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Reply With QuoteI was afraid if I tried too hard, you'd feel compelled to defend Babe's honor. Oh well. If we must.Originally Posted by Sultan_1895-1948
He pitched, mostly, at Fenway. Yes, and some players did try to hit like Babe in the 20's. Yup, that's true enough. But it normally takes some transition period to perfect the HR skill. Most need some time adjusting. But most of them failed. But that does not change the cold, hard fact that the best hitters refused to change, refused to try. And that refusal, which is no knock on Babe, did result in the gifting to Babe of a very significant part of his Relative Slg. differential. That is simply an historical fact, which neither of us can dispute. His differential would have been significantly reduced, if the L. had been willing to make their adjustments to the modern scoring strategies, and the way they swung at the ball.
I too am critical of the L., & not critical of Babe. But Babe's huge stat differential require explanations, not blind acceptance. I'm sure you will agree with this, since you know well the truth of the story.
All I am alleging here is that part of Babe's slugging differential is inflated. Just as his historical BA is deflated. If I bring up one, justice requires I bring up the other, for balance, and full disclosure. Not going for a cheap win in this arguing point. Just need to shave a few points off the historical slugging differential.
This may well be true. But the explanation is that the Tigers lacked anyone to patrol their large CF better. Heilmann was too slow. And since Ty could do the job, it fell on him to stay there. Kinda had to fall on his sword, so to speak, for the good of the team, despite it costing him good defensive numbers personally.
It meant that Ty was ready slightly earlier. At the age of 19, his soph season, he led his team in BA, despite having a nervous breakdown, which required a stint in a sanitarium.
Not saying Ruth wasn't good to go the moment he arrived. Babe arrived, 1914, was farmed to Providence, was called back late in season. Babe at 19 was probably as close to L. best as Ty, simply arrived a moment later. Ty led his team at 19, Babe was almost as good as league best in 1914, and proved it in 1915.
I'm not alleging that arriving earlier made Cobb the better player. But as one of Ty's leading counselors on his Dream Team, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't bring up all the points of the case.
When I must battle with Babe, I use whatever I have, whatever I must. And you'd be amazed at how many members use Babe's pitching to cement his case. So, I am, by all rights, entitled to compare their major secondary skills. And that is a comparison that Ty's clearly won. Fairly and squarely. I'm not cheating on the comparison here, Randy. I'm fighting tough, but clean.
Yes, I give Babe his justly won win here. He was a much more powerful drawing card. But he did have some help. Once again, there were valid explanations. He was helped by the National Mood. When the War ended, the people, and especially sports fans, were ready for major fun. They also had a lot more disposable income, with which to watch games. The game itself saw huge attendance explosions after the war. The huge attendance explosions in the NL, proved that it was offense due to the livelier ball, which goosed hitting that causes such a massive, epic increase. So, Babe was the right person at the right time.
True, Yankee attendance increased way more than anyone else's, which is why I credit Babe as the most powerful drawing card in all of sports, ever. But if Cobb has come into his prime after the War, he too would have benefited from the 'right circumstances'.
This can only be established if we included the modern sabremetric stats, such as OPS, OPS+, Relative stats, and an entire slew of others. If we limit ourselves to the traditional stats, those which were used in 1960, Ty led his league in 59 traditional categories, Babe in 57.
That doesn't make Ty the better or greater player. Simply makes him the leader in league leads. Plus Ty's were better, more uniformly, distributed across the boards. Most of Babe's were bunched in the power categories.
You often lament Babe's lost years to his pitching. But I don't. Babe was always enormously proud of his pitching, which did include some awards, such as his WS consecutive scoreless innings. That gave him insight into the game, and allowed him to arrive in the Big Time at the age of 19. He might well have been able to establish himself as a ML hitter then, but that's not what did happen. Why they didn't recognize his hitting is a matter of historical conjecture. Perhaps they were too enmeshed in small ball hitting, and refused to see what they were seeing.
But, Babe wasn't allowed to convert earlier than he did. BoSox manager Barrow had a hard enough time converting him in 1918! He felt he was taking an enormous risk of being laughed out of the game.
