OK, let me try to explain why I was trying to identify 50 true superstars.  About 3,000 people responded to some of the polls, so I wanted to say first that I appreciate your help, and I appreciate your responses.   I have a legitimate research purpose here, I think.    This is a spinoff of a spinoff of a spinoff of a study that didn’t work, but that’s kind of the normal pattern of research; you start out studying A, you wind up studying X. 

              The question that started this line of research was, "Is it true that the comings and goings of managers tend to align with the turning points of a franchise?"  I believe this to be true; I believed it to be true initially and I believe it to be true now, but I thought maybe I could demonstrate that it was true.   It appears that I can’t.  

              I constructed franchise strength histories designed in such a way that we can identify objectively the turning points in each franchise’s history.    Then I was entering the points where new managers were hired, with the goal of determining whether it was true that the points tended to align.

              I got about 25% of the way through that process and decided that it wasn’t going to work.   I don’t know; maybe I’ll finish it and maybe it will work, but it doesn’t seem likely.    New managers get hired and fired at all different moments of the season; sometimes it’s hard to match a manager with his first season.  Sometimes effective managers are hired with quite a bit of talent on hand and things start to click immediately; sometimes it takes a year or two.   Managers work on pretty short cycles; often they get fired after one or two years.   Because the cycle is short you don’t have a lot of leeway in the matching process.   Also, bad organizations change managers a lot more often than good organizations do, and this screws up the data.   You can’t really see the effect of a strong manager on a good organization because so many bad organizations are just churning pointlessly through managers, expecting managers to fix problems that they really can’t do anything about.   I still believe the underlying proposition is true (that the hiring and firing of managers are often the turning points for organizations), but I don’t think I’m going to be able to prove that it is true.  That’s alright; I can’t prove that the brakes in my car will work, but I still use them when I need to slow down.  

              Anyway, while that didn’t work, the data describing the strength of each franchise over time was really interesting, and I am planning to write a series of articles about that, about the cycles and turning points in the history of each franchise.    But while I was doing that, I noticed—DUHH—that organizations often turn upward when they come up with a superstar or when that superstar enters his prime, and often head downward when their superstar starts to fade.    The Yankees, for example, have a long, long "up" cycle that runs through 1964, ends in 1965.   What happened in 1965?

              Mickey Mantle got old.   In ’64 Mantle didn’t win the MVP Award but could have, as was normally true.   In ’65 he wasn’t the same player.   The Yankees had stayed strong from 1920 (and a little before) through 1964 by replacing Babe Ruth/Lou Gehrig with Joe DiMaggio, replacing Joe DiMaggio with Mickey Mantle, surrounded by Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford.    When Mantle got old they had several candidates to be the next one, but for one reason or another they all went sideways, so there wasn’t anybody there.  

              That isn’t ALL that happened to the Yankees at that time.   The organization was sold to a corporation, there was chaos in the front office, and there was a lot of other stuff happening as well, so it would be wrong for me to simplify their history to "they lost their superstar."   That’s just one theory.   As one of the participants in the poll correctly pointed out, there ARE teams that have very strong periods with no real superstar; he cited the Dodgers of the 1970s.  

              But I noticed that a lot.   The Red Sox have an "up" cycle from the time Yawkey purchased the team until 1950, a down cycle from 1951 to 1966, an up cycle beginning in 1967.   What happened in 1950?   Ted Williams broke his elbow in the 1950 All Star game.   Although he was still a fantastic hitter after that, he was in and out of the lineup the rest of his career, and drove in 100 runs only one more time (1951) whereas he had been driving in 120 every year before then.    What happened in 1967?   Yastrzemski emerged as a superstar.   Same thing with the Cardinals in the same era; they drifted into a downward spiral after Musial was no longer a superstar; they went back upward when Bob Gibson emerged as a superstar.

              Well, OK, let’s study THAT, then.   I think I can make some sense out of THAT data—if I have a list of superstars.   I mean TRUE superstars; I mean Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Stan Musial type of superstars, not Albert Belle, Gary Carter, Al Simmons and Ron Santo type superstars.   I mean the real deal.  

              Once I have a list of superstars I will need to write a formula to mark when each player entered his prime and when he left his prime, but I can do that by the numbers.    So now I have ANOTHER research project:  Define a list of the 50 players in history who should be described as true superstars. 

