When picking the best ever, perspective is difficult to maintain

Back when I was growing up, there was an old guy who was a sports columnist for one of the New York papers. His name was Dick Young, and he called his column "Young Ideas."

When I met the legendary Roger Kahn in 1983 in Gastonia, N.C., and let him drink a fifth of my vodka to keep warm (it was better than snuggling), we talked about Young. I told him I thought "Young Ideas" might have been the biggest misnomer ever, and he laughed.

Young used to be young, he told me. He actually was the first of the baseball writers to go to the locker room after games for quotes, something any sportswriter worth his salt was doing by 1983. But what I remembered most about Young -- other than running Tom Seaver out of New York and being a staunch supporter of the Vietnam War -- was that he referred to the generation of sportswriters who were baby boomers as "gee whiz" types who acted as if the world began the day they were born.

I was never like that. I'd still say a player who died before I was born was the best ever. It's tough to ignore Babe Ruth when you realize -- to use current examples -- that by being a great pitcher and a great hitter, he was Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera. I'm not sure there are any current players, except maybe for Cabrera, who would make my all-time greats.

But every time I search the Internet for lists of greats, I come across a ton of "gee whiz" types. Internet Movie Database rates "The Shawshank Redemption" (in a fan vote) as the greatest movie of all time.

Huh?

That would be bad enough, but only two of the movies in the top 10 were made before 1972. And you could waterboard me for a week and I'd never put "The Dark Knight" (6), the third "Lord of the Rings" movie (9) or "Fight Club" (10) in the top 10. Most real film people consider Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" the best movie ever made.

The "gee whiz" kids rank it 45th, just below "Back to the Future" and just above "The Shining."

Where I really wanted to weep, though, was in the rankings of Broadway musicals. Some idiot writing on a site called "Top 10 Reviews" picked a top 10 that included only one show from before the '80s, and that was an "old classic" known as "A Chorus Line" -- from the late '70s.

No Rogers and Hammerstein? No Lerner and Loewe?

I can almost understand people who prefer modern movies because of the advances in technology, but  live theatre has far more in common with the '40s and '50s than almost any other medium of entertainment. Chris Caggiano, whose website is called "Everything I Know I learned from Musicals," restored my faith a little with his top 100. (You can check the link for the 100; I'll just give you his top 10.

The only overlap with the other list is "Chorus Line," 10th on his list. All the others are classics.

Counting them down from 9th -- "The Music Man," "West Side Story," "Cabaret," "Oklahoma," "Fiddler on the Roof," "Guys and Dolls," "Sweeney Todd," "My Fair Lady" and "Gypsy."

I'd be happy to argue any of those with you, and there certainly are some others I would think worthy of inclusion -- "Carousel," "The King and I," "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," "Camelot" and South Pacific," to name a few. But there aren't any of Caggiano's top 10 that aren't fabulous shows.

He at least has a historical perspective, which I appreciate.

***

Since we did start this thing with baseball, I'll give you my all-timers, both pre- and post-1947, just to be fair:

C -- Josh Gibson (pre), Johnny Bench (post). Bench wins overall, with Bill Dickey, Yogi Berra and Roy Campanella honorable mention..

1B -- Lou Gehrig (pre), Stan Musial (post). Gehrig wins overall.

2B -- Rogers Hornsby (pre), Joe Morgan (post). Morgan overall.

SS -- Honus Wagner (pre), Cal Ripken Jr. (post). Wagner overall.

3B -- Pie Traynor (pre), Brooks Robinson (post). A very tough call over Mike Schmidt and George Brett, but Robinson may have been the best defensive player at any position ever. Robinson wins overall.

OF (three for each) -- Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Joe DiMaggio (pre), Willie Mays, Ted Williams and Hank Aaron (post). Toughest calls of all, so we'll add a DH. All six tie for overall. I'm not leaving any of these guys out.

DH -- Jimmie Foxx (pre), Mickey Mantle (post). Foxx overall.

P (four for each) -- Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, Lefty Grove and Satchel Paige (pre), Sandy Koufax, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton and Mariano Rivera (post). Mathewson, Johnson, Koufax and Paige overall.

With sincere apologies to Jackie Robinson and Ernie Banks.