Babe Ruth-Greatest Baseball Player Ever

This should not even be up for debate, but George Herman "Babe" Ruth was the greatest player in baseball history. Many other great players have come since the Bambino hung up his spikes in 1935, but none could even compare to the dominance shown by the man from Baltimore.

The best stat that shows how dominant Ruth was is comparing his personal single season home run totals to that of other TEAM TOTALS for that year.

Here,take a look:
http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/R/Babe-Ruth.shtml

1920 Babe Ruth hit 54 home runs, he hit more homers than 14 of the 15 other MLB TEAMS!! This is stunning, only the Philadelphia Phillies (64) hit more than the Babe in 1920. A year later, arguably Ruth's best year, he hit 59 homers,which was more than 8 TEAMS. In 1927, Ruth hit 60 home runs, and that was greater than 12 of the 15 other TEAMS in baseball! And the next season, he hit 54 long balls, and that total was more than 7 TEAMS in MLB. Just the thought that ONE PLAYER hit more home runs than many other entire TEAMS is mind-boggling. To put it in perspective, that is akin to a player hitting close to 200 home runs today.

Babe Ruth played 22 full or partial seasons, with 4 of those spent exclusively as a pitcher and two others where he was part-time pitcher. Only 5 of those 22 years did he hit below .300, but that includes his first year as a pitcher when he hit 2 for 10 and his final year for the Boston Braves where the 40 year old stumbled to a .181 average in 28 games. Disregarding these partial years, Ruth's lowest average was .272 as a pitcher in 1917. In his 16 full seasons as an full-time outfielder, The Babe only hit below .300 twice. The man hit over .370 FIVE times, with a personal best of .393 in 1923.

In 1920, Ruth's 54 home runs led MLB, and the next highest total was 19! He hit almost THREE TIMES the amount of the next best hitter. In 1921, his 59 homers was more than double the next best total of 24. Another example of his complete dominance over the era came in 1923, when he missed 44 games. Ruth only played 110 games and hit 35 home runs. He still was 4th in MLB in homers and 3rd in the AL. Ruth hit only 4 long balls fewer than league leader Ken Williams.

Then there's this: Leaving out his four years he spent exclusively as a pitcher and his final year with the Braves...the 17 other seasons, he was led the American league in home runs 12 times, finished 2nd twice, third once,and 4th one time. Overall in 16 of those 17 years he was in the top 4 in home runs. That is unreal and has never been close to being duplicated.

For his career, the dominance still holds up, even with all the advancements for hitting in the decades since Babe last played. Here are some totals:

we all know the 714 home runs (3rd all time after Aaron and Bonds)
2174 runs scored (tied with Hank Aaron for 3rd all time)
.342 career batting average (tied for 7th all time with Dan Brouthers and Harry Heilmann)
2213 runs batted in (2nd all time to Hank Aaron)
.469 on base percentage (2nd all time to Ted Williams)
.690 slugging percentage (1st all time)
1.159 OPS (1st all time)
5793 total bases (6th all time)
2062 walks (3rd all time after Bonds and Rickey Henderson)
1356 extra base hits (4th all time)
506 doubles (39th all time)
136 triples (71st all time)
2873 hits (38th all time)
AND...
.671 winning percentage as a pitcher (13th all time)
2.28 ERA (would rank 10th all time)

he was 94-46 as a pitcher in his career

Ruth has the 3rd best ERA in World Series history (0.87)
and was 3-0 with 3 complete games in his World Series pitching career,which included TWO championships for the Boston Red Sox!

I could go on and on picking out more Ruth number to show his amazing dominance over that era, but you can click that link and see for yourself.

There should be no debate that George Herman Ruth is without a doubt, the greatest player in baseball history. The myths and legends of his greatness are not exaggerated by very much.