*Babe Ruth Thread*

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Actually only perception is relevant here. We're talking about Ruth modeling himself. His skill set and approach was vastly closer to Jackson than Cobb.

And there is no direct quote from Ruth himself referring to Jackson. Only third party quotes. We do have a direct quote where Ruth refers to Cobb is the best natural hitter. Plus, the timeline doesn't even make sense. There is no evidence that Ruth ever saw Jackson play until Ruth reached the majors. I don't see much in common between Ruth's and Jackson's hitting skillset. Ruth is the greatest power hitter ever. Jackson was never especially noted for his long distance power.

Anyway, Ty Cobb was the superior hitter to Joe Jackson in every way. That is plainly obvious now and it was plainly obvious back in the 1910's.

[Floyd Gondolli]

And there is no direct quote from Ruth himself referring to Jackson. Only third party quotes.

Ruth is the greatest power hitter ever. Jackson was never especially noted for his long distance power..

No only do we have a direct quote, it was published by arguably the best sportswriter of his generation. And, it was published so obv there's a citation.

Screenshot_20171231-142935.png

As far as Jackson not being the premier slugger of his day, and using a style Ruth would have certainly emulated, there is a ton of information out there on this. Have you read Fleitz' bio? I think you d love it. Very well written.

Screenshot_20171231-142935.png

[Floyd Gondolli]

Relative ISOLATED POWER: Some Pre-1920 hitters:

Gavvy Cravath 217
Joe Jackson 187
Sam Crawford 183
Dan Brouthers 178
Sam Thompson 174
Roger Connor 172
Honus Wagner 167
Ed Delahanty 166
Tris Speaker 163
Frank Baker 162
Ty Cobb 159
Nap Lajoie 159

Rel Slugging Through 2003, over 5,000 PA, indexed and park adjusted.

1 Babe Ruth------- 172.5
2 Ted Williams-----154.9
3 Lou Gehrig-------154.0
4 Barry Bonds------148.4
5 Rogers Hornsby---147.3
[COLOR=#FF0000][B]6 Joe Jackson------144.8[/B][/COLOR]
7 Hank Greenberg---143.9
8 Mickey Mantle----143.8
9 Mark McGwire-----143.8
10 Jimmie Foxx-----143.7
11 Joe DiMaggio ---142.9
12 Johnny Mize-----142.1
13 Dan Brouthers---141.4
14 Ty Cobb---------141.4
15 Hank Aaron------140.6
16 Dick Allen------140.0
17 Willie Mays-----139.2
18 Stan Musial-----137.1
19 Willie Stargell-137.1
20 Frank Robinson--135.5
21 Pete Browning---135.3
22 Manny Ramirez---135.0
23 Tris Speaker----134.3
24 Mel Ott---------134.1
25 Albert Belle----134.0
26 Nap Lajoie------133.9
27 Ralph Kiner-----133.7
28 Mike Schmidt----133.6
29 Sam Thompson----133.5
30 Alex Rodriguez--133.4
31 Ed Delahanty----133.4
32 Honus Wagner----132.9
33 Willie McCovey--132.9
34 Roger Connor----132.6
35 Sam Crawford----132.5
36 Juan Gonzalez---132.5
37 Frank Howard----132.2
38 Frank Thomas----132.2
39 Jeff Heath------131.8
40 Wally Berger----131.6
41 Harry Heilman---131.2
42 Jim Thome-------131.0
43 Hack Wilson-----130.9
44 Harry Stovey----130.3
45 Mike Piazza-----129.7
46 Babe Herman-----129.6
47 Darryl Strawberry-129.3
-- Ken Griffey Jr--128.9
-- Jeff Bagwell----127.9
-- Sammy Sosa------126.5

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Sorry Floyd you are simply stating the same third party quote. There is a direct quote from a book Ruth co-authored where he said Cobb was the greatest natural hitter. So which quote are we to believe? But in the end it doesn't really matter what tbe Babe said because the statistical records of both hitters clearly show that Cobb was the superior hitter and that is not really debatable. Cobb won 12 batting titles, led the league in OBP 7 times, led in slugging 8 times, and led in OPS+ 11 times. Just looking during Jackson's career (1908-20) Cobb hit .377/.441/.527, 186 OPS+. Cobb was superior to Jackson.

Also Jackson certainly was not the first hitter in the Dead Ball Era to swing hard and crush baseballs. Honus Wagner was doing that long before Jackson arrived in the majors.

[Badge714]

Re: Joe Jackson's power - I found this on Wikipedia:

"Well, I had tried out a few schemes of my own, until one day I began to watch Joe Jackson. He looked to me about the freest, longest hitter I had seen anywhere. He could take a good, natural cut at the ball without losing his balance and when he landed the ball usually kept going until it disappeared. If you will remember, he was the first to hit one over the right field stands at the Polo Grounds. So I said to myself: If that style works so well with Jackson, why not for me? And I began keeping my right foot well forward and my left foot well back. In the first place, being a left-handed hitter, this gave me a chance to get in a lot of leverage and to get my full weight back of the punch. It brought my body around in a half turn and as I stepped into the ball with my right foot I was turning in a natural way in the same direction my bat was traveling. I tried this idea out; it worked great—and I've stuck to it ever since."

