Ruth-Era Home Run Questions

[66-70-83-??]

Steroids were pretty much accepted in baseball too.

Steroids were used but not "accepted" in the way that greenies are.

And for good reason: Steroids are much different drugs than "greenies".

Greenies vs Steroids are apples and oranges. Why do you try to always lump them together ?

Also, greenies were available openly in all of Bonds clubhouses too (until last year). It isn't like they weren't as accessible to Bonds. So Bonds was every bit as likely to have used them as Aaron.

There were bowls of greenies sitting out in the open like candy dishes in the clubhouse and/or pots of coffee labelled "leaded" (spiked with greenies).

There was never a tray of loaded syringes lying out in the open. Players didnt juice in plain view. I doubt they talked openly about. It was all "hush hush"- Baseball's dirty little secret.

[RayFink1e]

The greatest stat Ruth has is that he had more HR's then some teams. Amazing

[Mark Carver]

Babe Ruth

1 HR every 11.76 AB

1 HR every 14.87 PA

Barry Bonds

1 HR every 12.91 AB

1 HR every 16.55 PA

Hank Aaron

1 HR every 16.38 AB

1 HR every 18.46 PA

[Mark Carver]

Ok...and Ruth never had an RC/27 over 18.....Bonds did it twice.

Ok... Runs Created (H + BB) * (TB) / (AB + BB), Single Season Leader

1) Ruth - 233, 1921

2) Ruth - 216, 1923

3) Gehrig - 211, 1927

4) Bonds - 210, 2001

5) Ruth (tied) - 206, 1920

8) Ruth - 203, 1927

9) Ruth - 199, 1924

[DrungoHazewood]

Steering this back to the original question and away from our 485th steroid showdown of the month...

- Who has the highest total among players whose career overlapped with the Babe? (I guess overlapped could be interpreted in either a trivial or non-trivial sense, as it’s possible someone had a cup of coffee at the end of Babe’s career. Any kind of response would be welcomed.)

The answer is Sudlerville, Maryland's own Jimmie Foxx. About half his career was coincident with the Babe's, and he ended up with 534 career homers.

Mel Ott, who played almost the same years as Foxx, ended up with 511. He's the only other player from Ruth's years to pass 500 homers. He hit nearly 3/4ths of his career homers in the Polo Grounds which were about 250 ft down the line, easily the highest percentage of home dingers among the 500 club.

And not to downplay the Babe's accomplishments, since he was a true home run pioneer, but within a few years of his initial accomplishments Foxx, Ott, Hornsby, Gehrig, Hack Wilson, and others had very Ruth-like years. Ruth was the first to hit lots of homers, but even during his career he was hardly unique.

[DrungoHazewood]

Babe Ruth

1 HR every 3.50 AB

1 HR every 14.87 PA

Barry Bonds

1 HR every 3.91 AB

1 HR every 16.55 PA

Hank Aaron

1 HR every 4.37 AB

1 HR every 18.46 PA

I think you've made some kind of typo. Clearly none of those guys hit a homer once per 3.5 or 3.9 at bats. Ruth's real number is one homer per 11.76 AB. Were you going for HR/H? Even that doesn't seem quite right.

[Mark Carver]

I think you've made some kind of typo. Clearly none of those guys hit a homer once per 3.5 or 3.9 at bats. Ruth's real number is one homer per 11.76 AB. Were you going for HR/H? Even that doesn't seem quite right.

No, I was going for At Bats, just read the wrong column... I picked up the numbers of games played instead of ABs.

[EddieO's21]

Aaron is a known "cheater", he took greenies. The steroid part, who knows? I'm not trying to tear him down, just presenting information that most either haven't heard or choose to ignore.

I didn't say Ruth was a cheater at all. But yes, weaker competition in large part, because blacks and most hispanics were not allowed to play. If you look at the post Drungo made about Ruth, you probably wouldn't use the bigger parks argument. Your next point is easily offset by the huge increase in population since then. Plus pitchers didn't throw as hard in general, and didn't have as many pitches.

Yes, Babe was the best compared to his peers, however you have to consider that when he was out-homering entire teams, those teams weren't really trying to hit hr's. He revolutionized the game in that way.

I'm not on a crusade for Bonds, I'm using this record, and the reaction to it, to try to make a point about the history of baseball.

what your forgetting is that for the first part of his career, Ruth was a pitcher and hit very few HR's. If he was a true batter for his whole career he would be over Aarron and Bonds easy.

[RShack]

what your forgetting is that for the first part of his career' date=' Ruth was a pitcher and hit very few HR's. If he was a true batter for his whole career he would be over Aarron and Bonds easy.[/quote']

Ummm... dunno about that... I think it was way harder for anybody to hit HRs early in his career... I think one thing that correlates with the sudden 1920's upturn in HR's is the clean-ball policy... after a guy got killed by a beanball at dusk, they started using only clean white balls... which made them lighter... and they started flying out of the park...

I don't know how to weigh this one factor against all the others, but I think it belongs in there somewhere...

