*Babe Ruth Thread*

[Sultan_1895-1948]

Maybe this has been posted before here. But if anyone wants to read Waite Hoyt's book, Babe Ruth as I Knew Him or look at a lot of photos from the book look below.

Babe Ruth as I Knew Him by Waite Hoyt

Can't thank you enough Dto7.....Burgess sent me the link. Been trying to get my hands on that for years. So friekin cool!! Thanks so much :guitar:

[Dto7]

Can't thank you enough Dto7.....Burgess sent me the link. Been trying to get my hands on that for years. So friekin cool!! Thanks so much :guitar:

You're welcome, like you I've been looking also to read the book.

[SHOELESSJOE3]

Video of Babe autographing a ball for 7 year old James Tonking, Yankee Stadium 1929.
Ball now in possession of JP Cohen owner of Memory Lane.
Going up for auction some time in December, possibly Dec. 15.

[SultanOfWhat]

Charlie Sheen wearing Ruth's 1927 World Series ring. Strangely appropriate in one sense, as The Babe was quite a carouser himself before he met Claire, but I'd rather see that ring in a safer place.




Interesting article about that ring's unknown journey to Barry Halper (who turned out to be a shady character) and then to Sheen:

http://deadspin.com/5775565/the-mess...s-winning-ring


NYT article about the tape measure home run Ruth hit over the RF bleachers of Comiskey Park in 1921. Bill Jenkinson estimates the blow as his third longest, at 545 feet:




Here is Ruth at Comiskey in 1921, with the bleachers behind him:




Might be Ruth's first day in a NY uniform:







Still (screencap) from the "Called Shot" in 1932:





Ruth negative for sale on eBay:




Three calendars showing views of St. Mary's, in Ruth's last year there (?):

[Sultan_1895-1948]

Interesting tidbit....

In order to qualify for the batting title or consideration for batting rate stats, you need 502 PA or 3.1 PA/G.

Babe's career numbers change a bit if you remove those non-qualifying seasons of 1914-'18.

In BA he goes from an exact tie in ninth place with Brouthers at .3421.....

to an exact tie in fifth place with Delahanty at .3458

Falls below 700 HR at 694 but his AB/HR ratio goes from 11.76 to 11.12

His OBP only goes to .477....

but his SA jumps up to .705

Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa put up seven individual seasons of .705 +.

If you remove those (for obvious reasons), that career .705 SA would be good for 17th place on the all-time single season SA list.


SA.jpg

[SultanOfWhat]

Yes, The Babe really dominates in many statistical measures. Here are the advanced stats from Baseball Reference.com. They are putting a gold halo around certain all-time records, as well as seasonal ERA and batting average titles. Note that Ruth also leads all-time in RC/G (an attempt to determine how many runs per game a line-up with 9 of that player would score) at 12.6, in ISO (isolated power, which is SLG minus AVG), and in Total Average (TotA).





Here are some images showing a good view of CF in Wrigley Field a few years after the "Called Shot". Looks like the layout is the same as when The babe hit his drive. I think that the ticket booth off of which the ball caromed is visible in this view:

[pheasant]

Interesting tidbit....

In order to qualify for the batting title or consideration for batting rate stats, you need 502 PA or 3.1 PA/G.

Babe's career numbers change a bit if you remove those non-qualifying seasons of 1914-'18.

In BA he goes from an exact tie in ninth place with Brouthers at .3421.....

to an exact tie in fifth place with Delahanty at .3458

Falls below 700 HR at 694 but his AB/HR ratio goes from 11.76 to 11.12

His OBP only goes to .477....

but his SA jumps up to .705

Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa put up seven individual seasons of .705 +.

If you remove those (for obvious reasons), that career .705 SA would be good for 17th place on the all-time single season SA list.

I also use his 1919-1935 stats; especially when comparing him to modern sluggers in the Live Ball era. 1919 was the first year he wasn't bogged down with 20+ decisions on the mound and the first year of the Live Ball. That .705 number is crazy. Let's think about that. In 1938, Foxx had 50 HRs and led the league in avg at .349 and slugging at .704. In order for Ruth to sink that LOW for a 16 year stretch in the Live Ball era, we have to include 3 declining years(1932-1934, also some of 1935), a belly ache year(1925), and a suspension year(1922). And Foxx played in a more hitter-friendly park in 1938 than Ruth did for his entire career.

