Most annoying baseball myth?

Question

There are plenty of suspicious stories and untruths from baseball over the past 150 years. Is there one myth that you hear that annoys you because you know it's not true?

I've got a few, but I'm curious if others feel the same way.

Answer 1

Josh Gibson and his supposedly 900 plus home runs. This may be the biggest misconception in all of baseball history. Anyone who has studied the game with any degree of competency will discover several important facts about Josh Gibson.

The official baseball encyclopedia has recorded that during Gibson's 17 seasons in the ***** Leagues he hit a grand total of 146 home runs. He never hit more than 17 in any one season. Gibson was a catcher and his defense was questionable at best. He was a sever alcoholic who constantly missed games because of his addiction. He was also known to take drugs as well.

Sometimes the truth hurts but that's just the way it is. I really do get very tired of people coming on the website and claiming to be baseball experts and praising Josh Gibson as the greatest player of all time. It's just NOT TRUE!!

And just in case anyone is interested, Alexander Cartwright invented the game of baseball, NOT Abner Doubleday!

And to those of you who feel it necessary to give me a thumbs down, all you are proving is your complete lack of knowledge on the subject.

Answer 2

I even have 2. That the commissioner serves as a independent social amassing between the franchise homestead vendors and the sport enthusiasts. The Selig regime has finished plenty to demolish this canard, he for sure acts as CEO of MLB, Inc., although some people basically carry to the mythology for no effective objective. That Jackie Robinson was once the universal black guy to play in a respectable foremost league. basically now no longer precise. that's no longer to decrease Robinson's epic status in the sport's historic previous, and he does very own a great function -- his presence (and his man or woman) is what ultimately destroyed that noxious shade barrier, and nicely riddance; we offered greater baseball because of the certainty of this. yet there have been a pair of black adult men who finished on the main rational stages in the nineteenth century, Moses Walker the great known of them, and so that they benefit interest. Oh, bonus third myth, in spite of if that is although peripheral -- that the 1952 Topps card of Mickey Mantle is his rookie card. Bowman, then a separate business enterprise, produced a Mantle card in 1951. No wiggle room good right here.

Answer 3

The best suspicious story I ever heard involved Satchel Paige when he was asked by a reporter which player hit the ball the hardest against him. He replied by saying it was Josh Gibson who one time hit the ball so hard and it wasn't even a homerun. Paige said he decided to throw Gibson his "midnight rider", which was his fastball with extra heat, and Gibson hit a line drive that went right between the legs of Satchel about a foot and a half off the ground and it was caught, on the fly, by the center fielder. Paige said when he thought about what could have happened if the ball was a foot or two higher when it went between his legs, he had to go into the clubhouse a change his uniform.

Answer 4

Very interesting subject. Already there are postings here that aren't true.

The root of baseball comes from the slaves in the south, it's something they would do when they weren't working the fields which wasn't often, this led to the development of the game we know today.

Longest homerun from Mantle was 570ft, not 750ft. (Babe Ruth once hit a home run out of the stadium in Washing D.C which bounced onto a train heading for Detroit. Figure out the mileage and that could be the longest homerun ever)

Technically a quadruple play could happen but I don't know the ruling on how it would go down in the books; here's how (a triple play would occur which ever scenario you like, the catch is the batter would have batted out of order but isn't recorded out until after the play is complete.)

Answer 5

when Joe Jackson came out of the court house after testifying to the Grand Jury some kid supposedly said, "Say it ain't so, Joe." Word is that is total myth. It bothers me because there is so much more to the Black Sox scandal than meets the eye and people are so gullible they just believe whatever they see, read or watch in a movie like "Eight Men Out" and take it as gospel fact instead of researching a bit themselves.

Answer 6

That Abner Doubleday created the game in Cooperstown, New York. The game was created by the New York Knickerbocker Baseball Club and was original played on the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, NJ.

The year Doubleday supposedly created the game, he was living in New York City as a cadet at West Point.

Seriously, ask where the game of baseball was invented and half the people on here will still tell you it was Doubleday.

Answer 7

The Cubs and the "Curse of the Billy Goat".
At least the Bambino made relative sense- I mean, cursed because the owner wouldn't let a billy goat into the park? Come on!

Answer 8

The Curse of the Bambino (already disproven), of the Billy Goat, of Rocky Colavitto, etc. Hexes don't run in entire organizations for generations...! But bad management can!

Answer 9

As a Yankee Fan, the myth that most annoys me is that "New York has always been a National League town." There were seasons when the Yankees outdrew the Dodgers and Giants COMBINED. And in World Series competition against the various NY NL teams, the Yanks are 11-3.

Answer 10

The one where Mickey Mantle or some other hitter from the past hit a Home run over 750 feet...no one has ever done that.