Baseball continuously redefines itself, and understanding what it is you’re seeing requires awareness of the context. Beginning 120 years ago, the Dodgers—who didn’t play in Los Angeles and weren’t yet called the Dodgers either—had a first baseman named Tim Jordan. Jordan was a career .261/.355/.382 hitter, which today would make him an unexciting but acceptable second baseman assuming he had a good glove. In his day he had pop. He twice led the National League in home runs, hitting 12 in both 1906 and 1908. In the former season he had an OPS of .774 in a .620 league; in the latter, he had a .698 OPS against a .605 league average. Steve Garvey, eat your heart out.

Jordan died in 1949 and is buried in the Gates of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York, just like Babe Ruth. That too provides a sort of context, but let’s not be morose this once and stay instead with league averages—which, to be honest, are kind of morose themselves, a little down, a little deflated.