The best of all time??? Is there a doubt....

BigRedMachine

I was doing some statistic searching and come across the following page....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lifetime_home_run_leaders_through_history

This lists the top ten lifetime home run leaders each year.

Talk about domination. Check out the year 1933. Babe Ruth has 686 home runs, the number two spot has 299. Think about that. In an era now with ballparks with short fences, the adjusted pitching mound heighth, dead ball vs. live ball, steroids vs. hotdogs, all that stuff. Ruth was so much more dominant THAN ANY PLAYER HAS EVER BEEN.

To put this in perspective as to how far ahead Ruth was in 1933.... When Ruth finished his career with 714, a guy would need 1638 lifetime homeruns to be as dominant percentage-wise as Ruth was. That's how many more he had than anyone else.

Axtell

I remember reading something about that...when he was hitting 60 home runs, the next guy had like 20.

He was so far and away better that it was not even a contest. And this was after he won 20 games (twice!) as a starting pitcher.

BigRedMachine

Link

Axtell,

I'm amazed by that. I went to the Reds/Dodgers game Saturday with my 8 year old (we had 7th row seats behind the Reds dugout, his first big league game, a whole other story and thread) and the scoreboard flashed a "This Day in History" fact that said something about Boston beating a team 2-0 on a shutout by Babe Ruth......who also drove in two runs.

It's hard to see the old footage and say "What an athlete", but.....What an Athlete!!!

Axtell

I think most people think of the Babe late in his career, overweight from indulging in life's excesses. Lord only knows he'd have hit over 800 if he hadn't been a pitcher, or hadn't succumbed to alcohol. Kind of like Elvis in his early years was a bad man, but many people only remember the 'later' elvis.

People get too caught up in current athletes, so they see bonds hitting home runs so they say he's the best ever...but without knowing the history, there's no way they can make that assumption.

MorrellMan

Good thread JR - in homage to the Babe I'm not even going to look up the stats, but I will offer this: The Babe dominated like no other hitter since (or obviously, before). Not to take anything away from Aaron, the Hammer needed a lot more at bats. Simply put, the Babe's slugging average and homeruns per at bats puts him head and shoulders over anybody....except, dare I say it (?) Barry Bonds. I have never seen a player capable of parking a strike as consistently as Bonds - with no pun intended, he is absolutely ruthless. I have yet to be convinced that 'roids are the explanation. If they were, why is he the only one who is so awesome?

But, regarding the thread title - none better than the Babe. If he never picked up a bat, he would have gotten into the Hall as a pitcher fer chrissakes!

bjork73

I wonder what Babe Ruth's production would be like under modern dietary/training/medical conditions and with live balls, the altered mound, and hitter-friendly parks. Would anybody dare guess what his output would be? He could probably be a very good/great pitcher and put up Bonds-at-his-peak offensive numbers. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that everybody but Ruth is competing for second place, at least if only considering MLB; things might be a bit more interesting if Japanese and Negro League players were considered, but probably not...

Axtell

Not going to get into the whole bonds thing (I think he's horribly overrated)....but he's not been so overwhelmingly MORE dominant than ruth. Ruth was so far ahead of everyone else there is no comparison.

BigRedMachine

Yeah, that's what surprised me about those stats. The home runs per at bat and slugging percentage numbers of Bonds may compare to Ruth, but many other hitters are not THAT far behind. I mean Bonds hit 73 home runs in one season, but McGwire's hit 70, Sosa's hit 60 about three times, Maris had 61, and dozens of guys have hit 50+.

When Ruth his 60 home runs in 1927 only two other players in baseball at the time had 200 CAREER homeruns!!!! Again, in comparing era to era, it's the Babe's dominance over everyone else that played under the same conditions as he did that amazes me. And that's with all due respect to Bonds, Aaron, McGwire (who in my mind would've hit 800 had it not been for injuries), and all the other sluggers.

gregm13

In my lifetime, the only other person could come close to the Babe was McGuire. If you're talking about sheer power, McGuire was far and away the best hitter of my generation.

Greg M.

lostdart58

There is only one other player in the history of professional sports whose numbers and dominance were far and away superior like Ruth's

Wilt Chamberlain.........


Gretsky's early numbers where pretty incredible also.

