Barry Bonds, whose many skills do not include tact, generated some controversy at the All-Star Game when he talked about eclipsing Babe Ruth.
The San Francisco slugger leads the majors with 30 home runs at the All-Star break and has hit 643 in his career, putting him just 17 shy of matching his godfather — Mays — for third on the all-time list.
“Willie’s number is always the one that I’ve strived for,” Bonds said before Tuesday’s All-Star Game.
“And if it does happen, the only number I care about is Babe Ruth’s. Because as a left-handed hitter, I wiped him out. That’s it. And in the baseball world, Babe Ruth’s everything, right? I got his slugging percentage and I’ll take his home runs and that’s it. Don’t talk about him no more.”
This generated the predictable outraged response from the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, as well as from some sportswriters. Adrian Wojnarowski’s overly emotional but totally unconvincing response is typical.
Bonds does have his defenders, such as the Dallas Morning News‘ Kevin Blackistone, who makes a provocative case.
The greatest compliment that can be paid a baseball player is to call him “the only man,” as in: Hank Aaron is the only man to hit as many as 755 home runs in a major league career. Or as can be said of first baseman and new Hall of Famer Eddie Murray: He is the only man to have 3,000 hits and 500 home runs as a switch hitter.
In fact, the only other men to have as many hits and home runs in a career are Aaron and Willie Mays, both one-time Negro League players.
Babe Ruth was once an “only man.” He was once the only man to have hit as many as 60 home runs in a season. He lost that designation over two generations ago and now stands behind four players on that list, which is topped by Barry Bonds.
Ruth was once the only man to have knocked in as many as 2,213 runs in a career. Aaron left him behind in that category, too, almost a generation and a half ago.
In fact, Ruth was once the only man who could, without question, be called the greatest offensive weapon the game has ever seen.
He isn’t anymore. He hasn’t been for quite a spell. The biggest record he has left is career slugging percentage. It is time to take a deep breath and move on. Earth won’t careen into the sun.
The simple fact is black baseball players such as Aaron, Mays, Murray, Rickey Henderson and, yes, Bonds have erased many of the most revered offensive records in what was once America’s pastime. These marks, established by Ruth and Ty Cobb, were thought carved in stone. Home runs. RBIs. Walks. Runs scored. Stolen bases. Season slugging percentage. Black players hold them all now.
Yet, those black players aren’t afforded nearly the reverence, if any at all, of the folks whose records they obliterated.
Blackistone is, I think, more right than wrong in what he says, but he’s far too casual in his insistence that Ruth has been eclipsed. He makes a common error in argument-by-statistics, which is that he doesn’t present enough context to the stats he’s giving.
I’m not going to get into the serious stathead world of Equivalent Averages and Value Over Replacement Players, both of which are heavy-duty stats that try to even out differences in era and ballparks. I’m not qualified for that, and it wouldn’t change anyone’s mind anyway. I just want to point out that we’ve got a fruit basket of numbers here, and we need to sort through them a bit more carefully.
Since Blackistone mentions Hank Aaron and Willie Mays, the other two sluggers that Bonds is chasing, let’s take a closer look at them. There’s a key difference in the career stats of Aaron, Mays, and Babe Ruth, and it can be summed up in four numbers:
Name Games At-bats HRs
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Aaron 3298 12,364 755
Mays 2992 10,881 660
Ruth 2503 8,399 714
Aaron and Mays played far more games than Babe Ruth did, mostly because Ruth spent his first four seasons as a pitcher. Both had many more at-bats than the Babe did. Ruth hit a home run in 8.5% of his at-bats, while Aaron and Mays went yard 6.1% of the time.
To put it another way, how would the career numbers stack up if Mays and Ruth had had Aaron’s 12,364 at-bats, assuming that they hit home runs at the same rate over the extra time?
Name Projected HRs
======================
Ruth 1051
Aaron 755
Mays 750
The thing about Babe Ruth is not only that he hit a ridiculous number of home runs, it’s also that he hit an even more ridiculous number than his contemporaries. The Babe out-homered whole teams many times. Someone on ESPN.com (it might have been Rob Neyer, I can’t find it any more) once determined that if every season had been as homer-happy as 1998 and Ruth had hit them at the same relative rate to the rest of the league, he’d have wound up with over 2000 for his career. He really was a giant among Lilliputians in his time.
(Astute statheads may be grumbling at this point about Aaron and Mays playing in the pitcher-dominated 1960s, and how they might have done in a more offense-friendly era. I acknowledge the dissonance but cannot give you a good answer. I recommend pestering someone at the Baseball Prospectus.)
Now let’s add Barry to the mix. As it happens, his stats through 2002 are a pretty decent match for the Babe’s.
Name Games At-bats HRs
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Aaron 3298 12,364 755
Mays 2992 10,881 660
Ruth 2503 8,399 714
Bonds 2439 8,335 613
Name Projected HRs
======================
Ruth 1051
Bonds 909
Aaron 755
Mays 750
Bonds goes deep 7.4% of the time, meaning the advantage is still Ruth’s.
Of course, there is a player who does outdistance the Babe by this measure. Any guesses who?
Name Games At-bats HRs
=================================
Aaron 3298 12,364 755
Mays 2992 10,881 660
Ruth 2503 8,399 714
Bonds 2439 8,335 613
McGwire 1874 6,187 583
Name Projected HRs
======================
McGwire 1165
Ruth 1051
Bonds 909
Aaron 755
Mays 750
Yep, Mark McGwire, who merits not a mention in Blackistone’s column (how quickly they forget) despite his record-setting 9.4 HR percentage. I will not be uncharitable and suggest that had McGwire been as healthy as Aaron (and mind you, staying healthy is a skill as much as it is luck) and shattered Aaron’s career record as many expected him to do before his sudden retirement, Kevin Blackistone would have muttered dark imprecations about steroids and asterisks. Feel free to do so yourself, however.
Someone once said that statistics are like a string bikini: What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is crucial. I believe the record shows that Barry Bonds is one of the greatest players to ever play the game, and that he doesn’t get the recognition he deserves for it. I believe that Hank Aaron and Willie Mays, as great as they were, are also often sold short. I believe that Babe Ruth is still the pinnacle to which everyone aspires and against whom everyone will be measured. And I remain confident of the Earth’s ability to maintain its orbit. I hope Kevin Blackistone does as well.
UPDATE: In the comments, Joe asks for the same comparison with plate appearances (at-bats plus walks, hit by pitches, sacrifices and sac flies) instead of just at-bats. I aim to please:
Name PA HR HR % Proj HR
==========================================
Aaron 13940 755 5.4 755
Mays 12493 660 5.3 736
Ruth 10617 714 6.7 937
Bonds 10417 613 5.9 820
McGwire 7660 583 7.6 1061
