Babe Ruth greatest player ever

[Guest]

it's funny how the blacks and media wenches can't stand it. they try and try to convince us that Bonds or Aaron is better but they forget a few things:

1.) the fields were further when Ruth played so all his homers would still be good and the homers that Bonds barely cleared, would have been short in Ruth's days.

2.) the pitcher's mound was six inches higher and thus, gave an advantage to pitchers.

3.) Ruth had no state of the art training equipment, nutrition (steroids)or video so he could study his opponents or break down film.

oh yeah, Ruth was also a great pitcher....not just a batter.

btw, look up the stats, how many more at bats did Aaron need to break Ruth's numbers???? it's pathetic......

 

[white lightning]

I agree 100%. Most experts also forget that he would have had alot more homers if he wasn't a stud pitcher
for several years.He would have been at least at 800
homers.Babe Ruth is Baseball!I will argue with anyone
who trys to say that he is 2nd or 3rd best.I don't think
they will be naming any candy bars after Cry Baby Barry
Bonds either.I'm rooting for Jim Thome to keep climbing
the ladder because he has a legitimate shot at at least
600+ homeruns and maybe the record if things go perfect!

 

[Guest]

if McGuire's knee had held up he would have broke it.

 

[arad002]

no one will ever compare to the great babe ruth period. face it can anyone do what he did offensively and still be one of the greatest pitchers of all time? he was so far ahead of anybody he was bored with the game. ruth 714 HR gehrig #2 less than 400 HR. all of this on a hangover and no steroids. f**k the pro-black media.

 

[IceSpeed]

I think McGuire pitched at USC and had better stats than Randy
Johnson. With the caliber of play going up considerably(not
because of steroids, but it just goes up over time) I think that is as
close as anyone will get to being Ruthian. I bet McGuire would
have been allowed to pitch in the Dead Ball Era because things were
less specialized.



For other Greats think of Joe DiMaggio, George Brett, Pete Rose, Cal
Ripken, Wade Boggs, Willie Mays(he may be black, but he was good and
clean), Hank Aaron(same deal), Ted Williams(an American hero), Tony
Gwynn(see Mays), Paul Molitor(could have played in the NFL), and many
others.

 

[jaxvid]

Depends what you want in "a greatest player ever". Most people think of five tool players as the greatest of players. That would be hitting, hitting for power, speed, fielding, and throwing. That would limit the top candidates ever to Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Bonds, maybe Dimaggio. Some think it is hitting/hitting for power. Then you have the above guys plus, Ruth, Gehrig, Williams. Pure hitting: add Cobb and Wagner.

Ruth changed the game. Period. There is no one to compare him to. Ruth is the greatest for who he was not only for what he did. Everone else is just fighting over 2nd place. My 2nd place would be Mays. He got the most out of his talent for the longest. Then Mantle. Aaron, Bonds and Williams all have one major drawback. Their teams never won much. How can you be great if you don't lead your team to victory?

 

[IceSpeed]

You make good points. However, I would like to address a period
of two games involving Ty Cobb. Cobb told reporters in 1925 that
hitting homeruns was easy and did not really contribute to winning
games. To prove his point, he kept his hands together rather than
splitting his grip. The first game he kept his hand together, he
hit 3 home runs. The next game, he hit two. Then he went
back to "splitting his grip" for the rest of his career. This
shows Cobb had Ruthian power, but chose to be a more consistent hitter
and play smart baseball. Without factoring caliber of play, Ty
Cobb is the games greatest player. Tris Speaker would be second.



I think Cobb, Speaker, and Shoeless Joe Jackson could play today.
However, I think Ruth would not cut it as an outfielder or even
DH. How could he get a 64 ounce bat around on 99mph well placed,
4 seam fastball? I question Bond's, Ruth's, and Mantle's work
ethic and morality. As Bonds took steroids, Mantle and Ruth
showed up to games hung-over. Maybe Babe Ruth was the most
talented player of all time, but not the greatest. The same for
Mantle and Bonds.