Knuckles

<< <i>In my lifetime, the only other person could come close to the Babe was McGuire. If you're talking about sheer power, McGuire was far and away the best hitter of my generation. >>



I would have to say Ken Griffey JR.. It's a shame he keeps getting injured hopefully he can stay away from surgury for a couple of years.

MorrellMan

Ruth's homerun production was and is certainly a dominant stat - but you have to remember that he wasn't doing something no one else was capable of doing, he was doing something nobody else wanted to do. In those days, the "ideal" hitter was a guy who put the ball in play with ground balls and line drives. For most players of the day, trying to duplicate Ruth's numbers would have required a major retooling of their hitting styles - fly balls instead of placing the ball on a line between the fielders. I've never read this about Ruth, but I would guess that one of the reasons for his developing his homerun swing had to do with the fact that he came to bat early in his career from the pitcher's spot - a spot that offered no expectation of getting the ball in play. So why not hit fly balls that will either get caught or go out of the park?

bobbybakeriv

I have to disagree with the "want to" opinion MorrellMan. If that was true, how come after Ruth started receiving praise and recognition for hitting these "fly balls" (that no one else wanted to hit due to pride), no one else ever seemed to catch up with him? Did they just not "want to?" Still, I do think there is a small degree of truth to your "want to" proposal as hitting styles were different then but desire wasn't the key driver here. The guy was flat out superior. His lifetime batting average was .342 which ain't too shabby. Like the Babe once said (or something similar), 'I could hit .400... but nobody pays to watch me hit singles.'

Axtell

I have to respectfully disagree with the theory of no one 'wanting' to hit home runs...that to me doesn't make any sense, does it?

If a hitter can chose between a single or over the fence, why not the HR?

Anyways back to the topic, Ruth was hands down the most dominant hitter of any era, and the fact he was so far head and shoulders above everyone else speaks volumes to the sheer level of his dominance. He had no peer (even now), and the skill level differences between him and others of his era is just obscene.

calleocho

He would have probably made into the HOF by just being a pitcher.

I think he led the league in ERA one year.

A true icon. Well known all over the world

here its a pic of the recently auctioned rookie card of the babe

Tabe

<< <i>There is only one other player in the history of professional sports whose numbers and dominance were far and away superior like Ruth's

Wilt Chamberlain.........


Gretsky's early numbers where pretty incredible also. >>


Gretzky is the most dominant athlete in team sports history. He has more assists than any other player has points. He holds the top four scoring seasons of all-time - all of them over 200 points, a plateau no one else has reached. He holds every single season and career scoring record, every streak record, every "fastest" (fastest to 50 goals, etc) record, everything. He is 51% ahead of the #2 player in career scoring (2857 to Messier's 1887). He led the league in scoring for something like his first 10 years in the NHL, winning an MVP almost every one of those years. Crazy, crazy stuff.

Tabe

Stone193

The fact that Ruth was a great pitcher along with his hitting speaks for itself.

On the hitting - MorrellMan is correct about hitting styles - the Babe started his career during the "dead ball era" and guys just didn't give much thought to trying to belt a "pin cushion" into the stands. Babe was a powerful/natural long ball hitter who immediately flourished when a more "live" ball was introduced in the early 20's (approx). Having said that, when the ball went "live" - you can bet that some fast "retooling" of swings occurred. Fans went bananas when they saw balls fly out of the stadium!

If you have never been to a major league game - hearing the crack of the bat and seeing that ball fly out is better than anything else that occurs on the field short of a major brawl!LOL

There's a reall good book on the dead ball era - and the advent of the live ball and how it affected the spirit of the game - if I can find it, I will scan the cover.

mike

MorrellMan

you guys are latching onto a phrase that wasn't meant to be taken as a "desire" - ballplayers from a hundred years ago trained themselves to play a game the way it was supposed to be played - that is, wood on the ball, hit it where they ain't and run like hell. In spite of Ruth's amazing popularity in the '20s, most players got to the bigs because they played old school ball well. If it was just a case of "wanting" to do what's popular, everybody would have been stealing 100s of basesa year when Maury Wills and Rickey Henderson brought back the excitement of base running; or every pitcher would be notching hundreds of K's a year because of Nolan Ryan's unprecedented strikeout ability.

stown

I believe it was Ty Cobb that once said (paraphrased):

"Why would I want to jog around the bases when I could run over the second baseman?"