Including his life!

Yoda made excellent points about Clemente and where he batted, the total hits, he didn't have to steal....Trust me, back in the day if they had wanted him to, Clemente could have stolen 40 bases a season or more, but it wasn't needed from him.

One thing I remember about Clemente is he didn't have to steal many bases..He had a knack for stretching out his hits for extra bases.

You have that backwards. Crawford stretches doubles into triples. Clemente, not so much. CC has 18 more triples and 21 fewer doubles, despite only playing 31 games last year. If he played 100 more games in 2012 Crawford would have easily hit 22 more doubles thereby surpassing Clemente in EVERY offensive stat total except singles.

Clemente had 9 seasons with 4 or less steals. His batting average has NOTHING to do with how often he was given the green light. Another made up fact from someone who was old enough to see him play.

And if the Pirate lineup was that much better than the Rays', why wouldn't Clemente have more runs than Crawford? I think we can all agree the first five years of Crawford's career gave him one of the worst supporting casts in the history of baseball. Somehow though he managed to score more runs than Clemente. How did CC do this? With his vastly superior speed.

Clemente could speak Spanish w-a-y faster than Crawford can ... and in case you hadn't noticed ... the game of baseball isn't focused on the act of stealing bases ... and since there are w-a-y more right-handed batters in MLB, Crawford would get many more chances in leftfield than Clemente got back in the day in rightfield.

If you were never coached and have never played the game at a competitive adult level ... and if you never saw Clemente play in person ... and if all you are when it comes to baseball is a stats-nerd ... then you really don't have any significant level of credibility. St*ck with your fantasy league ... where the other stats-nerds might buy your phantasmagorical assessments and predictions.

All your points of comparison are right on!

I agree 1000%, this kid has not a clue about the game within a game or what the game was like back then....If Crawford had played back then he would have been a bench player nothing more!!
Sorry to say but this nerdnick does NOT know the game!

so where are all the great atheletes now FOOTBALL

No they are either retired or Dead..So play your playstation or WII and become a Fatelete..PS your teacher should have showed you what a Question mark looks like when you write a question..Heres one ???oer 3..Too much W I I no paying attention..

So did the gene pool dry up in the last fifty years? I was on my wife's "smart phone". I couldn't find the question mark. No really Im 38 years old so I didn't see any baseball before around 1985. Im sitting here holding my 3 month old baby boy. I don't play video games. Seriously.

No the gene pool didn't dry up at all Skimpy.....Want to know the reason why there are fewer "home grown" US athletes playing baseball, but playing basketball or football. It's really very simple.

You have a lot of former (Elway for just one) players and current players who were excellent baseball players and who could have had a shot at the ML, but chose either football or basketball because they can make millions right away out of college or high school and not have to go through 3,4,5 years of minor league baseball before they get to the ML, if they get there at all.

How many come out of college, sign for the big big bucks in the NBA and NFL right away and wind up being a bust in either league? Quite a few, but they have made their "big" money and didn't have to ride buses, play in small ballparks, live in cheap hotels or motels, eat at fast food places and hope they could make it to the ML.....The NFL and NBA pay the big money right away everything is first class, no waiting several years.

That is the main reason, there is more talent coming from the Latin countries, Japan, Europe, S. America and elsewhere.......Our "homegrown" talent for the most part, don't have the patience to hone their baseball skills in the minors....They want it and they want it NOW and the NFL and NBA give them that.

I agree!

When I recall seeing some of the really great outfielders of the 50s and 60s in person ... and recall how they played the game both defensively and offensively ... Crawford becomes distinctly 'average'. Really ... if one watched guys like Mays and Clemente playing the game ... and then watched Crawford ... there's absolutely no comparison.

Well ... one of the greatest basketball "athletes" of all time spent two years trying ... but couldn't cut it in major league baseball!

In baseball ... it's not always about athleticism; sometimes it's simply about brainpower and who knows how to play the game a little bit better.

And ... how many of the great athletes in the many different sports of the Olympics ... or even The X Games ... have become proficient in pro baseball?

Most really great athletes ... not including Jim Thorpe ... have sport-specific skills and abilities ... and those skills and abilities are not transferable! Could Cassius Clay have become a great baseball player? How about Roger Bannister?

And ... pro baseball requires a much more broad menu of overall skills than does football or basketball ... and hitting major league pitching is probably the most difficult thing to do successfully in all of pro sports.

Lack of popularity with the younger generation is always a concern. maybe the rise in popularity of collegiate level football and basketball has contributed also.

Actually Ted Williams, one the games greatest hitters ever, said that with a round ball and a round bat and the speed at which it comes towards you, hitting a baseball is the hardest of all in any sport!.......But eye doctors have said when examined when he went into service that he had the most perfect vision of anyone they had ever seen....Judging by the way he could hit a baseball I would say they were correct!

With Bo Jackson being the exception to the rule as far as a football/baseball player, the only other one who may have made it to the ML and become a star was John Elway......When he played in the Yankees minor league system for one year at Class A he could crush a ball, had great power, good speed, was a superior defender and batted over .300, but baseball's possible loss was the NFL's gain.....

Another football great, the Bucs own John Lynch, gave up a promising career as a pitcher in the Marlins system and went to the NFL....Lynch had all the "tools", a mid to upper 90's fast ball, sharp breaking curve, good change up and the Marlins had high hopes for him, but the lure of the NFL was too strong....Considering the NFL career he had, and his broadcast career since, John made the right decision.

I knew about Williams comments (and the story about his vision) and Elway's baseball prowess ... and Bo Jackson ... like JIm Thorpe ... was a truly exceptional all-around athlete who was one of the few whose abilities went beyond a single sport. Naturally, as a kid, I read the stories about Jim Thorpe ... but the first guy I remember seeing who could effectively play two PRO sports was Gene Conley! He was an amazement to me when I was a young kid!

In major league baseball ... the defining skill is mostly about being able to hit major league pitching! Jackson could do it ... Jordan could not!

Didn't know about Lynch! (Of course, there are lots of two-sport athletes in college. Jim Brown was an even better lacrosse player than he was a football player. But ... there aren't too many ... at least in the so-called "modern-era" ... who have successfully PLAYED TWO PRO sports ... like Conley and Jackson.)

And don't forget there was also Deion Sanders who played both sports and was good at both and also Brian Jordan....But just think what would the NFL have been without, or MLB with the likes of Tom Brady drafted by the Expos as a catcher, Michael Vick, drafted by the Rockies as an OF, Ricky Williams, drafted as an OF by the Phillies, Dante Culpepper drafted by the Yankees as an OF, Cedric Benson by the Dodgers as an OF or Dan Marino a 3rd round pick of the Kansas City Royals as a pitcher.....Williams, Benson and Marino did play minor league ball before deciding on football!

Forgot about Sanders ... and from Fort Myers and FSU, too!

The others ... well ... none of them actually played major league baseball successfully ... so ... they all could have been Michael Jordans! As I said ... lots of two-sport college athletes ... but not so many active two-sport PRO athletes. Who knows if Brady, Vick, Williams, Culpepper or Marino could have ever sustained an MLB career. (?)

Heard Stan Musial passed on today (and Earl Weaver yesterday). Musial was one of the few really great hitters! Even though my Father was a life-long Red Sox fan (he didn't care much for Williams personally because of his attitude) ... I think Musial may well have been his all-time favorite player! Saw him play on TV at the end of his career ... but never in person. An extremely well-liked guy as far as I could ever tell. R.I.P.

So you would rather see MLB and the teams themselves make the money and not the players that happen to be the product. You would make the owners richer. Makes no sense.