Ruth vs. Bonds, Who is the Greatest?

The Bambino; The Greatest of All-Time
by
Ray Flowers

http://www.athomeplate.com/theothergreatone.shtml

Who is the greatest player ever? Some say Ted Williams, but of course he was much more of a hitter than a player. Others say Willie Mays, and for all around excellence he seems to be a great choice. But of the modern day player 3 names are always mentioned: Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey Jr.. Griffey has been too injured the past three years to really belong in this discussion, and while Arod is a tremendous ballplayer, his career is just too short at this point to be considered the best ever. So of all the current players we would say that Barry Bonds is the most likely choice for a discussion of the greatest player ever (see Laura Nist’s article on this topic: http://www.athomeplate.com/thegreatone.shtml). But before we anoint Mr. Bonds we would like to throw out the name of the greatest ballplayer who ever lived… George Herman “Babe” Ruth.

Barry LaMar Bonds, by fantasy standards, is one of the greatest player ever (though a strong case in this respect can also be made for Rickey Henderson). No one has ever combined power and speed like Bonds, i.e. the oft repeated fact that he is the only member of the 500 HR and 500 steal club (in fact no others have even entered the 400/400 club). Bonds has also won 8 Gold Gloves, an unprecedented 6 MVP’s, and set all-time single season records for HR’s (73), on-base average (.582) and slugging percentage (.863). his greatness is beyond question…the question is how does he compare to the Babe?

Babe Ruth revolutionized the game of baseball. During the dead-ball era where double digit HR’s were unheard of, out came the strapping young man from Baltimore to re-write the record books. His total of 714 HR’s was a record for 40 years until Hank Aaron finally broke it in 1974. We all know that its just a matter of time before Bonds eclipse’s Ruth’s 714 career HR’s (he currently sits at 659, one behind Mays for third all-time), but how do the accomplishments of each player stand in their own eras?

If one looks at the career of Bonds one sees that he has lead the majors in homers but twice: 46 (1993) and 73 (2001). In fact, Bonds has led the majors in the Triple Crown categories of average , HR, and RBI on just these 2 instances. The Babe? Well he led the majors in homers 11 times! He also led in the majors in the Triple Crown categories, ready for this… a total of 17 times! Now if that wasn’t impressive enough, wait until you read the charts below. First we will list the HR total for Ruth, followed by the next highest player and his total.



1919 Ruth 29 / 12 Cravath

1920 Ruth 54 / 19 Sisler

1921 Ruth 59 / 24 Meusel/K.Williams

1922 Ruth 35 / 42 Hornsby

1923 Ruth 41 / 29 K.Williams

1924 Ruth 46 / 27 Hauser

1926 Ruth 47 / 21 Hack Wilson

1927 Ruth 60 / 47 Gehrig

1928 Ruth 54 / 31 H.Wilson/Bottomley

1929 Ruth 46 / 43 Klein

1930 Ruth 49 / 56 H.Wilson

1931 Ruth 46 / 46 Gehrig

1932 Ruth 41 / 58 Foxx

*In 1922 Ruth was injured and only played 110 games.
* In 1925 Ruth was “injured” and played in only 98 games.


So in the following years Ruth more than DOUBLED his next closest pursuer: 1919, 1920, 1921, and 1926. That means that Bonds, in his own era, would have to effectively hit 100 homers a year to be comparatively as great as Ruth. In fact, in 2001 when Bonds hit his record 73, his next closest pursuer was Sammy Sosa with 64…meaning Bond would have had to hit 128 HR’s to double his closest challenger.

Want more proof about the prodigious nature of the Sultan of Swat’s HR records? Here is a table which list Ruth’s total followed by the highest TEAM total for the same season (of course not including the teams that Ruth played for).



1919 Ruth 29 / 42 Phil.
1920 Ruth 54 / 64 Phil.
1921 Ruth 59 / 88 Phil.

Yes that’s right, in 1920 Ruth hit more homers than any other American League team! Take a look, in 1919,1921 he wasn’t that far behind either. The average team hits about 175 homers in our era so lets see Bonds would have to hit…well you can do the math so I won’t even waste my time with that calculation.

How about a comparison of career stats in the traditional 5 categories used in fantasy baseball. These career totals are in the following number of at-bats, lest you think one has the advantage over the other:
Bonds 8725, Ruth 8399.

Avg. HR RBI Runs SB
Bonds .297 659 1742 1941 500
Ruth .342 714 2213 2174 123

A last comparison between the two, lets look at their career OBP and SLG marks, the very marks that make Bonds a legendary performer.

OBP / SLG
Bonds .433 / .602
Ruth .474 / .690


Still think Ruth isn’t the greatest player of all-time? Oh you could say Bonds was a much better fielder and an immeasurably better baserunner, but we have left out one major category…pitching. And we aren’t talking about the state of pitching in the different eras. Oh yeah that’s right didn’t the Babe pitch? Well actually, he did more than that (his stats from 1915-1918).

W L ERA WHIP
18 8 2.44 (2.78) 1.15
23 12 1.75 (2.75) 1.07
24 13 2.01 (2.58) 1.08
13 7 2.22 (2.69) 1.05
* Number in ( ) in the ERA column is the League average for ERA.
* He also pitched over 300 innings in 1916-1917.

For his career Ruth went 94-46, with 4 saves, an ERA of 2.28 and a WHIP of 1.16 in 1221.1 innings (for a modern day comparison think Tim Hudson: 80-33, 3.26, 1.21 in 1052 innings). So in essence Ruth was Bonds AND Hudson in his career…think about that…he was an all-star performer pitching AND hitting.

We have no doubt that there will be some out there that don’t buy what we’re selling, and that’s alright.

However, we think that we have laid out ample proof that the Babe Ruth is not merely the penultimate figure in American sports history, he is also the greatest player ever to lace up a pair of spikes. Sure arguments can be offered for players such as Bonds an Arod, but have either of these players changed the game the way that Ruth did? Has anyone ever dominated the sport both on the mound AND in the batters box? Let us know when Barry Bonds turns in his bat for the pitchers mound and makes a couple of all-star teams. When he does get back to us and we’ll consider him. Til then, remember the man all the great ones should be compared to, George Herman “Babe” Ruth.