The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Homeruns

[Gregory Pratt]

To me, there's never been any doubt that Ruth is still the greatest player in the history of the game and I don't take any list seriously of the greatest baseball players that doesn't inclucde him at the very top. But I'd never been all that big on reading his biographies. There were always many other books to read about baseball. I've always been more into articles about Ruth than books, or references to him in anthologies, but never a bio until I picked up

 

The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Homeruns: Recrowning baseball's greatest slugger

 

Easily the best baseball book I've read in the last several weeks and I've read Cramer's book on DiMaggio, am re-finishing Love Me, Hate Me, read Monteville's book on Williams, a book on Cobb, a book on Koufax...

 

Ruth was such a monster with the bat. And then the book goes into depth about the day Ruth played in compared to today's. Very good stuff, from his interviews with Negro Leaguers to Ruth's relationship with Walter Johnson to the way homeruns were ruled foul even if they were fair upon crossing.

 

I'd recommend it to all.

 

R is for Ruth.

To tell you the truth,

There's just no more to be said,

Just R is for Ruth.

 

From Ogden Nash's Lineup for Yesterday

 

That's not really my favorite part of that poem, though. I really like:

 

H is for Hornsby;

When pitching to Rog,

The pitcher would pitch,

Then the pitcher would dodge.

[BuckeyeSox]

He should have gone yard 104 times because back when he played balls were called fair or foul based on where they landed, not where they crossed the foul pole

[WHITESOXRANDY]

Not only that, but whenever Bonds, would compare himself to The Babe, I wanted to tell Bonds to tell me about it after he pitches some World Series shutouts and wins 20 games a year on the hill.

 

Ruth could have made the HOF if he was exclusively a pitcher. Tell me any player that was even close to Ruth in greatness.

Edited November 29, 2007 by WHITESOXRANDY