As quoted "The Sportlight: Learning From Others" by Grantland Rice, in The New York Tribune (March 15, 1923), p. 14

Jackson hit one out the Polo Grounds in 1913. It is my understanding that the ball did not actually clear the roof. The ball hit the top of the roof and bounded over hit. Ruth's home runs actually cleared the roof.

And this from a Ballparks website:

"The introduction of American League baseball to the Polo Grounds also meant the presence of star power for which the AL, by now the stronger loop, had monopolized. The great Shoeless Joe Jackson, playing for Cleveland in 1913, flexed his muscles and became the first player to hit a home run off the top of the right-field roof and out of the ballpark; he was also one of two players to land one in the distant center-field bleachers before the Polo Grounds’ expansion, in 1923, pushed them back even further."

Note: In 1913 it was 433 feet to dead center. That was quite a pop in the dead ball era.

Shoeless also had an arm. In that benefit game at Fenway for T. H. Murnane in 1917 Shoeless had the winning toss of 396' 8". Babe Ruth won the fungo hitting contest with a wallop of 402' 8" which was just 17 feet shy of the all-time record set by Ed Walsh six years earlier. Of all people Walter Johnson was third in the hitting for distance contest with a 360' wallop. Ruth later eclipsed Walsh's record in 1929 when he hit a fungo of 447' at Yankee Stadium. Incidentally that 396' toss by Jackson was well shy of the then world record toss of 419 & 1/2 feet set by "Big Ed" Walsh on September 30, 1911! Ruth, Walter Johnson, and Ed Walsh - What's with these power hitting pitchers?

[Floyd Gondolli]

Re: Joe Jackson's power - I found this on Wikipedia:

"Well, I had tried out a few schemes of my own, until one day I began to watch Joe Jackson. He looked to me about the freest, longest hitter I had seen anywhere. He could take a good, natural cut at the ball without losing his balance and when he landed the ball usually kept going until it disappeared. If you will remember, he was the first to hit one over the right field stands at the Polo Grounds. So I said to myself: If that style works so well with Jackson, why not for me? And I began keeping my right foot well forward and my left foot well back. In the first place, being a left-handed hitter, this gave me a chance to get in a lot of leverage and to get my full weight back of the punch. It brought my body around in a half turn and as I stepped into the ball with my right foot I was turning in a natural way in the same direction my bat was traveling. I tried this idea out; it worked great—and I've stuck to it ever since."

As quoted "The Sportlight: Learning From Others" by Grantland Rice, in The New York Tribune (March 15, 1923), p. 14

Jackson hit one out the Polo Grounds in 1913. It is my understanding that the ball did not actually clear the roof. The ball hit the top of the roof and bounded over hit. Ruth's home runs actually cleared the roof.

And this from a Ballparks website:

"The introduction of American League baseball to the Polo Grounds also meant the presence of star power for which the AL, by now the stronger loop, had monopolized. The great Shoeless Joe Jackson, playing for Cleveland in 1913, flexed his muscles and became the first player to hit a home run off the top of the right-field roof and out of the ballpark; he was also one of two players to land one in the distant center-field bleachers before the Polo Grounds’ expansion, in 1923, pushed them back even further."

Note: In 1913 it was 433 feet to dead center. That was quite a pop in the dead ball era.

Shoeless also had an arm. In that benefit game at Fenway for T. H. Murnane in 1917 Shoeless had the winning toss of 396' 8". Babe Ruth won the fungo hitting contest with a wallop of 402' 8" which was just 17 feet shy of the all-time record set by Ed Walsh six years earlier. Of all people Walter Johnson was third in the hitting for distance contest with a 360' wallop. Ruth later eclipsed Walsh's record in 1929 when he hit a fungo of 447' at Yankee Stadium. Incidentally that 396' toss by Jackson was well shy of the then world record toss of 419 & 1/2 feet set by "Big Ed" Walsh on September 30, 1911! Ruth, Walter Johnson, and Ed Walsh - What's with these power hitting pitchers?

Thank you, Badge, for substantiating the obvious...when one person is pontificating redundantly, and demonstrably hasn't read or researched anything on this topic....( beyond the breadth and depth yielded vis-a-vis a 10 second Google search.)

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Thank you, Badge, for substantiating the obvious...when one person is pontificating redundantly, and demonstrably hasn't read or researched anything on this topic....( beyond the breadth and depth yielded vis-a-vis a 10 second Google search.)

Yes, Floyd, stop with your Google searches. Your complete ignorance of what I have researched not withstanding I'm not going rehash stuff I researched and have posted for years here at BBF. You can look it up yourself. If you truly believe Joe Jackson was a better hitter than Ty Cobb then I will not waste my time responding any longer. Good day sir.