[SHOELESSJOE3]

I think I see the booth in your shots Randy, not sure.
Here is an overhead, you can see the booth in this shot.
That ball was hit almost to the intersection of Sheffield and Waveland Ave.

Here he is rounding the bases, waving to the CUb bench

Root describes pitch.

That red circle you see is where he hit his first home run.Those bleachers are actually in the street, Sheffield Ave., outside the park. Temporary bleachers built for the World Series, increase seating capacity

[SHOELESSJOE3]

Here we can see the temp bleacher built on Sheffield and Waveland Ave.
I always call this the unofficial "Called Shot''. On his way to the plate, points the bleachers in right, home run, RF bleachers.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

---------------------

There was no cause for the editing of the above post. The fact it was edited only further convinces me that: (1) my posts are being specifically monitored; and (2) certain people's sensitive feelings are being catered to.

Worse, the editing of the above post left it so the post appears non-responsive to csh's invocation of the fact, surprising to nobody familiar with this site, that certain others have written against the proposition Ruth was far greater than Cobb.

As I said on the now-expunged portion of my post, I live in Northern California and am accustomed to being criticized by both baseball fans and baseball history buffs for my high rating of Ty Cobb. By putting him #3 and being open to the possibility he was #2--and thus better than Mays, a really sacrilegious notion around here--I have him much higher than all but one person I know in real life (an elderly Bridge player whom I know only slightly). I am thus generally regarded as a Cobb fan or "Cobb freak."

But do I think the old misanthrope was within a mile of Ruth? NO. Almost 200 points apart in slugging average! Forty points apart in OBP. Experts split on who was the better fielder, though that wouldn't matter in the face of such enormous offensive disparities. Huge edge to Cobb on the bases, but ditto.

Bill James has said that not all observers felt Cobb was better than Speaker. I feel I've looked into that point, with an honest and open mind, well enough to be convinced that Cobb was in fact quite a bit better than Speaker. This is yet more proof that great defense, even from a great all-around player, just can't make up for spectacular hitting.

Likewise, many people, including James, feel Wagner was better than Cobb... though, again, god knows why. As I've said on this thread, I created a thread--my first ever on this site, in fact--to get input from people who know about Wagner, so I could learn about why he's supposed to be so great. And I learned enough that I moved him from the bottom of my Top 20 up to #9. But there's no way I'd put him ahead of Cobb.

Thus, to me it's clear that Cobb was the #1 Dead Ball player. But to lots of others, it apparently isn't. To many, it's apparently just as clear that Wagner was the greatest, and to at least some, it's still clear--as apparently it was when they all played--that Speaker is all-around #1 of that era.

I find it very, very, very clear that Babe Ruth was the greatest MLB player ever. I think the margin by which he exceeds all other players (excluding the Bonds of 2000-2004) is nearly the same as the margin by which Honus Wagner exceeds all other shortstops. No, not quite that big a margin, but nearly so.

A lot of things could have happened to make the margin between Ruth and any of several players much smaller. To wit:

(1) Ted Williams could have not missed those five seasons;

(2) Jimmie Foxx could have done what I did, recognized the destructiveness of alcoholism, and beaten his habit--though, in truth, even if he'd broken Ruth's career HR record, those home/road career splits I saw would make it hard for me to put him at Ruth's level;

(3) Lou Gehrig could have avoided one of the cruelest fates ever, and perhaps played productively through the end of 1942, at which time I'm sure he would have joined the military, just like many others did who were born when he was;

(4) Ty Cobb could have been a Live Ball player and not been stuck with McGrawesque stubbornness in believing Dead Ball-style hitting was better (and I'm not saying he was as pigheaded as McGraw; he was 33 when the 1920 season started, and given the depth of the RF fence in Detroit, I think he was correct to keep playing his way);

(5) Mays could have played from 1946-1966, and not missed 1.5 years in the military;

(6) Mantle could have played the same years, not injured his arm, and not had osteomyelitis; or

(7) By a long stretch of the fancy, despite his giant body, Frank Thomas could have remained for 17 full seasons the same hitter he was for his first 7 full seasons.