              Well, let’s see.   I’m not doing the 19^th century; I don’t think 19^th century baseball is actually major league baseball, but even if I did it is not amenable to the study because of the chaos in the schedule.   New franchises were created and died almost every year in the 19^th century; teams lurched from extraordinary good to absolutely terrible in two years.   The organization rules of the 20^th century don’t apply to 19^th century baseball, so it is hard to study one with the assumptions of the other.

              Since 1900 we have 12 decades of baseball; we are working toward the end of our 12^th decade.  For purposes of this study I need a reasonably even number of superstars in each decade.    This isn’t going to work if I have twelve superstars from the 1950s and two from the 1960s.   So, 12 decades, 50 superstars; that’s about four superstars per decade.  

              Some decades it is obvious.   The 1940s, you’ve got Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Joe DiMaggio, Bob Feller; we’re done.    Hal Newhouser; sorry.   You were great, buddy, truly great, but you’re not right for this role.   Ralph Kiner had some huge seasons, but.  . not right.  

              So I tried to draw up a list of 50 players like that.   About 40 of them are obvious.    The last ten are hell on earth to decide.   On the list of 40 players I am going to give you in just a moment there are about 36 that no one reasonably would argue with, and about four that some of you would argue with.   I’ll boldface the ones you might want to argue about and discuss those in a moment, but first the list:

1900s—Cy Young, Honus Wagner, Nap Lajoie

1910s—Walter Johnson, Pete Alexander, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker

1920s—Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, Lou Gehrig

1930s—Lefty Grove, Jimmie Foxx, Mel Ott

1940s—Joe DiMaggio, Bob Feller, Ted Williams, Stan Musial

1950s—Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle

1960s—Henry Aaron, Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax

1970s—Joe Morgan, Tom Seaver, Reggie Jackson, Johnny Bench

1980s—Mike Schmidt, George Brett

1990s—Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Ken Griffey Jr.

2000s—Barry Bonds, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz

2010s—Clayton Kershaw, Mike Trout

              Those 40 players include 12 pitchers, 3 catchers, 2 first basemen, 3 second basemen, 2 third basemen, 3 shortstops, 3 left fielders, 7 center fielders, 4 right fielders, 1 designated hitter.    Yeah, I know that some people will argue about Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Sandy Koufax and David Ortiz, but I know what I am looking for when I say "true superstar", and those guys fit.   What I am looking for is players who have such an impact (on the won-lost total) that it could reasonably be said that their team is very different with them than without them, not because of the character of their impact but because of the scale of their impact.   Roy Campanella won three MVP Awards; that’s a real high-level impact on the pennant race.    David Ortiz. . . .look, I was there; I know what happened.   I am more convinced by my own experience than by your statistical analysis—or mine.  

              Well, but who else fits that description?   We’re looking for 50, and these 40 are not near the margins in my opinion.   But when you get close to the limits, it gets brutal.    It becomes nearly impossible to say who deserves those last ten spots and who doesn’t.   Sure, I could choose 80 "true superstars" rather than 50, but

              a) That means that I am studying players who have less impact, and

              b) Choosing 80 players isn’t easier than choosing 50; it is actually even harder.   

              The difference between the 80^th player and the 85^th player isn’t greater than the difference between the 50^th player and the 55^th; it is less.   Anyone who has any experience in mathematical analysis knows instinctively that that is true.   There’s an illusion that you can avoid the problem by including more players, but you can’t; you just have to deal with the problem at a different point, when it will be even harder.  

              I was trying to identify those last ten players who should be described as true superstars, and I just couldn’t get there.    I started with 20 candidates, and the next thing you know I had 48.   Then I realized that I had forgotten Rickey Henderson; I was thinking about whether Tim Raines should be listed, and I realized "Oh, my God, I forgot Rickey Henderson."   

              So I decided to ask for your help, and 3,000 or more of you did help, and I appreciate your help.   I got a couple of dozen bitchy tweets about how mean it was to do this and pointless and the people who were voting were ignorant and public polls are stupid, but what do you expect; it’s twitter.   I’ll review the results of the polls in a moment, but first I want to point out directly how extraordinarily high the bar is to be listed in the fifty.    It’s the top 20 or 25% of the Hall of Fame.    Eddie Collins.  . .I love Eddie Collins.   Eddie Collins is a true unappreciated superstar.   He had 3300 hits, 700 and some stolen bases, numerous other exceptional skills, and he ranks with Joe Morgan, Jackie Robinson and Ozzie Smith as one of the greatest percentage players ever. 

