The Problem of Greatness

Ty Cobb is credited with saying that people only boo great men. We don't bother to boo mediocrity because we just don't care enough about who or whatever created it. He might be right. This morning while I was driving to work in subzero temperatures I heard a commentary on NPR. The commentator was talking about looking ahead and looking back and at first I was somewhat impressed, but as he kept talking I found myself realizing that his essay was really pretty bad.

Ok, it wasn't bad, but it did make me think about the problem of greatness. More specifically it made me think about the problem of exposure to greatness. We generally judge thing to be good or bad (high or low quality) through comparison. The more high quality things one is exposed to, the less likely one is to think something else is high quality. One tends to become more critical and selective or at least more discerning. When I took The Essay class we read some of the greatest essays ever written and studied what made them great. Because of that, when I listened to the comentary this morning I was superficially impressed, but as I really considered the piece I realized that it was not even up to normal NPR standards. I'm sure it was good, but because it wasn't great I wasn't impressed.

This week the BBWAA will announce their selections to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Another case where good and great and direct competitors are all tied together. The BBWAA will probably elect 3 players. I hope they pick the right three. The problem is that for two of the best choices the players, Allen Trammel and Tim Raines, these great players were direct contemporaries of players who played the same positions a little bit better. Raines is not Rickey Henderson and Trammel is not Cal Ripken offensively or Ozzie Smith defensively. They will probably not be elected because the voters see them as second tier players, but it's not a fair comparison.

I'll write a post later this week about the HoF and Hall voting that will explain this a little more.