I just read this great piece by Bill Simmons in ESPN The Magazine. Simmons challenges prior assumptions about baseball's "Golden Age" arguing that the five-year period, 1988-1992, was the most pure in baseball history.
Simmons' reasoning is before 1959 there were no or too few minority players in the major leagues to constitute any era known as the Golden Age. Baseball between 1960 and 1987 had too much tinkering: lowering the mound, addition of the designated hitter, a "juiced" ball in '87. The years following 1993 will inevitably be known to later generations as the "Steroid Era" - statistically pure, the game was not. I think this is coming to an end but we still don't know about the full effects of HGH on the game.
This leaves 1988-1992. An era that is close to my heart and probably why I like Simmons' article so much. This was the era when I really fell in love with the game. I had watched baseball before, emulated batting stances, collected cards, but really didn't fully understand the game until this time frame. Being a bit of a baseball history nut, I had always thought of the 1950s and 60s as a golden age in the game's past. You know... scenes of Willie, Mickey, and the Duke. Simmons' Golden Age, however, places the scrappy 1990 Reds in the center of the age and credits Sid Bream's slide to win the 1992 NLCS as "the last great, completely untainted I-can't-come-up-with-a-single-way-to-denigrate-this baseball moment." BREAM!!!
Simmons goes into much more detail so be sure to read the full article.
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If someone had asked me when the Golden Age of baseball was, I doubt I would have named the time period Simmons went with, but after reading the article and thinking about my own favorite baseball memories growing up, he may be right.
Same here teach
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