              Eddie Collins not only didn’t make the 40 players on the list; he didn’t even make the list of 54 players who are candidates for the last ten spots.   I’ve got four superstars from that generation; I’m not going to five.   Among players who are not even candidates for the last ten spots are Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Orlando Cepeda, Tom Glavine, Juan Gonzalez, Vladimir Guerrero, Todd Helton, Juan Marichal, Roger Maris, Eddie Mathews, Willie McCovey, Paul Molitor, Hal Newhouser, Phil Niekro, Dave Parker, Mike Piazza, Kirby Puckett, Tim Raines, Jim Rice, Ivan Rodriguez, Ozzie Smith, Duke Snider, Willie Stargell, Bruce Sutter, Bill Terry, Arky Vaughan, and Hack Wilson.  

              When I did the twitter polls yesterday, the most common feedback I got was that "your list is totally bogus if you don’t include BOTH of these guys."   Frank Robinson and Carl Yastrzemski; they’ve both got to be there or your list is not right.  Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente; you have to have them both.   Ernie Banks and Frank Thomas; you’ve got to include them both.  

              But if you think that way, it’s because you haven’t really tried to do this.   When you get down to what my father would have called nut-cuttin’ time, you realize that it isn’t obvious that Roberto Clemente is a Top 50 superstar.   It isn’t obvious that Miguel Cabrera has to be there.  

              I ran 27 polls yesterday.   I think that by the end of that exercise, most of you had a better sense of how hard it is.   It is a very, very, very high standard to be included in the top 50.  

              OK, we’re a long way from the end of the process.    I am trying to go from 54 players down to 10, and this is what we have done so far.

1)  Cal Ripken defeated Brooks Robinson, 66 to 34, with 2,574 votes so far.   OK, Brooks is out.

2)  Tony Gwynn defeated Rod Carew, 69 to 31, with 2.437 votes so far.   OK, I don’t really agree, but the standard is very, very high, and Carew does not have to be in the Top 50.

3)  George Sisler defeated Dazzy Vance 64 to 17 with 19% admitting they weren’t qualified to vote.   Again, I don’t really agree—I would choose Dazzy, I think—but we’ll drop Dazzy from the process and move on.

4)  Warren Spahn defeated Robin Roberts, 92 to 8.   OK.

5)  Jackie Robinson is leading Roberto Clemente 51 to 49, with 3,147 votes cast so far.   We can’t eliminate Clemente based on that kind of vote, so I’ll include both of them in the next round of comparisons.  

6)  Harmon Killebrew defeated Eddie Murray 66 to 34, with 2,085 votes cast so far.   OK, we’ll move on without Eddie.

7)  Al Kaline defeated Wade Boggs 54 to 46 with 2,149 votes cast so far.   That could be considered a tie, but I think I am going to accept the results of the vote and move on without Wade Boggs.   Sorry.

8)  Frank Robinson defeated Carl Yastrzemski 70 to 30 with 2,313 votes so far.   Somewhat shocked by the result; I thought I had enough Red Sox fans among my followers that the Red Sox would over-perform.

              I am going to leave Carl Yastrzemski in the pool for the next round.   Matching him against Frank Robinson is a touch draw, and I don’t want to prematurely eliminate Yaz.   It kind of came down to Yaz or Boggs in my mind, and I’m keeping Yastrzemski.

9)  Pete Rose defeated Robin Yount 73 to 27.   OK, Yount is out.

10)  Dave Winfield defeated Mark McGwire 56 to 44.   OK, McGwire is out.

11)  Hank Greenberg defeated Charlie Gehringer 84 to 16.   Again, I don’t know that I absolutely agree with that, but there are only 10 spots there for 54 candidates, and I can’t advance a player who loses 84 to 16 to a teammate. 

12)  Chipper Jones defeated Roberto Alomar, 59 to 41.   OK; I asked you what you think, that’s what you think, I’ll go with it.

13)  Albert Pujols defeated Billy Williams, 90 to 10.   Probably should have had Pujols in the first 40, but I accept that Billy Williams is out.

14)  Despite the many criticisms that the polls would have a recency bias, Ernie Banks defeated Frank Thomas 65 to 35 with 2,255 votes so far.   Banks and Thomas ARE, in fact, about even.   They won two MVP Awards each; they have about the same number of WAR.    I don’t really agree, but I accept the vote, and Thomas is out.

15)  Buster Posey is leading Mickey Cochrane 56 to 44 with 8 hours left in the voting.  

