When they were in their primes I used to argue with a friend of mine who was
the best overall shortstop, Banks or Aparicio. My friend had a better
understanding of baseball than me at the time, but was both more predjudiced
against blacks (please do not reply on just that issue without fair weight to
the other parts of my post) and more of an afficionado (sp) of the
deadball-inside baseball era than I. For example, he marveled at how few
hitters choked up on the bat when they had little power.

At one time I noticed that Banks had a higher fielding percentage than
Aparicio, I said "Ah, Ha!" He said "Ah Ha, yourself, Aparicio touches many
balls he muffs that Banks cannot even touch, that is why Banks has the higher
fielding percentage right now. Aparicio also fields cleanly a number of balls
Banks cannot touch."