caught, and get the consequences. I say, was Gaylord Perry not great because he knew where to hide the Vaseline? Trying to find a competitive advantage has been part of the game forever.

BBD: How does the exclusion of Negro League players factor in?
HB: It is huge, and I include both African Americans and Latinos who were excluded until the color line was broken. It’s another reason why baseball in my opinion was much better in the 1960s. It’s the first full decade of integrated baseball. In the 50s, the Dodgers and Cleveland started integrating quickly; Branch Rickey and Bill Veeck did not see color as an issue, but talent. Gradually other teams got into it. Imagine baseball in the 1960s without Aaron, Gibson, Mays, you can’t do it. The 60s expansion had so much new talent available, I don’t feel it diminished the talent pool at all, while expansion in the 80s and 90s, I think there was a much greater dilution of talent, especially in pitching. Also baseball was still the king of sport in 60s. By the time we get to the 70s, 80s, 90s, players of color were not looking to baseball. There was more competition for talent post-60s.

BBD: You mostly used the more traditional statistics like batting average, home runs, RBI, ERA. Have you thought of conducting these studies with OPS or Win Shares or other more modern stats?
HB: I think yes, because I’ve never been opposed to a second and third edition. It’s only an 88-page book, but it’s packed with info. I didn’t want it to be longer; there’s a lot to absorb and digest. So I went with traditional statistics for accessibility. While I have only in the last few years had a feel for the more exotic statistics that can be extremely telling, I’m a little old school, adjusting little by little. Once this baseline is established, if I get feedback from readers that it’s off base, or could benefit from more information, then I’ll go to more exotic things like OBA. I think it’s an interesting story with the basic numbers to start.

BBD: What facts most surprised you in doing the research?
HB: I was open to looking at the 60s and saying that they don’t hold up. But I wasn’t surprised by the 60s coming out on top. The thing that surprised me the most in going through the numbers, over eight decades, was how good Babe Ruth was… even though he’s Babe Ruth and it would seem obvious. When you look at his numbers through the 20s, was the pitching worse? Yeah, probably. But the guy was unbelievable. Not just as a homerun hitter, but looking at batting average, other stats. He scored 177 runs in one season! Rogers Hornsby, too. I knew he was a great player, but to look at how he was so consistent, year after year. And a guy like Zack Wheat. I wish could get in a time machine and go back to 20s for a month….

BBD: Tell us more about the 1960sBaseball.com project.
HB: What I’m trying to accomplish is to give people a reason to remember and appreciate and even celebrate the teams and players of the 1960s. To see it as the true Golden Age. There were such tremendous players, I’d like people to look deeper. Who was Clemente? A great humanitarian, with a tragic and terrible but unbelievable story. There are all kinds of these guys and other stories. I even talk about Roger Craig — he lost a lot of games but was a really good pitcher before he got to the Mets. The whole point of the Website and project is for people to remember and appreciate what was terrific baseball that was in a way different from what you find today. There was no facial hair, no free agency, no steroids. Two-hour games – the way it was meant to be played. Variety, great stars, great pennant races. What more could you want?

Topics: 1920s, 1960s, Babe Ruth, Baseball Baseball, Baseball Success, Bbd, Bob Gibson, Companion Volume, Conklin, Golden Age, Hall of Fame, hank aaron, Hardball, History, Juan Marichal, Lou Gehrig, Mays, Offensive Numbers, Roberto Clemente, Rogers Hornsby, Sandy Koufax, Willie Mays, Willie Mickey And The Duke

Shallow Throat says:

January 9, 2010 at 12:40 pm

The 60′s was probably the best decade for baseball and the talent pool since then has diminished alarmingly! Football/basketball have improved conversly. The primary reason is simple numbers…all the baby boomers played organized ball(little league,pony,babe ruth etc.)The number of participants is staggering during that period…and they were the LAST group that played mostly baseball only! Expansion, other ‘glory’ sports, electronic distractions/alternatives came right after the 60′s. One only has to look to the dominant hall of famers of that era(most HOF pitchers coupled with the only two(2) legitimate 5 tool players EVER Mays/Clemente and you can’t conclude any different. Re. the ’71 WS the noted wonderful baseball writer/historian Roger Angel said…’there was Clemente playing a level of baseball we’ve never seen before’. Unfortunately, we’ll probably never see another Mays, Aaron or Clemente.