How ‘Ruthian’ was Babe Ruth?

 

The ultimate comparison of sluggers in baseball occurs when a player is linked to George Herman “Babe” Ruth. Ruth is arguably the greatest player to ever swing a bat. His nicknames include The Bambino, Sultan of Swat, Big Bam, Behemoth of Bust, Colossus of Clout, and Maharajah of Mash. There is an old saying in sabermetrical studies: If you conduct a sabermetrical analysis of the greatest players in baseball history and Babe Ruth does not come out at or near the top, something’s wrong with your study.

Besides his prowess at the plate, Ruth was a great pitcher. Had he spent his playing time only on the mound, he still might have been elected to the Hall of Fame. He never had a losing season. He had a .671 career winning percentage (94-46, which places him 12th in major-league history on the career list) and a lifetime earned-run average of 2.28. He led all American League hurlers in 1916 with a 1.75 mark in 40 starts, including nine shutouts, and completed 107 of 147 starts. Ruth’s World Series record was 3-0, with two complete games, a shutout, and a 0.87 ERA. He also set the pitching record of 29⅔ consecutive scoreless innings in the World Series – a record Ruth held for 43 seasons.1

Let’s concentrate on hitting, though. How dominant was The Babe with a bat in his hands? In 1918, the 23-year-old Ruth split time between mound duties (winning 13 of 20 decisions) and being a position player for the Boston Red Sox. He played 59 games in the outfield and 13 more at first base. In 317 at-bats, he clubbed 11 home runs to tie Tillie Walker for tops in the American League. Walker, an outfielder with the Philadelphia Athletics, needed 414 at-bats to get the same number. A year later Ruth smacked 29 homers to lead both leagues, setting a new record for home runs in a single season, breaking Ned Williamson’s 1884 record of 27. Second-most in 1919 was Gavvy Cravath, who hit 12 for the Philadelphia Phillies. In 1920, his first season with the New York Yankees, Ruth became the first batter in history to hit 30, 40, and then 50 home runs in a season, when he clouted 54 round-trippers. Second place that year in the American League was future Hall of Famer George Sisler (29); in the National League, the leader was Cy Williams (15).

What makes Ruth’s 1920 totals more impressive is the fact that he hit more home runs than every other team in the American League (meaning his 54 were more than the totals of each and every other AL team); Ruth also out-homered all but one National League squad. In his career, Ruth out-homered 90 teams, including four ties. Further, he single-handedly out-homered pairs of teams 18 times. Not too many players can claim to have out-homered an entire team, and the last time this was somewhat possible was during World War II, when the Chicago White Sox hit a paltry 33 home runs in 1943, 23 home runs in 1944, and 22 in 1945.2

Roger Connor was an infielder for the New York Giants and St. Louis Cardinals who played from 1880 to 1897. Connor hit 138 home runs in his career. Ruth had 108 total at the end of the 1920 campaign, and he had been an everyday player for only two seasons.

In the bottom of the eighth inning in a July 19, 1921, contest at Detroit’s Navin Field, Ruth sent a Bert Cole pitch over the fence at the deepest part of the ballpark. The historic shot officially measured a distance of 560 feet, giving Ruth his 36th home run of the season and the 139th of his career,3 passing Connor. Ruth, of course, continued to add to his home-run total. He hit 23 more round-trippers in 1921, setting a new season high of 59, breaking his own record of 54 set the season before. His career total continued to increase over the next 14 seasons, finally settling on 714 in 1935. That record stood until 1974, when Hank Aaron hit his 715th. Ruth had owned the career home-run record for 53 seasons.

Ruth led the majors in home runs 11 times. (In 1930 he hit 49 homers to lead the AL, but Chicago Cubs slugger Hack Wilson smacked 56 to lead both leagues.) In the first All-Star Game, in 1933, the 38-year-old Ruth hit the very first home run in the midsummer classic’s history.

Ruth was a consistent batter. He batted .343 with 271 home runs with none on base and .352 with 274 homers with men on (not in scoring position); with runners in scoring position, Ruth hit .351 with 146 home runs. He batted .315 in games in which he pitched. He slugged .698 at home and .682 away.