 

[IceSpeed]

Almost forgot Roger Hornsby. This guy put his life into
baseball. He is one of the most underrated players of all
time. Luis Castillo never heard of him when asked about passing
him up on the longest hitting streak list. "The Rajah" to Babe Ruth's
"Sultan of Swat", Hornsby was the most dominant hitter of the 1920's in
the NL. More dominant than George Sisler. He could hit to
all fields. He perfected the hitting mechanics used by many great
right handed hitters. He was the first to stride with the pitch,
with his stance in the back of the batter's box with his feet close
together. Ted Williams said he owed his success to him. He
won a World Series.

 

[Gary]

Ruth was great.Three others who could be the best ever were Ted Williams,Lou Gehrig and Ty Cobb.Mantle could have been the best ever with better knees and no beer.

 

[Don Wassall]

Mickey Mantle always has been and probably always will be my favorite baseball player. He had a great career, but you're right he had the ability to have been the best ever. Plus he had charisma back in the last days when whites were "allowed" to have it, before charisma too became an artificial black monopoly in sports.

 

[jaxvid]

Stat guru Bill James has developed a forumla called "Win Shares" to rate players. The formula takes into account the era of play, the ballparks, the quality of one's teams, and it can be used for any position. All major league players have had their career stats run with the formula. It isn't even close. Ruth is the best by far. Not only was he way above his peers, he also pitched for a while and hit for high average.

Cobb and Speaker were good but they were lead-off hitters, important but not like middle of the order guys. Hornsby was the greatest right handed hitter ever but a poor fielder. Williams was the "Barry Bonds" of his day. Disliked by fans in every city, including his own. He could be a real a-hole. He only hit for average and power. Didn't care about fielding, base-running etc. Mantle's carousing is over rated. He was the best player on the best team for 20 years. What else could he have done? Besides the drinking probably helped him in the days before prozac. Gehrig was good, one of the best.

 

[JD074]

And the old timers did it with really heavy bats. Didn't Ruth
have a 60 or 70 ounce bat? And Mantle 50 ounces, I believe.
Along with bigger ballparks, little to no strength training, etc., as
disadvantages to the hitters of yesteryear, I don't hear people
mention the bats they used as often. Now a critic would say
that there are relief pitchers now and that makes it harder for
today's player, but still.

 

[IceSpeed]

The game is more refined/specialized today than it was forty and fifty
years ago. However, old time players were tremendous
athletes. Look at Mantle's forearms in a picture. If he did
not strength train(be it weights or just taxing labor), God simply
blessed him. Jimmy Foxx was very strong(no one has mentioned
him).



These guys did not lift weights much, but they did other strength
training. This is what allowed them to get around on the balll
with heavy bats. Their strength training involved more motion
required in a baseball swing. Think about it. Is lifting
weights going to improve your hitting as much as chopping wood?

 

[Don Wassall]

Those great athletes became naturally strong because many more Americans had their lives connected with the land and the laws of nature than do now. Most Americans today can live their entire lives without experiencing the least connection to nature and that which is enduring and true and strong and unconquerable.

Through most of our history the typical American was a farmer or rancher, part of a farming or ranching family, or worked for a farmer or rancher or a small town businessman. Many others were yeomen or small businessmen in pre-high technology days. Later, many were part of mill families. So many white kids, beginning in the 1850s, played baseball at every opportunity when they didn't have to work or go to school. That lasted for a solid century plus a decade or so, but is now gone. Exercise and training for baseball came naturally.

There's still a fair amount of farmers' sons athletes, in baseball and in football. A close parallel is small town kids in general, part of rural, blue-collar White America, which is always degraded in the media when mentioned at all. We still see them here and there, but they are ever increasingly systematically marginalized in sports, as are Whites in every other way.