If any of these things had happened, it would not be nearly so obvious to me that Babe Ruth was the greatest player ever, and I would not say he was #1 by a "huge" margin. While #7 is a real stretch of the imagination, and #'s 4, 5 and 6 involve recreating someone's year of birth, #'s 1 and 3 are not such long shots, especially #3. Also, assuming that Bonds was clean until 1999--which I firmly believe--and assuming he was going to remain a very good, productive player of his traditional speed/power combo until about age 40 without cheating (which I also believe), I would have moved him way up my list, though I doubt I'd have put him above Mays or Cobb, much less considered him near Ruth.

Anyway, although it's surprising when you think about it, the fact remains that none of those things happened... just as it's true that Ruth got screwed out of five years in the front of his career because he was pitching, hitting a dead baseball, and had a home park where it was a million feet to RF. God only knows what his career stats would look like if he'd played under normal circumstances, as a full-time player, in those years... but I can guarantee his career slugging average would be over .700, which is pretty much an unfathomable stat, considering we went from 1957 (Ted Williams) until 1994 (PRESTO!!! All kinds of people!) without even a single-season slugging average of .700 or higher.

No. I don't think Cobb is close to Ruth. The only counter-argument I see... and I do think it's a good one... is that in addition to inevitably scoring a zillion runs over the course of his long career, Cobb somehow managed to knock in over 1,900 runs. No, of course he didn't knock in as many as Ruth, despite having over 3,000 more AB's, but he knocked in more runs than Jimmie Foxx, Willie Mays, Ted Williams and legendary RBI machine Eddie Murray, as well as every other player in MLB history except for five (soon to be six, when Bonds "passes" him). Considering that Cobb hit almost no HR's, that RBI total is an extremely impressive stat.

On this new "runs created" stat, Ruth is #1 and Cobb is "only" #4 as of the start of this year--undoubtedly #5 now, since Bonds was right behind him then. But the original "runs created" stat was Runs Scored + RBI's - HR's, and using that stat, Cobb would have to be way ahead of Aaron, Ruth or whomever. No matter how long he played, it's hard not to be impressed by that stat, and it's his huge RBI total which does it for him.

That's also why I rate Cobb ahead of people I otherwise would consider superior hitters, like Williams and Musial.

But Ruth was a monster. He led his league in slugging 13 times in 14 years, including in a season where he was repeatedly suspended. He outhomered entire teams. And he was scarcely a one-dimensional player. He had a higher lifetime batting average than Tony Gwynn. Not counting guys who didn't play full careers (i.e., Hornsby [played about 1.5 seasons while player-managing from age 34 to age 41], Joe Jackson, O'Doul, Delahanty), Ruth had a higher lifetime BATTING average than every 20th Century player except Ty Cobb (who is tons ahead of the rest), Speaker and Williams. He had a higher lifetime OBP, a more important stat, than everyone but Williams. And prior to Steroid Ball and cheats like McGwire, Sosa and Bonds, he had a HR% which was preposterously better than anyone else's--1 per 11.76 AB's; Kiner, in a shortened career, was 2nd at 1 every 14.11 AB's.

So he got on base more often than everybody but one guy. The next closest 20th Century player was TWENTY-SEVEN points behind him.

He had a preposterous edge in career slugging average, despite wasting five years hitting a dead baseball in a humongous RF. The next closest guys, Williams and Gehrig, are FIFTY-SIX and FIFTY-EIGHT points behind him, respectively.

He was 3 points behind Speaker and 2 points behind Williams in career batting average, among guys with full careers in the 20th Century. Only Cobb was significantly ahead, and obviously he was way ahead (24 or 25 points, depending on which figure you use for Cobb--I was raised on the .367 figure).

He dominated HR's and slugging average to the same degree Cobb dominated batting average, and regardless of how important one considers HR's, I think it's pretty obvious slugging is more important than batting average. If that's not clear, it's certainly pellucid that OBP is more important than BA, and Ruth has a huge edge there.

