The Feb. 6 birthday of Babe Ruth, coming mere weeks before spring training starts, is as good an occasion as any to think about why we shall never see the likes of him again.
Ruth was actually quite the pitcher, putting up two 20-plus-win seasons with the Red Sox and tossing an amazing 107 complete games in 147 starts. But it was with his bat that Ruth did the most damage. People have attempted to downplay Ruth’s numbers, claiming the era he played in makes them inflated. However, even when adjusting with today’s metrics, Ruth was still one of the best.
He literally changed the game and how it was played. Ruth started out in an era when Frank Baker hit 96 home runs in his entire career, but it was enough output to earn him the nickname “Home Run” Baker. When Ruth hit 29 home runs in 1929, it was an unheard-of feat. He followed it up by hitting 54 the following season and 59 the season after that.
But more than the stats, Ruth was a larger-than-life star at a time when the only way to catch a game was to see one in person or listen on the radio. And that’s a big reason modern players don’t attract a mythical aura the way Ruth did. After all, people still argue whether or not he called a shot in the 1932 World Series.
That’s not a slight against today’s greats such as Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, and Manny Machado. Those players and others are putting up big numbers in an era of advanced metrics, specialty pitchers, and defensive shifts. But 50 years from now, will people talk about Trout the way people talk about Ruth?
The lack of 24-hour news — or television in general — the Internet, and social media allows the public to remember Ruth as an almost mythical figure. After all, reality is messy, and we’ll never know how Ruth would have handled the constant spotlight. When considering his outlandish lifestyle, Ruth wasn’t much of a hero. Ruth, however, was a legend. To quote the movie, “The Sandlot,” “There’s heroes and there’s legends. Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.”
