Coming up with the list of the best baseball players of all time isn’t as easy as it sounds, as the Major League Baseball has been around for more than 100 years now. That spans decades of great baseball players, and among them are certainly a number who people would call the best baseball players of all time. Breaking down that list to the five best baseball players of all time is even tougher, but this is a quest to determine which players are indeed baseball players of all time.
The Best Baseball Players of All Time
Babe Ruth stands out as the best player in the history of baseball, even if the sports writers of the time didn’t see the value in what he was achieving. His career statistics speak for themselves, with a total of 2,873 hits, 2,174 hits, 714 home runs, and 2,217 RBI. He put up a career batting average of .342, and led the league in home runs 12 times. All that, and Babe Ruth only won the MVP one time, which he achieved in 1923. Add to the hitting stats the fact that he won 23 games in 1916 and 24 games in 1917 as a starting pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, and it is clear why Babe Ruth is the best baseball player of all time.
Ty Cobb
During his career, which spanned 24 seasons with Detroit and Philadelphia, Ty Cobb put up some very amazing statistics. Ty Cobb had 4,189 hits, 2,246 runs, and 1,937 RBI over the entirety of his career. He also had 892 stolen bases as well, but the number that really stands out with Ty Cobb is his career average of .366, which stands as the best career batting average in the history of the game.
Ted Williams
Ted Williams won two MVP awards, was an all-star 17 years in his career, and even took the Boston Red Sox to the World Series. His career stats totaled 2,654 hits, 521 home runs, and 1839 RBI to go with a .344 batting average, but the stats were slanted due to some missed years. Not only was Williams great on the field, but he sacrificed almost five years of his baseball career in order to fight in two wars (WW2 and Korean War). He was simply a great hitter, even with breaks in his career, who was able to also win the Triple Crown twice.
Albert Pujols
Albert Pujols may still be young, but he has already set himself up as one of the best baseball players of all time. In just 8 ½ seasons, Pujols has already put up 1,639 hits, 353 home runs, and 1067 RBI in the regular season. This includes 53 post season games he has helped the Cardinals achieve, including the 2004 World Series berth, and a 2006 World Series win over Detroit. Pujols is a career .334 hitter and a career post season hitter of .323 that is still just getting started at the age of 29 years.
Randy Johnson
Selecting the best pitcher of all time is a tough decision, but with the success that Randy Johnson had pitching through the steroid era by winning four straight Cy Young awards from 1999 to 2002, it’s hard not to put him right at the top of the list. He led the Seattle Mariners to their first ever post season, he took the Astros there in 1998, and then he helped Arizona not only make it to their first post season ever, but won them a World Series title. The career stats for Randy Johnson include more than 300 wins, a career ERA of just 3.29, close to 5,000 strike outs, five Cy Young awards, and a World Series ring.
Sources:
Historic Baseball Statistics