The Babe finished his career at the top of most offensive categories. In 2,503 games he posted a .342 batting average, 10th best in history. His career RBI mark of 2,214 stood for 40 years (also broken by Aaron). In 1922 he overtook Dan Brouthers for the highest career slugging percentage (.696). That number eventually settled to .690 (remember, Ruth played until 1935), but it still, almost 100 years later, leads all batters for a career level. Ruth’s single-season slugging mark of .847 held the top spot from 1920 until 2001, when Barry Bonds posted an .863 slugging percentage.

Using recent statistics, Ruth’s career numbers still show dominance. His lifetime Offensive Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is 154.3, a mark that has stood at the top since he surpassed Ty Cobb’s 151.2 career number in 1933. The Offensive WAR career list names the best of the best. After Ruth and Cobb come Barry Bonds (143.7), Willie Mays (136.8), and Hank Aaron (132.4. Rounding out the top 10 are Ted Williams (126.4), Stan Musial (124.8), Tris Speaker (124.2), Honus Wagner (123.3), and Rogers Hornsby (121.8). Regarding his contemporaries, Ruth led the majors in Offensive WAR in seven seasons, finished second five times, and made the the top 10 list in every season from 1918 to 1933.

The Bambino’s on-base percentage of .4739 ranks second all-time, behind Ted Williams’s .4817, which means that Ruth’s 1.1636 OPS is tops, and might be tops for a long time to come.4 Ruth did not have the luxury of being a designated hitter, a rule change adopted by the American League in 1973. He played every day, averaging 140 games per season from 1919 through 1933. Toss in 10 postseasons (all in the World Series) in which he averaged .326 and hit 15 home runs, and Ruth showed he could perform at the highest level anytime, against any opponent.

Beyond the statistics, can we scientifically measure how dominant Ruth was as a home-run hitter? In the October 1921 edition of Popular Science Monthly, researchers at Columbia University in New York City hooked up Ruth to apparatus after apparatus and “analyzed his brain, his eye, his ear, his muscles; studied how these worked together, reassembled him, and announced the exact reasons for his supremacy as a batter and a ballplayer.”5 This was after his phenomenal 1921 season. One test required Ruth to put a stylus in three holes on a triangular-shaped board in consecutive order. He did it 132 times in one minute. Another test required him to press a telegraph key when a light flashed. He responded more than 10 percent quicker than the average man. According to the article, “the tests revealed the fact that Ruth is 90 per cent efficient compared with a human average of 60 per cent. [Ruth’s] eyes are about 12 per cent faster than those of the average human being. [His] ears function at least 10 per cent faster than those of the ordinary man. [His] nerves are steadier than those of 499 out of 500 persons. In intelligence, as demonstrated by quickness and accuracy of understanding, he is approximately 10 per cent above normal.”6 The researchers used results from their tests to explain Ruth’s superiority. Then, in a surprise, they revealed that he could be even better than his 59-home-run self in 1921. Ruth evidently held his breath while hitting, and “for that reason, he is not getting the maximum force into his batting.”7 The report concluded that by “dissecting the ‘home run king’ [the researchers] discovered brain instead of bone, and showed how little mere luck, or even mere hitting strength, has to do with Ruth’s phenomenal record.”8

Some critics might say that Ruth never played at night, never played against African-Americans, never had to battle jet lag, etc. However, Ruth had a reputation for playing hard, both on the field and off it. He still had to hit the ball where they ain’t when he stepped into the batter’s box, no matter who the opponent was or what he had done the night before. And his success, far and away above those who played before him, with him, and after him, is why we define baseball dominance as Ruthian.

MIKE HUBER is a Professor of Mathematics at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He enjoys researching and writing about rare events in baseball, and he joined SABR in 1996 after teaching his first sabermetrics course, which included many discussions about the dominance of Babe Ruth.

 

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, the author consulted baseball-reference.com and retrosheet.org.