              Some people were very irritated by this, and I heard a lot about the recency bias and how twitter polls are stupid.   The fact is that in these matchups, the older player won 15 of the 27 votes.   OK, it is not usually a 1930s player against a 21^st century player, and the fact that a 1960s player defeats a 1970s player does not mean that a player from now and a player from 85 years ago are competing on an equal footing.   I will advance Cochrane to the next round of the voting, as I did with Yastrzemski and Clemente, because the vote was close and there could be a recency bias.  

              But I want to say this:  that this is NOT a mismatch.   I think that some of the older voters just don’t appreciate how good Buster Posey is.   It is not a mismatch in terms of games played.  Cochrane played 1,482 games, Posey has played 1,031 so far, and it may be presumed that he will pass Cochrane.    Cochrane had an .897 OPS against an average for the position in his era of .718.    Posey has an .849 OPS against a position average of .714.   Posey has led his team to three World Championships, which is more impressive with 30 teams and several rounds of playoffs than it would be with 16 teams and one post-season series.  Posey is a very good defensive catcher.   It is NOT unreasonable to suggest that he is a greater player than Cochrane, and he deserves to be considered for one of those last ten spots.  

16)  Ichiro Suzuki defeated Miguel Cabrera, 57 to 43, with 2,627 votes so far.  I don’t agree; I would have voted for Cabrera, but I accept the vote and will move on.

17)  Joe Jackson defeated Chuck Klein, 86 to 14.   OK.

18)  Dizzy Dean is leading Carl Hubbell 58 to 42 with 9 hours left in the voting.   I think this vote is wrong, and that Hubbell—who won two Most Valuable Player Awards, one of very few pitchers to do so—was clearly closer to the superstar criteria in my mind than Dean.   Nonetheless, I accept the vote, and will drop Hubbell as a candidate for one of the last ten spots.

19)  Andre Dawson defeated Dale Murphy, 71 to 29.   OK, Murphy is out.

20)  Rickey Henderson, who should probably have been included in the original 40, defeated Ryne Sandberg 91 to 9, 2,374 votes so far.  Sandberg is out.

21)  Whitey Ford defeated Gaylord Perry 68 to 32.   Gaylord is eliminated as a candidate.

22)  Steve Carlton defeated Jim Palmer 73 to 27.   I accept the results, and will eliminate Jim Palmer as a candidate. 

23) Pedro Martinez is leading Mariano Rivera 76 to 24 with 2,411 votes cast.   Despite this lopsided result, I think I am going to have to include Mariano in the next round; I’ll explain in a moment.

24)  Don Drysdale is leading Ferguson Jenkins 54 to 46 with 10 hours left in the vote.  I disagree with this.   I think Jenkins was a greater player than Drysdale and better fits my definition of a superstar; however, I don’t know that either Jenkins or Drysdale is an especially strong candidate for one of the last ten spots, so I will accept the result and move on without Jenkins.  

25)  Rollie Fingers is leading Goose Gossage 53 to 47 with 10 hours left to vote.   A 53-47 margin in a twitter poll is not terribly informative, and probably should be considered a tie.   However, not regarding either man as an especially strong candidate, I will accept the result of the vote, and move on without Gossage, unless he rallies in the voting.

              But if Fingers is in and Mariano is out, is that right?   Don’t most of us now regard Mariano as the greatest closer of all time?   I think that most people do, and reasonably,   Pedro Martinez is a tough first-round match for Mariano, and I don’t want to exclude Rivera because he had a tough draw. I have to be careful about my followers favoring Red Sox players (Martinez) over Yankees.   I’m going to substitute Mariano for Goose, and go forward with both Fingers and Mariano. 

26)  Jim Thome is leading Johnny Mize 59 to 41 with 9 hours left in the vote.   I do some concerns about a recency bias here, but I don’t know that Mize is an especially good candidate at this level anyway, so I will accept the result and exclude Mize.

27)  Nolan Ryan is leading Christy Mathewson 55 to 45 with 2,272 votes cast.   This is (a) a close vote, (b) a tough matchup, and (c) a comparison of players from different time zones.   I’m not comfortable excluding Christy Mathewson, so I will include both Ryan and Mathewson in the next round.

              That gives us 32 players to be included in the next round of the process—27 who won their vote, plus five players who were granted an extension because of extenuating circumstances.   I’ll give people a little time to process this article, and then I’ll start the next round of voting. 

              Speaking tonight at the Plaza branch of the Kansas City Public Library, if you’re in KC.