I grew up as a crazy Los Angeles Lakers fan right in the middle of Boston Celtics country in central Vermont, which meant that all of my friends rooted for Larry Bird and Robert Parish and Cedric Maxwell, and I rooted for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson. I loved the debate, even when it was certain that we would disagree.
It is in that vein that we present a weeklong series ranking the greatest units in baseball history -- the greatest rotations, the greatest bullpens, outfields, infields, lineups and teams.
It's a sure thing: We are going to disagree. And that's a big part of the fun.
Here's my list of the top 10 MLB rotations of all time:
1. 1997 Atlanta Braves
The Atlanta rotation was so good for so long that you could actually make a case for about a half-dozen other seasons -- 1995, the year that the Braves won the World Series, or 1998, 1999, 1993 or maybe 2002. I solicited opinions on this from a bunch of colleagues, from Jayson Stark to Justin Havens to Frank Labombarda of the Elias Sports Bureau, and Jayson sent along a list of the teams with the greatest differential between their staff ERA and the league average. Five of the top 30 teams were those Braves teams of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz.