Allen Barra Shows You How Not To State an Argument Over the Greatness of Mike Schmidt

What are the three most wonderful letters in the English alphabet?

F-J-M. That’s what.

(Mike) Schmidt is the best ever.

Seriously?

No, Seriously.

Like, ever?

Ever.

OK. You’ve got our attention. Make your case, Allen Barra.

In 2002 I wrote a book called Clearing the Bases, a collection of arguments about various baseball players, one of which was that Mike Schmidt was, quite possibly, the greatest baseball player of all time.

OK. Now we’ve got your credentials. And we are impressed. But slow down. Our brain can’t handle this much information. Now when you say “greatest”…

That is to say that if all players in baseball history lined up to play against the same competition at the same time and under the same circumstances, there was a very good chance that Schmidt would emerge as the best ever.

Gotcha.

In 2006, Mike Schmidt got his revenge…

On you? For what?  For that time you wrote a book calling him the greatest player ever? Yeah, he must have been dreaming of a chance to get back at you for that one.

…coauthoring a book also titled Clearing the Bases without once acknowledging that he stole his title from me.

Is this an article about Mike Schmidt or an article about how you wrote a book about Mike Schmidt? When do we get to the good stuff?

(Actually, as I found out later, someone else had used the title several years before both of us.)

So you do believe in coincidences. And that potentially, not everyone is clamoring to steal your ideas (says the man stealing from FJM).

My book was better than Schmidt’s…

All right, I can’t take this crap anymore and we’re only five sentences into this freaking article. I DON’T CARE ABOUT ALLEN BARRA. GET TO THE FREAKING ARGUMENT.

…in part because I made the argument that Mike Schmidt might have been the best player ever, and Schmidt, in his own book, did not.

So because Mike Schmidt wasn’t the pompous ass that you are, his book is lesser? Glad we cleared that one up there, champ.

Schmidt, however, did make an important point that I missed –

Finally. You’re going to give me some interesting insight.

- I’ll get to that in a moment.

My balls are blue.

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