Ruth wasn't just the biggest American cultural icon of the first half of the last century because he played in NY and came along at the perfect moment. He also was the great American idol because he utterly dominated the game of baseball, like nobody before him or since.

I cannot say how greatly I regret the fact that Oscar Charleston, who was only one year Ruth's junior and was also a natural left-handed hitter with a barrel chest and tremendous strength, never got to compete against him. Charleston is the one guy who, based on all of the comments I've read that others made about him, may have been a greater player than Ruth. If this really were an egalitarian society, we'd all have at least a pretty good idea how the two of them compared.

As I've said before, I do not believe Charleston was Ruth's equal as a hitter. But if he'd been 90% of Ruth as a hitter, that might have been enough, considering that everyone said he played CF like Speaker and ran the bases like Cobb. If Charleston had slugged .621 for his MLB career, and had a .427 OBP, and hit 643 HR's, with Cobb-like SB's and doubles and triples feats, and Speaker-like CF play, would that have put him ahead of Ruth as a player? I don't know, but it's an interesting question to contemplate. And considering the money the Yankees started hauling in courtesy of Ruth's and Gehrig's feats, they easily could have paid Charleston as well, had it been allowed.

I don't know. But an awful lot of people would have watched Ruth and Charleston closely, and hopefully many of them could have looked beyond their racial biases and/or their anti-Ruth biases (because a lot of people hated his revolutionary style of ball), and left objective, informed opinions for all of us to read.

There was a tragedy, on a lot of levels.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

You saying this is is Shoeless?

ticketbooth.jpg

[SHOELESSJOE3]

You saying this is is Shoeless?

[ATTACH]117603[/ATTACH]

OK I see, looking at it again, the pic on the left is more clear, lighter, does look like the booth.
Could probably see as well in the in the picture on the right, but it's darker but good enough to call it the booth.
Between these pics and the overheads I posted we can be sure of where the booth is.
Not to mention any names, some years back I had a big debate with another BBF poster.
I said it hit the booth, one of the posters said no it did not. His take, the ball traveled no more than 450 feet

My belief, if it did hit that booth, more like close to 480 feet.
The debate went on for a length of time until I found a book at the public library with the description, the ball did strike the ticket booth

[stuarthouse]

My understanding is that the ball struck the ticket booth on a line and ricocheted back into the park, landing in the temporary field seats. The man who retrieved the ball went to Ruth after the game to get it autographed. Ruth wanted the ball and offered $20 and some other autographed balls for it. The man agreed and turned the ball over to Ruth. Ruth looked at it and handed it to a teammate saying "look at that." The ball was lopsided.

OK I see, looking at it again, the pic on the left is more clear, lighter, does look like the booth.
Could probably see as well in the in the picture on the right, but it's darker but good enough to call it the booth.
Between these pics and the overheads I posted we can be sure of where the booth is.
Not to mention any names, some years back I had a big debate with another BBF poster.
I said it hit the booth, one of the posters said no it did not. His take, the ball traveled no more than 450 feet

My belief, if it did hit that booth, more like close to 480 feet.
The debate went on for a length of time until I found a book at the public library with the description, the ball did strike the ticket booth

[bluesky5]

The other day I saw a clip of the Orioles inaugural parade through Baltimore. There was a huge banner saying [something like this]:

Welcome the Orioles to Baltimore

Home of Babe Ruth

I just thought that was cool.

[SHOELESSJOE3]

My understanding is that the ball struck the ticket booth on a line and ricocheted back into the park, landing in the temporary field seats. The man who retrieved the ball went to Ruth after the game to get it autographed. Ruth wanted the ball and offered $20 and some other autographed balls for it. The man agreed and turned the ball over to Ruth. Ruth looked at it and handed it to a teammate saying "look at that." The ball was lopsided.

That could be Stuart, not sure what took place after it struck the booth
Could have taken that bounce. This was not of of Babe's mile high drives, lower and faster.
Cub CF Johnny Moore took only one step back then just watched the ball go overhead.

Walter Johnson said Babe drives at times were like a golf ball driven off a tee, also a distinct clicking sound, like billiard balls when the collide.
Johnson was asked, ........who hits the longest home runs, he gave no name but said, I can tell you one thing, the balls Ruth hits, get smaller quicker.