61: Sports and Clinical Trials: The 1927 Yankees, 15 Tarzans, and Modern Athletes

In this episode of "In the Interim…", Dr. Scott Berry examines the analytical challenges of comparing performance across eras in both sports and clinical research. Drawing from statistically robust family debates and published research, Scott details how overlapping competitors—such as athletes who played with both Babe Ruth, played with the next generation, who played with … all the way to playing with Aaron Judge—enable the estimation of temporal effects and allow for objective comparisons between generations. He translates this approach directly into platform clinical trials, demonstrating how overlapping trial arms or shared control groups make it possible to quantify and adjust for time trends. Scott distinguishes between observable, model-based comparisons and subjective judgments, rigorously addressing limitations such as interactions between treatments and era, and emphasizing the foundational importance of empirical overlap over speculative claims.

Key Highlights

• Deconstruction of time-machine thought experiments: analyzing how teams like the 1927 Yankees or athletes such as Johnny Weissmuller and Jesse Owens compare to present-day counterparts using statistical benchmarks.

• Technical explanation of connecting eras empirically through players or trial arms who span multiple time periods, thereby supporting quantitative estimation of temporal shifts.

• Detailed account of linear and hierarchical modeling strategies, with covariate adjustment for player age, period effects, and evolving population composition across baseball, hockey, and golf data.

• Translation of these statistical constructs to adaptive and platform clinical trials, exemplified by I-SPY 2, where overlapping treatment and control arms permit rigorous assessment of evolving treatment effects over a trial’s lifespan.

• Critical discussion of the rare but important possibility of treatment-by-era interactions, and the necessity of data-driven assessment rather than assumption.

• Consideration of how these methods inform not just debates about athletic greatness and Hall of Fame inclusion, but also robust interpretation of treatment effects in longitudinal clinical studies.