Ocon in five of their seven sessions together and continuing

?Were here again. Every year or every time we get into a description of all-time greatness in the infield, we end up with two seemingly unimpeachable assertions. Lou Gehrig was and remains the greatest first baseman ever. And Honus Wagner was and remains the greatest shortstop ever.That isnt to say these havent been evaluated at length. Even if you can look past the legend of the Iron Horse, the games played streak, the martyrdom of his tragic death and the luckiest man alive speech, or the stable counterpoint he provided to the equally legendary Babe Ruth during the first half of his career, its just flat-out hard to top Gehrigs statistical legacy: .340/.447/.632, 493 homers, two MVPs and six titles, essentially crammed into just 14 years as a full-time player.Similarly, Wagner is especially problematic as targets go. If not for Bill James writing about Wagner over the years, he might be more famous for the value of his baseball card than the value of his performance. (That might still be true.) So when you have one of the co-founders of sabermetrics basically say 30 years ago, Conversation over, well, thats good enough for most people. Its tough to be you, Cal Ripken, Ozzie Smith or Derek Jeter. And while Alex Rodriguez might have the numbers, narrowing the gap with 118.3 WAR to Wagners 131.0, these days the guy probably gets discounted for PEDs or time spent at the hot corner.By WAR, it looked as if Albert Pujols would catch Gehrig because of the cruising altitude he established as a Cardinal. But now Pujols is at 99.8 WAR and slowing down as an Angel, and the Iron Horse is still way out in front with 112.4. Beating Gehrig by counting stats doesnt help much: Pujols already has more hits and homers and will ultimately pass him in RBIs in another couple of seasons.For exercises like this, I doubt it matters. The numbers that support Wagner and Gehrig deserve deeper consideration if were really going to try to be fair to the present.With Wagner, youre talking about a very different game in the dead ball era, a period before you can even claim all of the best white talent in North America belonged to and played MLB-brand baseball. That game is recognizable, but different, more defense-dependent at a time when the talent pool drawn from a significantly smaller population of Americans and white immigrants.With Gehrig, you need to get into the unchanging problem of massive competitive imbalance, a product of small leagues with multiple non-competitive franchises. Lets take 1934, one of Gehrigs best seasons, as an example.Same as ever, there are just seven opposing teams. Four of them wind up with losing records, and another finishes at .500, so the Yankees have only two serious opponents. (They lose out to the Tigers.) So who was Gehrig hitting against? Not the best pitching staff in the league, because that belonged to the Yankees. Four of the top 12 ERA qualifiers were his teammates, and he doesnt have to face them. Facing the St. Louis Browns, Chicago White Sox, Philadelphia As and Washington Senators -- the losing half of the league -- Gehrig hits an incredible .376/.500/.831 in 88 of 154 games. Against the two winning teams, the ones with pitching, he slugs .462.Thats the 30s for you in a nutshell: a statistical slaughter with half the league populated by patsies and without African American and Latino players who were shut out because of their race. Now you tell me: Which pitchers are going away if the game were integrated to include black and Latin talent? Not Lou Gehrigs teammates, but a whole lot of the people Gehrig feasted on suddenly go away.The Gehrig and Wagner arguments boil down to this: Via WAR or OPS+ or your own understanding of all of the numbers we have, you have faith in our measuring their relative extraordinary superiority over their peers in smaller leagues with deliberate personnel limitations and an uneven distribution of talent. You can have that faith, and it relies on a lot of data for support -- at the same time that you turn a blind eye to whats going on in the game that creates that data. Of course, you could make the same kind of case for Randy Bass in Japan if you wanted to. Or a professional softball player moonlighting in your beer league. But why those dont work is because we dont take it on faith that those leagues are as competitive as MLB. As David Schoenfield points out, nobody would take seriously a proposition that George Mikan is still the NBAs greatest center.The question there is why we dont do that with baseball as well. But instead, while keeping Gehrig and Wagner on the perches, we play this game of make-believe with the math, that somehow this one game has historic yardsticks and standards that we should venerate to try to make an apples-to-apples comparisons of the greats from the past to the greats we see now. Were really working with apples and passion fruit.When you consider the challenges, logistical and competitive, the year-round demand on the players, the information going into the staying at the highest level, we might just want to get out of trying to force the comparisons. We know about Albert Pujols or Derek Jeter what we could never know about Gehrig or Wagner: what they could do against the best competition on the planet in the most competitive era in the games history. Lets credit them for that. Nike Air Max 720 Wholesale . Vettel was 0.168 seconds faster than Red Bull teammate Mark Webber around the Suzuka circuit. Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg was two tenths of a second off Vettel. "The car balance is decent, but I think we can still improve," Vettel said. Nike Vapormax 97 Sale . - Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie never doubted he would bring back coach Dennis Allen for a third year despite back-to-back 4-12 records. http://www.brandshoescheaponline.com/wholesale-air-force-1-china.html . Jay Feely kicked a 41-yard field goal in overtime, and the Cardinals edged the Tennessee Titans 37-34 in overtime after blowing a 17-point lead late in the fourth quarter. Cheap Air Force 1 China . "Jeff is a hard worker who was an important special-teams contributor for us last season," said Stamps GM John Hufnagel. Vapormax China Paypal . - Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco is not a fan of his teams use of the wildcat formation, saying "it makes you look like a high school offence. Pascal Wehrlein wants to know why he was overlooked for a seat at Force India, following the teams decision to sign his Manor teammate Esteban Ocon for 2017.Wehrlein and Ocon have been partners since the latter replaced Rio Haryanto in Belgium, with many seeing the situation as a shootout for a seat further up the grid between the Mercedes drivers. Despite out-qualifying Ocon in five of their seven sessions together and continuing to perform well on race day, the French driver was confirmed as Sergio Perezs next teammate on Thursday.The German, who has previously tested for Force India, admits he was disappointed to hear their final decision.I dont know if it was the test and if it was decided by something else, he said. It is like that and I will ask why or what happened, or what can I improve from my side... otherwise with the performance on track I am quite happy. It is not the end of the world, it is a missed opportunity, but not the end of the world.When asked if he felt the decision was fair, he replied: I dont want to answer because it will just turn out bad for me. I will try to do my best in the last races as I always have. In the last six races we have been three times in Q2, so hopefully we can keep up with that.Though Mercedes is understood to have pushed hard for Ocon to join Manor in the ssummer, and had even been considering a drive at Renault, Wehrlein says Force India had the final say on which of them got the drive.ddddddddddddMercedes boss Toto Wolff] said that Force India chose Esteban and that is their decision.Ocons move means Wehrleins options look limited next year. Of the three teams yet to confirm next years drivers, Haas is expected to announce the signing of Kevin Magnussen in Brazil this weekend. That leaves Sauber, who are expected to retain Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr, and Wehrleins current team Manor.Wehrlein admits his future may be more certain if Manor can finish 10th, with the added prize money negating the need for a well-backed driver.I think it would be easier to stay because for sure there are drivers with a lot of money and if we stay in P10 we get a bit more money. But I dont know if the team will decide because of that or not or if this is an affect that is very important or not. I dont know.First of all I hope to stay in Formula One -- and where it is, is not my decision. So, I hope we can find a seat for next year and where it is. It is not my decision, but as I also said many weeks before, I would be happy to stay at Manor. ' ' '