How can I credit Babe with more frequent ABs, when he was pitching and helping his team greatly, by platooning back and forth. He was doing amazing work at hitting/pitching, and I credit him for that. And so do so many Fever members. So, why lament his loss of plate appearances? If he couldn't convince his manager to let him play full time in the OF, how can we second-guess Barrow? We must let history be what it was, and let Cobb's full time league leads be what they were too. Don't know any other fair way to slice this messy situation.
Excuse me, Randy? Ty's earlier support was due to human lack of insight??? Oh man! You're really disappointing me here, big time. I flip it. Ty's earlier wins over the Babe in 1932, 1936, 1942, were due to the fact that many more of the voters had actually seen both play, Randy. By 1950, few of the sports writers had seen Ty in his prime, 1909-14. Many more had seen Babe, 1919-24. Ten years is a long time in terms of sports writers mortality rates. And also, by 1950, those who were not prejudiced to the dead ball style of baseball were falling like flies. The prejudice in favor of live ball had become entrenched with 30 years of it, and the post-War attendance boom. Man, I thought you were one of the few who was wise to these dynamics, Randy.
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This is a typo. I had copy/pasted this from my Ty/Honus comparison, and had over-looked changing this. This had formerly referred to Honus being out-hit by Ty. Sorry about this typo.
Why am I reaching? There are rational explanations as to why fielders are assigned to their posts. It normally is due to better fielders being assigned to where they can best assist the team. If Babe was the best man to field CF, he would have been assigned there, not a corner post. On your own teams, if your team could find a better man to cover CF than you, would they leave you in center, letting the better men in the corners? Wouldn't make a lot of sense to hurt the team for nothing. There normally are reasons for these decisions. And hence, Babe must take his lumps, just like Clemente/Aaron. They are also historically ranked accordingly. But hey! They have enough laurels elsewhere to make amends. Why give such decorated players credit for things they didn't earn? Makes no sense.
We agree that we believe Ruth might have been able to handle being a catcher. But we also agreed in the past that that might have cost him in terms of the brutal beating his legs would have taken.
And I also agree that Ty couldn't have handled catching. That wasn't his thing. I think it might have been possible for either to handle an infield position, if they had worked very hard at it from a young age. But apparently, even their early managers felt it wise to not play them there. And that must form the foundation for us here now. If their early managers didn't feel it prudent to play them in the infield, who are we, 100 years late, to second-guess them?
I can't credit Babe with his potential to catch, anymore than I can credit Cobb with a possible potential to play the infield. Both played 1B. Cobb played 1B for the Hartford Colonels, for George Weiss, from about 1918-23. Whenever he was in New York, and had a day off.
It means what it means. Hey. This is Babe Ruth I'm competing with here. You go with whatever you've got. I dealt with the age thing above. I'm not over-selling it, just itemizing their relative strengths/weaknesses.
How am I degrading Ruth's pitching to say it wasn't as great as Cobb's running? Cobb's running was world best, the greatest accomplishment in baseball's history. How is that a knock on Ruth's pitching to lose to something so unique?
Yes he did, and Lou ignored them and assumed his own stance, quite the opposite of Babe's closed stance. But maybe he listened in other ways.
I agree with you that Ed Barrow should have been the bigger man and not blocked Babe off in his desire to manage the Yankees. But Barrow was going on how Babe had refused to obey curfews, either as a Red Sox, when Ed was the manager, or with Huggins.
Hey. If it were me, I'd have abolished team curfews, period. But if you have them, they must be enforced uniformly, without preferential treatment for the stars. I also agree with you that the problem was that Miller Huggins lacked the testicles to enforce curfews when Babe was rolling good. That set up the no-win situation of enforcing curfews went team was in the pits.
Made it appear sour grapes for the team being in trouble. I agree that the double standard was ridiculous.
This is true if we go by traditional stats, but not if we include them.
Who said? Barrow as BoSox boss, Huggins as Yanks boss.
And it did impact his greatness as a player to this extent. After the 1921 World Series, his willfulness caused him to defy Judge Landis, and he took Bob Meusel, and barn stormed, without first gaining L. permission. And he well knew that that was a quite serious no no. So, because of his boo boo, Judge Landis suspended him for the early part of 1922. And due to his missing that early development phase to his season, he had a sub-par year for his own standards.
So, that is how his insubordination impacted his greatness. It all stemmed from his willfulness, and stubborn insistence on being a law unto himself. It is very wise that he did finally come to wisdom later, and changed his ways. Except when it came to McCarthy.
