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May 20, 2006
| Bonds And The Babe | Musings |
Barry Bonds tied Babe Ruth's career home run total today. A remarkable achievement, but people forget what a giant Ruth was in his day. Home runs were nowhere near as common when Ruth played as they are now.
In 1927, the year Ruth hit 60 home runs, 60 home runs was more home runs than any other team in the American League hit that season. The Red Sox, for example, as a team, combined for only 28 homers. To put it another way, Ruth single-handedly hit 14% of all the home runs in the American League in 1927. After correcting for the fact that the league has more teams and they play more games now than then, 14% of the league total works out to about 182 home runs in today's terms. That's how Ruth's 60 home run season looked to his contemporaries: like one of today's players hitting 182 home runs in a season. Unimaginable.
Bonds is a great player, and he dominates his era. But I doubt if any player in any sport has so dominated his era the way Ruth did.
Posted by Jonathan at May 20, 2006 05:43 PM