[DrungoHazewood]

what your forgetting is that for the first part of his career' date=' Ruth was a pitcher and hit very few HR's. If he was a true batter for his whole career he would be over Aarron and Bonds easy.[/quote']

You're forgetting that for 100% of his career Ruth played in a league that had only primitive ways of finding and acquiring the best players in the country, didn't have any minorities (ok, a few light-skinned Cubans), and didn't draw any significant talent from overseas. There's a very good argument to be made that Ruth played in a league that was somewhere around the quality of today's AAA, or maybe Japan. In that context Aaron and Bonds might have approached 1000 homers. Sadaharu Oh hit 868 homers in a league that was probably a tick or two below Ruth's AL.

[mweb]

Steroids were used but not "accepted" in the way that greenies are.

And for good reason: Steroids are much different drugs than "greenies".

Greenies vs Steroids are apples and oranges. Why do you try to always lump them together ?

Also, greenies were available openly in all of Bonds clubhouses too (until last year). It isn't like they weren't as accessible to Bonds. So Bonds was every bit as likely to have used them as Aaron.

There were bowls of greenies sitting out in the open like candy dishes in the clubhouse and/or pots of coffee labelled "leaded" (spiked with greenies).

There was never a tray of loaded syringes lying out in the open. Players didnt juice in plain view. I doubt they talked openly about. It was all "hush hush"- Baseball's dirty little secret.

Both illegal, both improve performance, and both widely used, that's why they're lumped together. Is one worse than the other, probably, but I don't see how you can consider one cheating and not the other. I'm not condemning Aaron or any of those other players who have used greenies, I'm just trying to show that many players throughout baseball history have taken illegal PED's, so lets consider that when ripping Bonds.

[mweb]

what your forgetting is that for the first part of his career' date=' Ruth was a pitcher and hit very few HR's. If he was a true batter for his whole career he would be over Aarron and Bonds easy.[/quote']

I'm not forgetting that at all, I'm well aware of it. Yes, if he didn't pitch, he'd have quite a few more hr's.

[Mackus]

Both illegal, both improve performance, and both widely used that's why they're lumped together. Is one worse than the other, probably, but I don't see how you can consider one cheating and not the other. I'm not condemning Aaron or any of those other players who have used greenies, I'm just trying to show that many players throughout baseball history have taken illegal PED's, so lets consider that when ripping Bonds.

Yeah steroids and greenies are both cheating. Steroids were definitely worse, but anybody who calls a steroid-user a cheater and refuses to call a greenie-user a cheater is being incredibly hypocritical.

[Sports Guy]

Yeah steroids and greenies are both cheating. Steroids were definitely worse, but anybody who calls a steroid-user a cheater and refuses to call a greenie-user a cheater is being incredibly hypocritical.

It is all cheating....ALL OF IT!

But that doesn't matter...All that matters is Bonds...Anyone denying that is totally fooling themselves.

[66-70-83-??]

Both illegal, both improve performance, and both widely used, that's why they're lumped together. Is one worse than the other, probably, but I don't see how you can consider one cheating and not the other. I'm not condemning Aaron or any of those other players who have used greenies, I'm just trying to show that many players throughout baseball history have taken illegal PED's, so lets consider that when ripping Bonds.

True. Both do improve performance. Greenies are like a big dose of caffeine and help ward off fatigue. Steroids do a lot more.

Aaron likely took greenies, but not steroids. He also didn't wear body armor.

Bonds took greenies, steroids, hgh, and had body armor.

Body armor hasn't got much attention as performance enhancing, but it probably helps more than we think. Just from a confidence factor. There is no fear standing over the plate knowing that a fastball to the elbow won't hurt or put you on the DL.

MLB did Bonds a favor and exempted Bonds from the new body armor rules.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2002/0318/1353635.html

From BP article in 2002:

Since armored hitters don't need to fear pain or injury from getting hit in the arm, they crowd the plate, stand in confidently on pitches on the inside corner, and mash pitches on the outside corner. The result: (gasp!) better hitting and more offense.

What's not fair is the new system of selective "medical exemptions" MLB plans to give to some hitters, such as the one Barry Bonds has already received.

what we're likely to get is a set of Jordan Rules for MLB where stars and guys who had minor elbow surgery a decade ago will get to wear the armor, and everyone else will have to live with the pain.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1408

From SI article

"There's no fear factor involved any more, and that's always been a part of baseball," Brenly said. "I'm talking the Bob Gibsons and Bob Fellers of the world. Fear always has been a part of this game. When you take that out of the equation and allow hitters to hang out over the plate, and pull pitches that are off the outside corner, then I think we've lost something in this game."

Barry Bonds, of course, is the biggest practitioner of the suit-up-and-stand-close method of hitting. Pitchers have complained for years that his front elbow -- the right one, with the heavy padding -- is actually over the plate, so a strike on the inside corner is in danger of hitting him.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/writers/john_donovan/05/20/body.armor/