 

[JD074]

I should've said little to no "conventional" strength training-
lifting weights- instead of just strength training. Clearly
chopping wood and other "farm boy" activities can be
considered strength training. There was quite an aversion to
lifting weights in various sports for a number of years (and
even now there are some people in some sports, boxing for
example, that don't like lifting weights). Weightlifting has been
around since at least the late 1800's, with Strongmen like
Sandow building phenomenal physiques with their training
regimens (and a strong dose of good genetics, of course.) So
the ideas and equipment were available, to some degree, if
they wanted them. But they were great regardless of how they
trained.

 

[IceSpeed]

Dynamic motion is underrated. It makes sense
to train doing the same motions you do in your sport. For
example, Dick Butkus never lifted weights. He picked up tackling
dummies and pushed cars.



An example relating to baseball would be Bob
Feller. He threw a rock for practice. This is how he threw
98+ mph.

I believe Cal Ripken used to swing a bat in a pool. I think he started that trend.

 

[IceSpeed]

I do not think Ruth would have used the training
today anyway. He had a lax workout. Although, much of my source
is Sports Center, which is pro Bonds and anti-Ruth. Ruth was an
alcoholic during Prohibition. Ruth did not seem to care about his
shape.



The homerun is overrated!!!

 

[bigunreal]

Babe Ruth was the greatest professional athlete, not just baseball
player. He was not just a pitcher; by the time he switched to full-time
outfielder, he was the best left hander in baseball, and had not
reached his peak. Most fans don't remember that he held the World
Series record for consecutive scoreless innings pitched for decades,
until Whitey Ford broke it in the early '60s. No other athlete in any
sport has done something comparable to this. The only analogy that we
could find would be for a superstar defensive player in football (let's
use a media favorite- Ray "Killer" Lewis) switching to running back at
this point in his career, and then shattering all previous running
records. Or in hockey, if the game's best young goalie suddenly
switched to center ice, and shattered all previous scoring records.
This is bascially what Ruth did, and no one before him, or since, has
done anything like it.

 

[KD52171]

Dizzy Dean used to knock squirrels out of trees with rocks for practice.

 

[Bart]

Many consider Aaron to be the greatest home run hitter ever, the home run king because he hit the most homers. By this reasoning Pete Rose should be considered the greatest hitter ever for he simply had more hits than anyone.


If you compare Ruth's at bats to Aaron's you will see who is the better home run hitter. The Babe had approximatelt 8399 at bats to Aaron's 12,365. Babe could have hit nearly 1100 homers if he had the at bats Aaron did. Better still, when Aaron had about the same number of at bats as did the Babe, Henry had only about 450 homers.


In other words the percentage of homers to bats is way in the Babe's favor. Mcguire has a very good percentage also.

 

[KD52171]

Babe Ruth did more for baseball than any other player to date.

 

[JD074]

Great argument, Bart. Aaron averaged about 538 at bats a
year, so 3965 at bats is well over seven seasons worth of at
bats! Also, Aaron had only 84 more RBIs!

You can make a less dramatic argument with Bonds as well.
Ruth had 714 homers with 8399 at bats, and so far, Bonds has
had 703 homers with 9098 at bats. For Bonds, 699 at bats is,
on average, a little less than a season and a half of at bats.
Also, Ruth had 370 more RBIs than what Bonds currently has.

Here's some more stats:

Aaron
OBP .374
SLG .555
AVG .305

Bonds
OBP .443
SLG .611
AVG .300

Ruth
OBP .474
SLG .690
AVG .342

 

[Don Wassall]

The Babe's last surviving child, Julia Ruth Stevens, died at the age of 102. She outlived her father by over 70 years. According to the blurb I read, she authored three books about Babe and called him "one of a kind" who "will always be mentioned as long as there is baseball."

 

[Extra Point]

Ruth made the Hall of Fame mainly as an outfielder. From what I understand he may have made it as a pitcher had he continued to pitch. Truly a great player.

 

[Booth]

Babe Ruth won 94 games as a pitcher. He pitched a complete game at the age of 38. Hit his first hr in Fayetteville, N.C., they have a marker along the roadside marking the spot he hit it. The marker reads that he hit the ball 136yds, also got the name Babe in Fayetteville.