Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Top 106 Baseball Players: #1 - Babe Ruth


Babe Ruth

Babe Ruth is the greatest baseball player of all time, and it isn't even close. Even if you remove all of his pitching performances from his statistics, he is still the greatest of all time by a considerable margin.

Ruth joined the Red Sox in 1914, but was hardly used as a rookie. He started out as a pitcher, and in his third season he led the league in ERA and shutouts, and also led the Red Sox to the World Series, where he had the best pitching performance of anyone that year, pitching a 14-inning complete game that Boston won 2-1 over Brooklyn.

After the 1917 season, he grew tired of only playing once or twice a week, and asked to be used in the outfield more often. He was used occasionally in that role in 1918, but because the Red Sox were in the pennant race, they wanted to use him more as a pitcher. He did tie for the league lead with 11 home runs that year, and he also ended up with his second title.

With the Red Sox out of the running pretty early in 1919, they allowed him more time in the outfield, and he took full advantage, breaking the previous home run record by hitting 29, 2 more than the old record. With the owner short on cash after the season, and recognizing the value he was sitting on, Ruth was sold to the Yankees for $100,000.

In his first season in New York, he obliterated his own record, hitting 54 home runs to nearly double his record from the previous season, and he finished far ahead of the next-highest total of 19 that year. He also led the league in runs scored, RBI's, walks, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage, making him easily the best player in the league.

The next year was his best overall. He broke the home run record again, this time upping it to 59, far ahead of the 24 of his nearest competitor. He also led the league with 177 runs, 168 RBI, and 145 walks, and batted .378 for the season. He also took over the career home run lead that season when he hit #139, and he would extend that record nearly 600 more times over the course of his career.

Ruth was suspended for the first 6 weeks of the 1922 season for playing exhibition games following the World Series, which was not allowed at the time. The rule was changed before the season ended, but it was enough to prevent Ruth from winning the home run title for one of the few times in his career.

When he returned in 1924, he played like a man on a mission, leading the league in all of his regular categories while batting a career high .393 and leading the Yankees to the World Series for the third year in a row against the New York Giants, with which they shared a stadium. He had a great series, batting .368 with 3 homers and 8 walks, and finally defeated the Giants on their third attempt.

Ruth missed much of the 1925 season due to a mysterious belly problem, probably the result of overindulgence in alcohol and hot dogs. He came back strong in 1926, having another Ruthian season, and led them back to the World Series, where he had his best postseason series, hitting 4 home runs and walking 11 times, but the Yankees lost to the Cardinals in 7.

In 1927 he broke his home run record one more time, reaching 60, a number that would not be touched for 34 seasons. He also had another good postseason, batting .400 with 2 home runs and 7 RBI in the World Series as the Yankees swept Pittsburgh. They repeated the feat in 1928, with Ruth hitting .625 with 3 home runs in a sweep of the Cardinals.

He spent a few more seasons as the best player in baseball, leading the league in home runs 3 more times, making it a total of 12 seasons in his career. He also led the league in RBI's 5 times in his career, runs 6 times, and walks 11 times. He retired as the all-time leader in home runs, RBI's, walks, and slugging percentage, and is still in the top 3 in each of those categories, and still leads in slugging. There has never been a player who dominated in the way he did, and he did it for over a decade, so there is no doubt at all that he is the greatest player of all time, and may be forever.



1 comment:

  1. "there is no doubt at all that he is the greatest player of all time"

    There is plenty of doubt, you haven't even seen Babe Ruth play. Pretending someone you've never seen play for even a second is the greatest ever, just so you can sound "credible" with baseball nerds is absolutely pathetic. You have no idea how good or bad Babe Ruth was on defense, since you never once saw him play. You cannot possibly say he's better than Sammy Sosa without admitting that you are basically just making up in your head how good you think Ruth was. He played nearly 100 years ago, you haven't seen him, you simply don't know. All your doing is reading stats and other people's opinions, almost all of them not having ever seen Ruth play either. Babe Ruth didn't even play against Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, or many of the other top players of his own era, so to claim he's the greatest ever is just laughable.

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