Quote Originally Posted by throatybeard View Post
OTOH, Ruth never had to face Marichal, or Gibson, or Martinez, or Paige...or anyone of their complexion(s).
That's a fair point -- although Ruth did face Satchel Page (and other black pitchers) in offseason exhibitions. He was one of the white stars most willing to play against blacks -- unlike, say, Ty Cobb, who was embarrased in an exhibition in Cuba in 1910 (in one game at the Havana racetrack, he was thrown out twice trying to steal and picked off first a third time by catcher Bruce Petway) and after that, he always refused to play in exhibitions against black players. Ruth, on the other hand, was more than willing to compete -- even when bettered by Page or other black pitchers (it was not one-sided, he had his successes too).

The other point I'd make is that while it's true that Ruth didn't have to compete against blacks or black Carribean stars (there were a few Carribean stars if they were white enough; for instance Dolph Luque was a member of the multi-race Cuban team that embarrassed Cobb that day in Havana. He was the second-best pitcher on the team. The ace, Jose Mendez, was coal-black and never got to play organized ball. Luque was white and ended up wining 193 games in the major leagues), several baseball historians (including Ken Burns) have suggested that the baseball-playing population was MUCH larger in the '20s and '30s than it is now. EVERYBODY played baseball and played baseball over any other sport. Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx, for instance, were star football players. Today, they'd go to the NFL. If Michael Jordan had grown up in the 1920s with a white skin, but exactly the same athletic ability, he would have played baseball and not basketball. Ruth himself probably would have been a football star and not a baseball player in today's climate.

Ruth also never had to play at night. But Albert Pujols never had a seven-hour train ride followed by an afternoon game. He never had to sleep every night in St. Louis weather in an un-air conditioned room (in 1934, St. Louis experienced 35 straight days of 100-degree heat). He never had to play every day for three months in a row (they had off-days, but owners almost always schedule exhibition games on the offdays on the schedule). Of course, Ruth never had steroids or modern training methods.

Was it easier in his day? Was it harder? I don't known -- that's why I always argue that we have to judge players by the impact that had against their contemporaries. In Ruth's case, that's a more important factor than the bigger ballparks -- as it was, he hit more home runs in 1920 and 1921 than any other TEAM. Can you imagine the impact that had? In the decade of the 1920s, he hit almost 15 perrcent of all home runs hit in the decade ... to do that today, you'd have to average well over 100 home runs a season. When you look at that, it's easy to understand why he towered over the game in a way that no modern star can even approach.

Does that mean he's better than the modern stars? I don't know. But in his own era -- whether easier or harder -- he was a far greater player than anybody else who has played the game.

PS Pujols went another game -- his 20th -- without a homer, although he did got 1 for 4.