The best of their era

Hello again, blogfans!

I just read an article by Ian O'Connor on FoxSports.com, the contention of which is that Tiger Woods is already the greatest golfer of all time. Sorry, Ian, but I don't agree. I'll agree that Tiger is the best of his era, but ALL TIME? That's a difficult assertion to prove and one that certainly cannot be proven beyond all reasonable doubt.

Tiger uses state of the art clubs with metal heads, graphite shafts, gigantic "sweet spots," and golf balls that have all sorts of exotic "super ball" centers that make them fly farther and straighter than anything any golfer before his generation had the pleasure of dreaming of, let alone holding! Previous greats, such as Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones, etc., played with far inferior equipment than what's available today. Given the same equipment, would they have been equal? It's hard to say. No, wait; it's IMPOSSIBLE to say! That's why this sort of article rankles me so!

Who was a better home run hitter; Babe Ruth or Henry Aaron? Or should we compare the Babe with Mark McGuire or Barry Bonds? Well let's see...if the Babe had steroids, the benefit of the "live" ball, and the watered down pitching of today, he may have hit 100 home runs in a season! But then, we'll never know, will we? Babe did it on hot dogs and beer, a dead ball that you could throw further than you could hit, and pitching that was like facing the other team's #1 every single night!

Here's the problem - you see these sorts of comparisons all the time. Was Shaq better than Bill Russell? Was Rod Laver Andy Roddick's superior? Maybe Fred Flintstone was better than those Geico cavemen?! Who knows?! They were from different eras with different rules, different teammates, and different equipment!

Are apples better than oranges?

It's a matter of taste. - Dan