People always romanticize baseball players of old. I wonder, though. How hard was Old Hoss Radbourn really throwing in the last 200 innings or so of his 678 innings in 1884? How great could Babe Ruth's competition have been if he was hitting 60 homers and partying so much?
Major league players now are paid at least $414,500. The very best sign nine-figure deals. Talented people today are going to work harder to try to make that kind of money. This may make the purists want to occupy City Hall, but I really think it's true: Players today are much, much better than their decades-ago counterparts.They have better medical facilities, weight-train more, use more supplements and take loads of ridiculous drugs - legal and illegal. And baseball players of old didn't have the magic magnetic sports necklaces the 2011 Phillies wore. Why shouldn't they be better? Granted, my theory isn't necessarily the reason the 2011 Philadelphia Phillies crushed the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies in a computer-simulated seven-game series run for SportsWeek by WhatIfSports.com.
Running the numbers for a seven-game series 1,001 times, WhatIfSports has the 2011 team beating the 1980 World Series champions in a decisive 69 percent of head-to-head matchups.
Of course, in the WhatIf simulation, the 2011 Phillies batted as well as they did during the season, and the starting pitchers were more like aces than jacks. That's gotta help.
On the other hand: 69 percent. The 2011 Phillies only won 63 percent of their games against all competition this year!
It's only a 31-year difference. The 2011 version of the Phillies won 102 games and were the chokingest bunch of chokers who ever choked. The 1980 team, in its Game 5 of a five-game series, came back against Nolan Ryan. And yet the computers say the 2011 team was better.
The most common outcome for a seven-game series pitting the 2011 Phillies against the 1980 Phillies was a six-game series win for the modern nine, which happened 21 percent of the time.
LET'S PLAY BALL
In a sample Game 1 of our fictional series, the 1980 squad takes the lead in the fourth inning on a Garry Maddox RBI single. (Yes, Roy Halladay doesn't give up any runs in the first. Was the computer calibrated right?) The lead holds until the sixth, when the 2011 team takes the lead on RBI singles from Hunter Pence and Raul Ibanez.
The '80 squad battles back, tying it on a Greg Luzinski double in the eighth; but Mike Schmidt is thrown out at home when Carlos Ruiz holds on to the ball after a "vicious collision."
That's literally what the play-by-play generated by WhatIfSports.com says. To read the simulated play-by-play for all six sample games, go to phillysportsweek.com. Prepare to be wowed. WhatIfSports.com employs about a dozen sports and stat nerds who do an incredibly thorough job at making their simulated matchups realistic. You can also go to their website to generate your own. It's free.
The 2011 Phillies win it on a walkoff, pinch-hit single by John Mayberry in the bottom of the ninth for a 3-2 win. Just like Opening Day! Halladay goes the distance for the 2011 team; Ron Reed takes the loss.
THE SERIES CONTINUES
With Cliff Lee pitching, the 2011 Phillies beat the 1980 team again in Game 2, 5-2, scoring five unanswered runs. A Larry Bowa error in the eighth leads to three unearned runs, and the 2011 team is up 2-0.
When the series shifts to the Vet - we're traveling through time and space here, and this is the Vet with the cool multicolored seats - the 1980 team rallies, winning two games in a row. The first is a 6-5 thriller where the 1980 team erases a 4-0 deficit against Cole Hamels, taking the lead on a three-run homer by Luzinski. In Game 4, Roy Oswalt takes the loss as Schmidt's two-run homer breaks a 4-all tie in the sixth.
Luzinski has the best series of anyone on the 1980 Phillies, and one has to wonder: Would the Luzinski of today pull for himself in the past, or would he cheer for the team whose fans eat his barbecue now? Thinking about it makes my head spin.
There is still one more game at the Vet, and the 2011 Phillies use their bigger muscles and magic necklaces to win. In Game 5, Chase Utley and Shane Victorino hit solo homers and Halladay beats Steve Carlton again in a 3-1 victory.
PIVOTAL GAME 6
Back in 2011 at Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies close it out in a quite improbable way: Lee's two-run homer in the sixth breaks a 2-all tie. (OK, it's not as improbable as a Placido Polanco homer.) Ryan Madson closes out a 5-3 victory, with Pete Rose grounding out to give today's Phillies the series win.
There you have it. Science - well, computer science - proves the 2011 Phillies are better than their 1980 counterparts. Of course, the simulation didn't know Ryan Howard's Achilles' tendon was about to explode, and no computer has enough memory to process Rose's hustle. Take away from it what you will. But this is the closest one can get to proving my theory, at least until Dickie Noles travels back in time to the 1920s and becomes the greatest hitter ever.