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This week, RealClearSports revived the Willie Mays/Mickey Mantle debate, one of the longest-running debates in American sports, by running a piece making the case for Mays and then, the next day, one for Mantle.
The pro-Mays piece was written in 1995. This is telling. The pro-Mantle piece – seemingly a response to the republication of the pro-Mays piece – was written in 2014.
As the author of the pro-Mantle piece, Scheldon Hirsch, argues, statistical measures that have become popular in recent decades favour Mantle more than Mays.
Mays, who was less injury-prone and had a longer career, outdoes Mantle in most of the traditional measures: total base hits, runs, RBI (runs batted in), and home runs.
But Mantle outdoes Mays in on-base percentage and the ability to draw walks, both closely watched by managers and fans since the ‘moneyball’ revolution.
What’s really interesting about this is that the case for Mays has always been based on apparently ‘hard’ statistics, while the case for Mantle has been based on aesthetics and sentiment.
Mantle, countless people who watched him play say, had ‘magic’ about him. There was something about the way he made his way to the plate, swung the bat, threw the ball, that distinguishes him from all other players in baseball history.
And then there’s the fact he was injured – he played on a torn and never repaired ACL from 1951 – for most of his career, and so he remains a great might-have-been.
The emphasis baseball commentators and fans put on total as opposed to peak numbers means few people have argued for Mantle on the grounds that his best years were statistically better than Mays’.
So, why should people with no interest in baseball or the Mays/Mantle debate – i.e. most Australians – be interested in this? Because it has some lessons for other sports, in particular cricket.
Cricket and baseball are similar in the emphasis both put on measures like career batting average, total number of runs etc. In debates about who was the better player, these measures are often thought to be decisive.
But are they? In light of the new statistical measures that have been introduced into baseball, the traditional measures used in cricket seem, not outdated, but limited.
‘Raw’ average, for instance, certainly tells you something, but it doesn’t tell you everything. I’ve long thought that cricket could do with an equivalent of baseball’s BA/RISP (batting average with runners in scoring position), a measure of a batsman’s ‘clutch’ ability.
As everyone knows, it’s much easier to make runs when the pressure is off. Batting in the last innings, trying to win or save a Test match, is much harder than batting in the first innings when the pitch is good.
Coming in at 1 or 2 for 200 when the bowlers have been belted all over the park is very different to coming in with few runs on the board, the ball still new, and the bowlers with their tails up.
And yet in cricket statistics, “a run is a run is a run.”
I’m not sure exactly what statistical measures of things like ‘clutch’ ability in cricket would look like. Someone better at maths than me would have to develop them! But I think they would change, if not completely transform, some long-running debates.
For example, take the Brian Lara/Sachin Tendulkar debate.
I’ve always favoured Lara on the grounds that his best was better than Tendulkar’s best – he had more ‘magic’, made bigger and more destructive centuries and he played with a greater degree of difficulty.
Playing for the West Indies in a period of decline, Lara often had to build innings from scratch with the other side knowing they only had to get him out to win the match, whereas Tendulkar played for most of his career in a strong Indian side.
The case for Tendulkar is based on his greater consistency in the traditional measures of a batsman’s ability: he made more centuries and more runs at a better average.
Now, if there was a measure of ‘clutch’ ability, this may favour Lara over Tendulkar, since I think – but can’t prove, since no one’s done the numbers! – he made more scores from tough positions than Tendulkar did.
This would change the debate, as the case for Lara, like the case for Mantle, has always been based on ‘magic’ and some statistics (don’t forget the multiple world records!) whereas the case for Tendulkar, like the case for Mays, has been based on supposedly more solid measures.
Of course, ‘magic’ should still count, and perhaps should count for more than it currently does. After all, sport is ultimately, even in the professional era, just that: something played for the pleasure of the players and spectators, and for nothing else.
And new statistical measures would not change things so radically that, say, Bradman would be toppled as the greatest batsman of all time.
Indeed, there is already a measure of a batsman’s contribution to the team that should get more attention – the percentage of team runs scored over the course of a career.
On this measure, Bradman still comes in first, George Headly – with 22 matches, barely over the 20 match threshold for consideration – comes in second, and Lara comes in third.
And Tendulkar? He doesn’t even make the top 50.
Does this mean he wasn’t a great player? Absolutely not, but it’s food for thought, and an example of how things can look very different depending on what statistical lens one’s looking through.
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