EDITORS NOTE: EDS: CORRECTS name to Rogers, sted Roger, Hornsby in graf "The new rankings ..."; RECODES for Page 1.); (ART ADV: With illustration and photos.

Every sport has its arguments over which player was the greatest, but no sport takes the debate as seriously as baseball does. It is a game informed by an obsession with statistics, such that passions are often checked by numbers: How could anyone love a player with such a miserable on-base percentage?

It is something consequential, then, when anyone makes a declarative statement regarding anything about baseball. But a team of statisticians did just that. They have spent years devising a definitive ranking of baseball's best performers, no matter what era or which team was involved. Their new method compared players across history

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