Some people are light years ahead of the curve.
Plato, Leonardo daVinci, and Albert Einstein are just a few examples. Mentioning
Babe Ruth in the same breath may be a bit of a stretch, but in a purely
baseball sense, the Babe was miles above the competition. At the time of his
retirement, he held dozens of statistical records while his closest rivals lagged
far behind.
Ruth
began his career as a full-time pitcher, which limited his playing time. When
it became evident that he was a looming power threat, Red Sox manager Ed Barrow
began using him in the outfield on a regular basis. By the end of the 1919
campaign, the Babe had moved into ninth place on the all-time home run list. Over
the next 16 seasons, he established himself as the game’s reigning home run
king with 714 blasts—more than double the amount of Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx,
who ranked second and third respectively when Ruth played his last game in
1935. Neither came close to breaking the Babe’s record as Foxx finished with
534 and Gehrig with 493. There were no serious challengers until the 1970s,
when Willie Mays and Hank Aaron both approached the 700-homer mark. Mays
ultimately fell short, but Aaron became the all-time leader in 1974.
On
an interesting note, it took Ruth fewer at-bats than any player in history to gather
700 home runs. Aaron didn’t even come close to matching the Babe’s vigorous pace,
hitting number-700 in his 2,920th game. Ruth accomplished the feat in 2,418 games.
Barry Bonds, who surpassed Aaron’s lifetime mark of 755 homers with the help of
performance enhancing drugs, needed 2,702 games to collect 700 blasts.
In
addition to his record-setting home run pace, Ruth remains baseball’s all- time
leader in slugging percentage—a statistic that measures the average number of
bases a player records per at-bat. The Babe’s mark of .6897 is miles ahead of
Red Sox slugger Ted Williams, who ranks second on the list with a percentage of
.6338.
Over
the course of his career, Ruth became part god and part mortal—a mythical hero
who hit baseballs farther than any player before him. Describing his prowess at
the plate, a former teammate joked, “No one hit home runs the way that Babe
Ruth did. They were something special. They were like homing pigeons. The ball
would leave the bat, pause briefly, suddenly gain its bearings, then take off
for the stands.”
One
of the most compelling facts about Ruth is that he might have found his way
into the Hall of Fame as a pitcher. A left-hander, he set a World Series record
for consecutive scoreless innings (29.2) that stood until 1961. During the four
seasons in which he made at least 20 mound appearances (1915-1918), he averaged
19 wins per year. In that same span, he compiled a .301 batting average with 20
homers and 111 RBIs. No pitcher in major league history has demonstrated such
marvelous two-way abilities, although Shohei Ohtani of the Angels had a
remarkable year in 2021. Serving double-duty as a designated hitter and pitcher,
Ohtani posted a 9-2 record in 23 starts while gathering 46 home runs—a Ruthian
feat to say the least.
Explore this topic further in my book, Lore of the Bambino: 100 Great Babe Ruth Stories.
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