All aboard the Ryan Express, bound for Cooperstown!

I was telling Scoop that the voting for this poll was right on the money. If God had a baseball team, chances are that His lefty and righty starters would be Koufax and Ryan. Koufax is the best left hander to ever pick up a baseball. Period. There aren't many athletes that you can say were unequivocally the best at what they did, but you can say that about Sandy. Once he found his control and wasn't afraid that he was going to kill somebody if a fastball got away from him, he was damn near unhittable. I never saw him pitch as he was long retired before I was born, but the stories I have read and the things I have heard about him just make me believe that absolutely no other lefty was in his class; not Spahn, Carlton, anyone. Okay, maybe Grove, but nobody else.

Nolan was equally unbelievable. I obviously did see him pitch as he didn't retire until the nineties when he was in his mid-forties. I used to joke that the Hall of Fame was going to have to change its rules and induct him while he was still active because it looked like he was going to pitch until he died. The thing was, he was just as good in his forties as he was in his twenties, if not better. If you think he wasn't in shape when he was older, ask Robin Ventura. Ventura, who was in his twenties playing third for the White Sox, got his ass handed to him when he tried to charge the mound on Nolan in the early nineties. Not only did he have a good right hook, he also had over five thousand strikeouts and seven(!) no-hitters. Both of these totals will likely never be broken.

Walter "Big Train" Johnson finished in third, well behind the top two. I heard a good story about him. A batter who was facing him for the first time stepped up to the plate, saw (or tried to see) two of those legendary fastballs come blazing across the plate, and turned around to walk back to the dugout. The umpire yelled "That's only strike two, you still have one left." The batter turned around and said "That's okay, I don't want it." I don't know if it's true, it may be one of those baseball folk tales. I do know that arguably the meanest bastard ever to play baseball, as well as its alltime leader in batting average, Ty Cobb, said of Johnson, "We couldn't touch him ... every one of us knew we'd met the most powerful arm ever turned loose in a ballpark." Pretty fine praise.

Greg Maddux, one of only two active players on the list, finished in a strong fourth place. I think that is the right move. He is my favorite player for one thing, and it's really going to piss off the Gist, which is another good reason for me to be happy about it. How can he even be on this list though? He hardly ever breaks ninety on the radar gun, and his curveball is about double-a quality. I guess the reason he deserves this spot is that he can throw any pitch into a teacup from sixty feet at any one of fifteen speeds with movement that defies the laws of physics. He is the best control pitcher I have ever seen. Scoop will argue that Mathewson was a better control artist, but I say Christy had the strike zone as it is defined in the rulebook to play with, while Maddux is confined to the area between the knees and the belt buckle. Okay I know, Maddux gets a lot of calls on the corners, but I still think his control is the greatest. He intentionally throws them off the corners because he knows he will get the calls. Since Maddux placed fourth in the poll, I am going to call Bud Selig and ask for a recount on the All Century ballot. Maddux was a victim of peaking too early, I think. Who believes that Maddux is in and Clemens out if the vote was taken after the last of Maddux's four consecutive Cy Youngs? I do. Clemens is on simply because he won the triple crown in pitching the last two years. Granted, that's an impressive accomplishment, but four consecutive Cy Young awards is pretty damn impressive too.

I was very happy to see that Satchel Paige finished in the top five. The Negro League had some of the best baseball players to ever play the game. Josh Gibson may have hit 800 homeruns if he had played in the majors. Let's put it this way. Mark McGwire would have to really get into one to reach some of Gibson's best shots. Anyway, Satchel Paige, according to that guy in the movie Cobb, could "throw a porkchop past a hungry wolf." Ted Williams said that there was one time that he had worked the count to 3-2 against Paige and saw Satchel grip for a curveball in his glove. Next thing Teddy Ballgame knows, a heater is zipping by for strike three while he is waiting on the deuce. The next day, Paige stops him at the park and says, "Don't ever try to figure out old Satch." I love that story.

I was surprised that Carlton and Seaver didn't receive very much support. I expected both of them to finish in the top ten. Having said that, I don't really know who in the top ten doesn't belong either. Bob Gibson definitely deserves his spot in the top ten. Major League Baseball actually changed the rules of the game because of him. They raised the mound after the 1968 season in which he posted a 1.12 ERA. He also posted a .600 winning percentage for his career. I would think he and Wilt Chamberlain (who caused the NBA to widen the paint) are the only two players in any sport to have a rule changed because they were so dominating under the old rule.

This was probably my favorite poll so far as baseball ranks just below breathing on the things necessary in my life. We didn't get a ton of votes on this one but that's okay too. Thanks to the almost 400 people who did vote.

Comments and suggestions to lawdogusc@hotmail.com. I enjoy reading the comments. The next poll, as a matter of fact, came from an email sent to me by Pea. The topic is "Which TV show would make the best XXX movie?" The same actors, same plot, just a lot more loving going on. This one should be pretty fun and there will no doubt be a lot of deserving nominees forgotten, but I am a little handicapped as I am flying solo this week. The Gist is in Siberia or somewhere with no access to running water, much less a PC.

Nolan Ryan	24.8% - (96 Votes)
Sandy Koufax	22.7% - (88 Votes)
Walter Johnson	7.7% - (30 Votes)
Greg Maddux	7.2% - (28 Votes)
Satchel Paige	6.7% - (26 Votes)
Cy Young	6.7% - (26 Votes)
Bob Gibson	6.4% - (25 Votes)
Roger Clemens	3.3% - (13 Votes)
Christy Mathewson	2.5% - (10 Votes)
Lefty Grove	2.3% - (9 Votes)
Steve Carlton	1.5% - (6 Votes)
Bob Feller	1.5% - (6 Votes)
Warren Spahn	1.2% - (5 Votes)
Whitey Ford	1.2% - (5 Votes)
Tom Seaver	0.7% - (3 Votes)
Dizzy Dean	0.7% - (3 Votes)
Mordecai Brown	0.5% - (2 Votes)
Bert Blyleven	0.5% - (2 Votes)
Rollie Fingers	0.2% - (1 Votes)
Ed Walsh	0.2% - (1 Votes)
Dennis Eckersley	0.2% - (1 Votes)
Carl Hubbell	0.2% - (1 Votes)
Juan Marichal	0% - (0 Votes)
Jim Palmer	0% - (0 Votes)
Eddie Plank	0% - (0 Votes)
Pete Alexander	0% - (0 Votes)
Phil Niekro	0% - (0 Votes)
Robin Roberts	0% - (0 Votes)
Grover Cleveland Alexander	0% - (0 Votes)
Total Votes: 387