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Do you think Babe Ruth has gotten a bad rap?

People say he wouldn’t have set the home run record if the leagues had been integrated. If the leagues had been integrated, Josh Gibson wouldn’t have hit his supposed 900 home runs, because he would have been facing stronger pitching.

And some people saying that nothing before 1947 should count. What do we do, ignore anything that Ruth or Gehrig or Ty Cobb or Cy Young did? I think a lot of white fans who admire these old players have also shown genuine admiration for the black stars of the game, like Negro League players, Mays, Aaron, and even pre-steroid Barry. Why do some people feel that black players can only get full recognition by taking recognition away from white players?

Ruth’s accomplishment was incredible. He didn’t start out as a hitter, and he was chasing his own home run record for most of his career. I think that’s pretty amazing.

Everybody’s honoring Hank Aaron right now, which is great, but I don’t think Babe Ruth should be denigrated.

Get serious, Ruth hit more HRs than entire other teams. The Negro league thing is BS. There were some talented players there that were every bit as good as guys in the MLB but MLB was also a very concentrated group. So there were fewer teams and talent was more concentrated. So if Baseball had been integrated in Ruth’s day he’d hit just as many HRs.

As for records. Black and dark Cuban players who were excluded from the majors on skin color only make up a fraction of the total talent. In the 60s and 70s they came to have an abnormally high number of players for the same reason in Ruth’s time Irish and Italians made up an unsually high percentage of MLB players. That is economic conditions made it such that if you were Italian or Irish crime and sports were really the only ways out of a life of hard labor for low wages. As Italians and Irish integrated into the mainstream society their numbers dwindled in Baseball. Blacks are seeing the same thing as they have advanced economically fewer people see sports, crime and music as they only way to succeed. The rise in payroll has made Baseball a risk worth taking for many people who’d in earlier years would have just gone to college and never attempted to play pro ball. Until recently the pay scale was so low that even stars in Baseball had to have winter jobs to make enough money to make a decent living. The odds of even making the Majors were slim and careers like today tend to be short. So mostly it’s been the very poor who have played Baseball. Those that can afford college instead went to college. Today mega millions lure many middle class and even some people from wealthy families into taking their shot at fortune and fame.

Cuba which produced many star and Hall of fame players until the 1950s has until very recently produced almost no MLB players. Today more and more Cubans are defecting and Castro’s demise will probably open up a flood of Cuban players again.

As for Ruth’s accomplishments. As you pointed out he was a pitcher for many years. He also cut his career short by a few years with his excessive lifestyle. If he’d come up as a hitter and taken care of himself he’d hit 1200 HRs easily. Ruth hit a mushball and contrary to many claims pitchers in his day may not have had sliders but they were allowed to use the spit ball which nastier than a slider. Cut balls were the norm and the equiptment did not have the same level of quality. Nor was medical care anywhere close to what it is today. Back then you got a bacterial infection you toughed it out because there was no anti-biotics. Training consisted of jumping jacks and push ups. Weight rooms didn’t exist. Without steroids few modern players could have hit 10 HRs a season with the kind of baseball that was being thrown and the kind of pitching that was faced. A sense of machismo made bats very heavy. Ruth’s bat weighed almost twice what most modern sluggers use.

As for AB per HR nobody even comes close to Ruth.

To say records before 1947 don’t count is nothing more than racism as blatent as the that which kept Black and dark Cubans out of Baseball before then.

Honoring Aaron makes sense. Ironically Aaron was not really a power hitter. Aaron led the league in HRs only 3 times in his entire career. Ruth did it 13 time by contrast. McCovey and Schmidt who were contemporaries of Aaron and in same league by contrast led the league 5 and 6 times. Aaron was a complete hitter who stole bases, hit for avg and even played good defense. Ruth also hit for high avg was one of the best RBI men to ever play the game as well as being one of the best pitchers of his day.

I don’t recognize Bond’s or any other steroid user’s records. Far as I’m concerned all awards given too Camminitti, Bonds, Sosa, Palmiero, Giambi, McGwire, Cansecoo, Sheffield, McGriff and the other proven steroid users should be struck down and given to the next runner up. Thier career stats should be removed.

There is zero doubt that Bonds not only used steroids that he would have never topped 600 HRs or 50 in a season without steroids. He’s admited to using them though he claims by accident. He was nailed in the same investigation that busted Giambi and Sheffield. He’s long been rumored and his stats scream steroid use. He did steroids and without steroids he had no chance. At least with McGwire you can say steroids probably hurt his HR total. Sure he’d hit fewer per season but McGwire had a swing designed to maximize power. McGwire was a one dimensional player who did one thing. Hit HRs and he did it well. If he weighed 90 lbs that swing he developed would have been 40+ HRs a season easy. Bonds on the other hand was more of an Aaron style player. He had good power but not 50 HR type power. He didn’t have Aaron’s durability so he’d never approached the 600 HR mark without steroids. He wouldn’t be playing right now without steroids. He was his way out of Baseball when he started using the steroids. They have prolonged his career by a good 5 years. However if he hadn’t used steroids he’d gone into the Hall of fame on the first ballot and been remembered in a much kinder light.

A-Rod who so far has not had any real evidence of steroid use is very likely to break any mark Bonds sets and possibly even before Bonds is elilgible for the HOF. There are three other players also capable of breaking that mark including Griffy if he revives his career. So Bond’s accomplishment unlike Aaron’s and Ruth’s isn’t all that special even if he hadn’t indulged in steroids. It may not stand as much as 7 years where Ruth’s and Aaron’s stood for decades. They were light years ahead of anybody else in their time, especially Ruth who hit 200 more than anybody else until Mays and Aaron.

So I agree people shouldn’t knock Ruth at all. What he did was more amazing than what Aaron did which was amazing enough. What Aaron did was no small feat. It took him nearly twice as many ABs as Ruth but Aaron’s accomplishment was not just HRs, it was being such a good well rounded hitter for so long. Much like Rose’s all time hits record is an amazing accomplishment. He took more ABs than Cobb to set the record, didn’t hit anywhere near as well as Cobb but Rose was able to grit it out and be a very good hitter longer than almost anybody else. So Ruth is not 2nd place, Aaron doesn’t deserve any * they both set a record with great athletics and determination. They both had amazing raw talent and achieved records in honest and competitive environments. Aaron set his record in a day when pitchers ruled the game. Aaron won two batting crowns for example Ruth only won one. Ruth is still the greatest HR hitter, Aaron the greatest overall hitter.

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