Old Heroes and The Record Book

Speaking of Spahn, if he hadn’t lost three years at the beginning of his career to most honorable service in WW2, I calculate that he would have won another 54 games, based on his average wins in his first 2 years back. That would have given him 417, tieing him with Walter Johnson, behind only Cy Young, who might as well have been playing fast-pitch softball.

In a similar scientific vein, if we give Ted Williams the three missed years from 43-45 based on the average of his actual stats in the bookend years of ‘42 and ’46, and then replace a year lost to Korea (Why make Ted, of all other-wise gainfully-employed people, serve yet another year, seven years after he’d honorably mustered out?) with his actual stats of 1951, he’d end up with 3,366 hits, 662 home runs, and an all-time best 2,355 RBI’s. With the changes in pitching since The Babe, clearly the best hitter ever.