The View from Olympus.

 Our Peerless Leader's musings on whether or not Aaron Judge is a Yankees "Immortal," got me thinking, and I hopped on the horn to The Master, who as everyone knows has direct hot lines to Olympus, Valhalla,  Brahmaloka, and our Blue Heaven.

He was able to convey to me the Genuine Yankees Immortals, all ten of them. (And no, he's not on the list—by his own insistence. The Master, an insatiable fan of Spinal Tap, insisted that his ranking be, "eleven.")

So here we go. Not just the very good, not just our favorite players over the years, not just those inducted into that shame hall of fame in the boonies. The Ten Yankees Immortals, ranked in order:

1. Babe Ruth.

Quite a surprise, I know. 

The most important athlete in modern history, by my reckoning. He brought baseball into the big time, and by taking baseball big time, he took American sports big time, and by taking American sports big time, he took all the sports in the world big time.

And despite MLB's constant, idiotic attempts to diminish him, he remains the greatest major-league player of all time. Period. 

No one has ever both hit and pitched at the level The Babe did. (Perhaps one of the great Negro League stars—specifically Martìn Dihigo, who pitched and played even more positions than The Babe was greater, but sadly—horribly—we'll never know.)

When it comes to hitting, The Babe holds every significant, lifetime, power- hitting batting record not broken by cheating juicers. He is still one of only two men to ever hit 60 home runs in the course of the first 154 games of a season, and hit .342 lifetime. In addition, he was generally a capable outfielder with a strong arm, stole home 10 times in his career, and routinely bunted for hits when necessary. 

It's true that while Ruth did not pitch for the Yankees, save during constant, in-season exhibition games, and end-of-the-year goofs with the Yanks (in which he was 5-0 with 2 complete games, incidentally), he was the best left-handed starter in the majors for Boston, and ran up a record, 29 2/3 scoreless innings in the World Series, a mark that stood until it was broken by—spoiler alert—another Yankees immortal. 

Ruth's own record might have been extended even more, but he had entertained himself the night before by smashing summer straw hats on a train—a popular little boys' activity of 1918, which also says so much about The Babe. He was a Rabelaisian figure in all ways, larger than life, more fun than life, better than life—not to mention Shohei Ohtani.

Adjectives: "Ruthian."

Greatest moment: The "called shot," 1932 World Series. But also hit the very first home run in the very first Yankee Stadium, and the very first home run in the very first, major-league all-star game.

Products: The Baby Ruth Bar, supposedly named after the daughter of President Grover Cleveland...when it was started by the Curtiss Candy Company, 16 years after her death, in 1920, the same year The Babe went to New York. 

MVP Awards: 1923. For most of Ruth's career, baseball did not have a formal MVP Award, or they had one which you could only win once. 

Deserved MVP Awards: 13. Boston, 1918-1919); New York, 1920-1924; 1926-1931.

Rings on his fingers: 10 pennants (Boston, 1915-16, 1918; New York, 1921-23; 1926-28; 1932); 7 world championships (Boston, 1915-16, 1918); New York, 1923, 1927-28, 1932).

Deserved World Series MVP Awards: (They didn't give out such things in his day.)  1918, 1923, 1927-28.

Media: Two movies: The Babe Ruth Story (1948; dir. by Roy Del Ruth—no relation!—starring William Bendix, Claire Trevor); The Babe (1992; dir. by Arthur Hiller, with John Goodman, Kelly McGillis, Trini Alvarado). Both bombed, deservedly so. The Goodman one was a little better—though you really should consider salads when you have to lose weight to play Babe Ruth.

Nicknames: About a million of them. "The Bambino," "The Sultan of Swat," "The Wizard of Wham," "The Big Bam," for starters. Oh, yeah, and then there was "The Babe."

Quotes:  All quotes about Babe Ruth are great. Two of the best: "All the lies about Babe Ruth are true," teammate Waite Hoyt. "From 'One Old Cat' to the last 'At Bat,' was there ever a guy like Ruth?"—from the October 2, 1927, New York Times poem, "Was There Ever a Guy Like Ruth?" by John Kieran, sportswriter and all-around genius.

Ruth himself, on surveying the original Yankee Stadium for the first time: "I'd give my left nut to hit one out of this place."

Coming soon: Yankees Immortal No. 2!