[Floyd Gondolli]

He was a much better power hitter and slugger. He actually held the bat so far off the handle that his pinkie finger was off the bat. Among all time greats, only Lajoie and Delahanty are known to approach hitting to this extreme prior to Jackson. You won't find that nuance and depth with your Googling, through.

What (specifically) am I ignoring or neglecting to acknowledge re: Joe Jackson's (pretty much) unprecedented isolated slugging numbers (read: true power in the modern sense), his hitting approach, and his influence on Babe Ruth?

[Sultan_1895-1948]

Ruth was swinging from the heels and crushing baseballs as a young teen at St Mary's. It is thought that watching Bro Matthias crush high towering fungos had an influence. There is no record of Ruth even seeing Jackson play until he became a pro.

[Badge714]

I looked at a list of American League batting leaders in 1920 and found Shoeless Joe very high in each category, usually placing in the top five. I selected that year because it was the year he hit his most home runs, 12, which was far behind Ruth's total of 54. But, who wasn't far behind?

I'm still impressed with Shoeless Joe's throwing arm. Here is one man's list of the 40 best outfield arms in history. He has Ruth the 15th best and Jackson the 10th. Number 1 was Roberto Clemente (266 assists). Number 2 was the "Reading Rifle," Carl Furillo (151 assists). This is not to start any arguments. I just found it interesting:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1...seball-history

[Floyd Gondolli]

Ruth was swinging from the heels and crushing baseballs as a young teen at St Mary's. It is thought that watching Bro Matthias crush high towering fungos had an influence. There is no record of Ruth even seeing Jackson play until he became a pro.

And when Ruth watched Joe that first game of his career 7/11/14, it perhaps made and impact of him. Alpng with Jacksons rep and career numbers by that point.

When Ruth watched Jackson hit for raw power, taking full cuts regardless of the situation with his pinkie off the handle when the rest of the league was place hitting almost exclusively (Including Cobb and Speaker), it probably made an impact.

When he hit the longest HR in the history of League Park ~460 feet against the Deadball, people noticed.

When he hit the longest home run in the history of the polo grounds over the right field grandstand in 13' against trick pitcheds and a very dead ball people noticed. It was by far the longest HR in the park until Babe came along.

Joe Jackson had only 18 home runs at home and 36 on the road. Before they changed the ball in 19' half of his career HR were not hit over the fence. This coming from a guy with the same Relative Isolated Slugging career numbers as 500-600 HR players of later eras.

He blows away everyone else 1910-1920 in raw/isolated slugging. It's mostly masked by his parks. Ex: he hit twice as many triples at home as on the road. Most if not almost all of those triples would be home runs in the 20s and 30s.

[elmer]

Grantland Rice article titled Greatest Natural Batsman Springfield Daily Republican June 27, 1932.

[Badge714]

Grantland Rice article titled Greatest Natural Batsman Springfield Daily Republican June 27, 1932.

Thanks Elmer. Good to finally read the article referenced by so many.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

This belongs in the "debunking myths" section.

Ruth was playing 150+ games per year at St. Mary's and crushing baseball's with his own style. Brothers Matthias and Gilbert have attested that Ruth's approach and batting form did not change one bit from before he signed and into his pro days.

There is no evidence Ruth saw Jackson play prior to seeing him on the same field while they were both professionals. Any testimony or acknowledgement by Ruth towards Jackson is simply a nod of the cap. That doesn't mean he might not have implemented a small thing here or there once having seen him, but the point remains and cannot be stated emphatically enough. RUTH WAS ABSOLUTELY MURDERING BASEBALLS AS A YOUNG TEEN WHO HAD NEVER SEEN JACKSON PLAY.

This fable belongs in the John Goodman movie. It would have you believe Babe was signed as a pitcher who was a slappy, choke up contact style hitter, who, once having seen Jackson hit, became an amazing power hitter. That is absurd. He was setting distance records in parks before even having signed.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

And when Ruth watched Joe that first game of his career 7/11/14, it perhaps made and impact of him. Alpng with Jacksons rep and career numbers by that point.

When Ruth watched Jackson hit for raw power, taking full cuts regardless of the situation with his pinkie off the handle when the rest of the league was place hitting almost exclusively (Including Cobb and Speaker), it probably made an impact.

When he hit the longest HR in the history of League Park ~460 feet against the Deadball, people noticed.

When he hit the longest home run in the history of the polo grounds over the right field grandstand in 13' against trick pitcheds and a very dead ball people noticed. It was by far the longest HR in the park until Babe came along.

Joe Jackson had only 18 home runs at home and 36 on the road. Before they changed the ball in 19' half of his career HR were not hit over the fence. This coming from a guy with the same Relative Isolated Slugging career numbers as 500-600 HR players of later eras.

He blows away everyone else 1910-1920 in raw/isolated slugging. It's mostly masked by his parks. Ex: he hit twice as many triples at home as on the road. Most if not almost all of those triples would be home runs in the 20s and 30s.

You acting as if you're teaching me something about either Babe, or Shoeless is humorous.

It's an absurd notion. Ruth was shattering the established mold long before he ever saw Jackson play. Period.