You can dither about "Oh, he never faced the Negro League stars" and "Oh, they didn't throw as hard then" and "Oh, they used such itty bitty gloves back then." But nobody ever dominated professional baseball like Ruth. You might say nobody ever dominated any U.S. professional sport like he did, and that's including MJ and Chamberlain in the NBA.
Like him or not, the Babe flat-out redefined the game in as profound a way as Curt Flood and free agency. Ruth was uncharted territory, and still is. With all the changes to the modern game since then, we'll never see anyone like him again. At least without PEDs.
So, a tip of my sweat-stained John Wetteland memorial Yankees cap, which I plan to be wearing next Thursday, to George Herman Ruth. The real unicorn of major league baseball.
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4 comments:
Amen
Vermont has a state holiday for it or some other thing.
Elvis died on the same day. Not the same year, though.
HEAR, HEAR, JM!
In fact, I would argue that Ruth was the most important athlete EVER.
Sure, there have been others—Ali, Pele, Michael Jordan—with more global appeal in more widely followed sports.
But it was Ruth who first made team sports BIG TIME. No team had ever drawn a million-person gate before Ruth went to New York. No individual has ever been followed that widely, by newspapers all over the place.
And NO player, in the major leagues, has ever pitched and PLAYED the field (not "played DH") that well.
As to all the caveats:
—Yes, the color line was a disgrace, and some Negro League greats—notably Martin Dihigo—may have been even more multitalented in all the positions they could play, along with pitching. Sadly, we'll never know.
But The Babe hit .455 in all those games against Black and Latino teams that were recorded. And...The Babe may have BEEN Black—the most intriguing possibility of all!
—It's impossible to say when conditions were better or worse. But I would hold that they weren't better when you had to take 27-hour train rides in Pullman cars without air conditioning, or play in wool uniforms (and un-air-conditioned clubhouses) in the summer.
—Yes, players are no doubt bigger and faster today. They also know less about the game, and play with enough protective armor to win a jousting tournament.
—Would Ruth have been the same player today? Almost certainly not.
For one thing, he might not have existed. Instead of growing up in a baseball-mad, Dickensian orphanage, he probably would have been lithiumized up the gills, and shipped off to a foster home. OR, been adopted by great, loving parents (looking at you, Aaron Judge).
But all things being equal, I think it's very safe to say that he would have hit less than .342 lifetime—maybe more like .320 or even .310—and hit even more home runs—maybe over 1,000, or even 1,200.
The Ruth is the greatest, still, and it's indicative of how stupid the people running the game are today that they continually run him down in favor of a wonderful, outstanding player...who has trouble putting in a full season at DH.
I'm with you, Hoss.
Manfred is an idiot.
Boone is an idiot.
Cashman is a complete idiot.
Hal is a shithead.
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