Babe Ruth was a phenomenon. He was one of the best left-handed pitchers in the Majors for a couple years, but they just couldn't keep his bat out of the lineup.
Without bad-moouthing Henry Aaron, it is enlightening to compare the two of them statistically. A common metric that is used is extrapolating statistics to a typical 162 game season, based on averages. In that mythical season, Ruth bats .342 to Aaron's .305; Ruth hits 46 homers to Aaron's 37. RBI's it's 143 to 113. As you can see, it's not even close. Aaron took almost 4,000 more times at bat to hit his 755 home runs. Ruth actually lost an untold number of HR's because when he was playing if the ball landed over the fence, but outside an extended foul line, it was just a foul ball. Now (and in Aaron's time) if the ball clears the fence fair, it's a home run regardless of where it lands. Ruth, a pull hitter, would sometimes hit more than one ball "foul" in a single at bat that would have been a home run under current rules.
And who can even imagine if Ruth had started his career as a left fielder rather than as a pitcher, or if he had taken care of himself physically?
The 60-home-run record is just the tip of the iceberg of Ruth's accomplishments.
Thanks for the reminder.
