Sports Time Travel

There was a fascinating discussion on SVP & Russillo today about sports in different eras. The premise, thought up by Russillo, was imagining a modern person playing sports in a previous time period. Russillo used himself as an example. He's about 6' 1" and 230 lbs and wondered how he would fare in comparison to the players of the 1884 World Series Champion Providence Grays. Here's their roster. The tallest player on the roster was 5' 11" and the heaviest was 190 lbs. Russillo argued that he, being a decent athlete though not one that played any college or pro sports, would be able to hold his own. Van Pelt was skeptical. I'm inclined to agree with Russillo. They did agree that the people of 1884 would probably think the nearly 6' 7" Van Pelt was some kind of circus freak.