How could I write the first installment of my "great sports figures" series on anyone else? I considered Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan, but there was really only one choice. It would be blasphemous to choose anyone else. While Ali and Jordan are both surely more internationally renowned (they are probably more well known in the U.S. at this point too), no one has truly transcended sports the way that Babe Ruth has. Ruth died 58 years ago last August 16. He played his last game over 71 years ago. He played his first game 92 years ago. It is remarkable that so many generations have passed, yet I would guess that he is still one of the 5 most well known sports figures in the United States. No single sports figure embodies the ethos of American sporting culture, of the need to raise athletes to legendary, even mythological status, as much as George Herman "Babe" Ruth. Ruth was our Achilles, our King Arthur. He was Paul Bunyan brought to life. He was "The Great Bambino," "The Sultan of Swat," "The Colossus of Clout." One season, he hit more home runs than any other team in the entire league. He also happened to begin his career as a pitcher.Ruth debuted for the Boston Red Sox as a pitcher on July 11, 1914. At the time he was 19 years old. Ruth only pitched in 4 games in 1914, but by 1915 he was a feature member of the Red Sox' rotation. In 32 games pitched (including 28 starts), Ruth won 18 games while losing only 8. He threw 16 complete games and his ERA (runs allowed per 9 innings) of 2.44 was 14% above the league average. Ruth's 18 wins were good enough for 9th best in the league, while his win-loss percentage of .692 was 4th best. Ruth also allowed the 2nd fewest hits in the league per 9 innings, just 6.86 and his 4.63 strikeouts per nine innings was 8th best. 1915 was also the season in which people would first begin to notice Ruth's hitting ability, though the extent of it was not discovered for years to come. In just 92 at bats, Ruth would hit 4 home runs, good enough for 9th best in a league where Braggo Roth won the home run title with 7 over 384 at bats. Ruth would hit 5 home runs over the 1916 and 1917 seasons, but it would not be until 1918 that people would fully begin to realize his greatness.
1916 was Ruth's best season as a pitcher. He pitched in 44 of the team's 154 games, starting 41 of them. Winning 23 games while losing just 12, Ruth led the league with an ERA of just 1.75, 58% above the league average. Ruth won the 3rd most games in the league and had the 5th best win-loss percentage (.657). He also had the 5th best WHIP (walks+hits per 9 innings) and allowed only 6.40 hits per 9 innings, the best in the league. Ruth's 323 2/3 innings pitched and 170 strikeouts were both 3rd best in the league, whiile his 41 games started and 9 shutouts both led the league. According to Bill James' revolutionary Win Shares method (too difficult to attempt to explain), Ruth was the second best pitcher in the American League and the third best pitcher in all of baseball in 1916, behind only the hall of famers Pete Alexander and Walter Johnson.
I wanted to give a fairly in depth analysis of Ruth's first couple of seasons in the league as a pitcher, because so few realize how good he was. I promise I won't do this for every season, as he played until the mid 1930s.Ruth won 24 more games in 1917, finishing with an ERA of just 2.01, 28% above the league average. According to the win shares formula, Ruth was the third best pitcher in the American League in 1917 and the fourth best overall.
1918 was the year that Ruth transitioned from pitcher to hitter. Though he still pitched enough to win 13 games , and his 2.22 ERA was 21% above the league average, he was far more effective for the Red Sox as a hitter. In just 317 at bats, Ruth led the league with 11 home runs, a huge amount in the dead ball era (which would soon be over). Ruth's combined effectiveness as pitcher and as a hitter made him, for the first of what would be many times, the best player in the major leagues according to the win shares formula.
1919 would be Ruth's last in a Red Sox uniform. Now a full time left fielder (as well as an occasional pitcher), Ruth officially ended the dead ball era, hitting 29 home runs in 432 at bats, setting the record for home runs in a season.
Ruth would set the league record for home runs in a season on three more occasions: 1920 (54), 1921 (59), and 1927, when he became the first player ever to hit 60 home runs in a season. By the time Ruth retired in 1935, he would have 714 home runs, far and away the most of any player at the time. Ruth's teammate Lou Gehrig (377) and Jimmie Foxx (302), number two and three on the all-time home run list as of 1935, combined for fewer career home runs than Ruth.
While Ruth is best known for hitting home runs, he was far more than just a home run hitter. Ruth was hands down the greatest to ever play the game - it is almost inarguable. 72 years after he retired, Ruth is 10th all-time in career batting average (.342), 2nd all-time in on base percentage (.474), 1st all-time in slugging percentage (.690) and OPS (1.164), 3rd in runs scored (2174), 5th in total bases (5793), 3rd in home runs (714), 2nd in RBI (2217), 3rd in walks (2062), 1st in runs created (2757), 4th in extra base hits (1356), and 9th in times on base (4978). Add in his career as a pitcher, in which he won 94 games, losing only 46, while leading the league in ERA once, and Ruth is clearly the greatest baseball player of all-time.
The Red Sox of the 1910s were the Yankees of the 1920s (as well as the 30s, 50s, 60s, 90s, and 00s). In three of the six years Ruth played for the Sox, they won the World Series (1915, 1916, and 1918). After Red Sox owner Harry Frazee, who was losing money with his team, sold Ruth to the Yankees, the Sox didn't win another World Series until 2004. The Yankees, in that same span, won 26 World Series. Ruth transcended the game to such an extent that he even had a curse named after him.
