Lou Gehrig

“His greatest record doesn’t show in the book. It was the absolute reliability of Henry Louis Gehrig. He could be counted upon.” – Sportswriter John Kieran in The New York Times.

The results are in. UBTG has been conducting a dream team baseball poll and we have tallied the results. Thanks to all of you for your input!

If you didn’t get a chance to vote this time, we’ll do it again soon. As the dream team baseball poll begins to include more voters and newer players, it will be fascinating to see if the following rankings change or continue to pass the test of time.

Over two hundred respondents submitted their all-time dream team favorite picks at every position.

Perhaps it should be no surprise, but it was exciting to see that the winners stack up well against our own UBTG rankings. The only discrepancies were at the reliever position and at CF: UBTG ranks Dennis Eckersley just slightly ahead of Rivera, and DiMaggio slightly ahead of Mays and Mantle, so we really have no complaint about the voters’ top picks.

Our biggest surprise was our complete agreement at best catcher, as we didn’t anticipate everyone would be that familiar with the Negro League all-star slugger, Josh Gibson (also known as the black Babe Ruth).

The winners by the biggest margins were (in the following order) Lou Gehrig, Honus Wagner, and Ted Williams. Surprisingly, the races at RF and 2B ran a good bit closer. On the other hand, it was no surprise that the race for CF was so close (UBTG ranks Mantle, DiMaggio, Speaker, Cobb, and Mays all very close to the top). We were surprised that Mantle fell behind Mays as much as he did, though the margin was relatively close.

Josh Gibson

“There is a catcher that any big league club would love. His name is [Josh] Gibson. . . he can do everything.” – Walter Johnson

The more intriguing discrepancies occurred at the runner-up spot. UBTG ranks Christy Mathewson behind Johnson, and the likes of Cy Young and Greg Maddux over Martinez (though we rank him high as well). We rank several relievers above Wilhelm (Hoffman, Lee Smith, and so on).

While Berra ranks high on our list, we rate several catchers above him (e.g., Dickey, Campanella…each of whom got relatively few votes!). Not surprisingly, Bench got quite a few votes.

We certainly have no complaint about Hernandez coming in second at 1B, but we rate a number of players higher (e.g., Foxx, Musial). Also we agree that Morgan deserves high ranking for 2B, but we rate a few higher (e.g., Lajoie, Gehringer).

While Brooks Robinson is our top-rated defensive 3rd baseman, we rate a number of players higher for all-round skills (e.g., Traynor, Judy Johnson). Ozzie Smith also deserves top-rating as a defensive SS, but we rate several higher in the all-round category (e.g., Negro leaguer Pop Lloyd).

We were perhaps the most surprised by Henderson’s runner-up rating at LF (we would have thought Bonds and, especially, Yastrzemski would have gotten more votes; we rate Joe Jackson near the top). And we were surprised that Clemente got so few votes for RF (UBTG ranks him second to Ruth, Aaron third behind Clemente).

The following represent the winners and runners-up at each position:

BEST PITCHER: Walter Johnson (runner-up: Pedro Martinez)
BEST RELIEVER: Mariano Rivera (runner-up: Hoyt Wilhelm)
BEST CATCHER: Josh Gibson (runner-up: Yogi Berra)
BEST 1B: Lou Gehrig (runner-up: Keith Hernandez)
BEST 2B: Rogers Hornsby (runner-up: Joe Morgan)
BEST 3B: Mike Schmidt (runner-up: Brooks Robinson)
BEST SS: Honus Wagner (runner-up: Ozzie Smith)
BEST LF: Ted Williams (runner-up: Rickey Henderson)
BEST CF: Willie Mays (runner-up: Joe DiMaggio)
BEST RF: Babe Ruth (runner-up: Hank Aaron)

So, thanks again to everyone for submitting your votes. This proved to be one of our most popular events to date. And let us know your thoughts.

Even though our poll has officially closed for this year, the conversation continues. Submit your comments in our Disqus system below!
 

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