Honest Question About Babe Ruth's Career Home Run Mark

megatron

I have just completed reading the book entitled The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth by Leigh Montville.

This is the same author who wrote a wonderfully detailed book on Ted Williams. Although his Babe Ruth book is not as great as his Ted Williams book, it was still a delightful read and filled with informative facts.

The one thing that was continuously on my mind throughout the book was how much the rules have changed over the many years this great sport has been played.

For instance, in the Babe's early years, the concept of a lead off home run did not exist. So, if it was the bottom of the ninth and the Red Sox were tied at home and there was a man on first, a home run by the Babe would count as a game winning single.

Unfortunately, the book did not elaborate on how many times the Babe's stats fell to this rule or if it has a drastic effect on any other players' home run totals. Does anyone know or wish to provide us with additional detail?

Thanks

DirtyHarry

Yes....he potentially had more home runs than he was credited for. But that is secondary in recognizing him as the greatest HR hitter and baseball player ever. When you compare his accomplishments to the rest of the players in his era, it is ungodly.

bri2327

Ground rule doubles were recorded as home runs during at least a portion if not all of Ruths career. I would think the amount of times he was credited with one of those would at least balance the number of times he had the game winning home run that was credited as a single.

dallasactuary

To the best of my knowledge, the Babe never got a ground-rule double scored as a homer. That rule was eliminated pretty early in his career.

But he would have had a handful more homers if not for the walkoff rule and various park-specific rules (on more than one occasion, a ball Ruth hit into the stands bounced back into play and was scored a double) that are all gone now.

Cubfan

Dallas,

That rule was not changed until 1931. Up until that time, balls that bounced into the seats were considered home runs. I remembered there being a trivia question last year or so that named the last person credited with a bounce home run.

Most of the parks of that era had fairly tall fences at that time however. But, one of the shortest was the right field fence at Yankee Stadium .