I was a mediocre high school pitcher back in the mid 70's (yes that may be ancient history to you) and my fastball was a whopping 76-79mph.
Major leaguers back in Babe Ruth's era were throwing much harder than that. You kids think Ruth was playing slo-pitch softball. Get a clue.
Nolan Ryan and J. R. Richard were throwing over 100 MPH 50 years ago. You don't think there were a number of pitchers 30 years before pitching close to 100 MPH?
Also, a big difference is in how they measured speeds back then, Ryan’s 100.9 or whatever on today’s devices would clock at 105-108. Koufax, Johnson, Feller, Paige would all be great pitchers today as well.
Nolan Ryan and J. R. Richard were throwing over 100 MPH 50 years ago. You don't think there were a number of pitchers 30 years before pitching close to 100 MPH?
Also, a big difference is in how they measured speeds back then, Ryan’s 100.9 or whatever on today’s devices would clock at 105-108. Koufax, Johnson, Feller, Paige would all be great pitchers today as well.
Yeah, as soon as I commented on Walter Johnson, I thought Satch could be the best pitcher of all time.
Nolan Ryan and J. R. Richard were throwing over 100 MPH 50 years ago. You don't think there were a number of pitchers 30 years before pitching close to 100 MPH?
Also, a big difference is in how they measured speeds back then, Ryan’s 100.9 or whatever on today’s devices would clock at 105-108. Koufax, Johnson, Feller, Paige would all be great pitchers today as well.
Another big difference is that not only could those guys bring the heat, a lot of them also brought extra pine tar, Vaseline, emery boards, etc. I think Ryan is the worst of the group you've got there, but he will always get bonus points for giving us this along with his 7 no-hitters:
When you look at how many guys Ryan walked in his career — and over 200 in a season! — it’s even more astonishing that his arm didn’t blow out until his final season.
different era. babe played before black baseball, no steals, no fakes, no pitch clock, no TV review, no AI, no realtime stats Stanford grads.
These arguments always consist of both sides talking past each other. Two things are almost unambiguously true:
1) Versus his contemporaries, Babe Ruth was far more of an outlier than any player today. 2) Based on an absolute standard with no adjustment for era, the performance level today of even average players is massively higher than Ruth.
The overall rise in performance is due to many factors, and the question always comes down to which of these factors "count". What happens is that both sides "anchor" the question in a different way.
If you anchor to Ruth's dominance level, maybe adjust downwards a bit because of increased population, he's still hitting .300 and getting 110 WAR (which is *way* worse than his actual numbers), i.e. he's still the GOAT.
If you anchor to Ruth's absolute performance level, he gets a slightly lighter bat, maybe someone shows him what a slider looks like, but he's used to facing stuff on the level of what future big leaguers today hit .400 against in high school. He's not even making the majors.
I think what people really want to get at is something in between. Clone Ruth and raise him in a supportive well-off family (no orphanage). Give him modern coaching, and see what he grows into. At this point he's basically an entirely different person, but I'm sure that person would be really good at baseball! Whether that's league average or Aaron Judge is almost impossible to determine, but it's an interesting topic to meditate on.
But the most prolific posters on a thread like this tend to just pick their framing and yell past each other.
Forget Babe Ruth. Is Ohtani the greatest sportsperson of all time, how much longevity is required, before he is in the debate with Donald Bradman, Shane Warne, Pele, Maradona, Jamie Dwyer, Allyson Annan, Serena Williams, Usain Bolt, Sydney McLaughlin, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps ?
Forget Babe Ruth. Is Ohtani the greatest sportsperson of all time, how much longevity is required, before he is in the debate with Donald Bradman, Shane Warne, Pele, Maradona, Jamie Dwyer, Allyson Annan, Serena Williams, Usain Bolt, Sydney McLaughlin, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps ?
Great stat from tonight-
ohtani in postseason; 9 of 13 hits have been for extra bases. 7 are home runs.
Forget Babe Ruth. Is Ohtani the greatest sportsperson of all time, how much longevity is required, before he is in the debate with Donald Bradman, Shane Warne, Pele, Maradona, Jamie Dwyer, Allyson Annan, Serena Williams, Usain Bolt, Sydney McLaughlin, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps ?
Great stat from tonight-
ohtani in postseason; 9 of 13 hits have been for extra bases. 7 are home runs.
Yeah, this shows the poor understanding of baseball skills by people posting here. Anyone read The Sports Gene? What it takes to hurl a baseball or to hit one are traits unique to a narrow fraction of the population. It's roughly the same talent pool size and there wasn't some unique, isolated population of baseball talent discovered that would change that. It's not like humans have hit an evolutionary acceleration over the past century, either. It's essentially the same genetics, just with better inputs (training, nutrition, tech).
Babe Ruth with a personal trainer, weight room and better diet would have done fine in the modern era. He was naturally strong, without pumping iron and the baseballs were not as "lively" as they are today. Pitchers back then were not reaching 100mph but they were still in the mid to upper 80's. He used extremely heavy bats- way way heavier than modern day players use today. No doubt, had Ruth played today with a much lighter bat, his bat speed would have been on par with the best power hitters of today.
The reason people compare Ruth and Ohtani is because they both pitched and hit. You’re only addressing Ruth’s batting.
From what I’ve read, people estimate that Ruth’s fastball was 85 mph which wouldn’t even be good enough for Single A in today’s game. Another thing is that once Ruth started playing outfield for the Red Sox, he dropped out of the rotation and became somewhat of a spot starter.
Eh. He damaged his team’s chances by getting caught stealing, and had to rely on Will Klein’s and Freddie Freeman‘s heroics for his team to pick up the win.
Reaching base 9 times in 9 PAs last night, 2 HRs, 2 doubles?