Babe Ruth Essay

Many may say George “Babe” Ruth is the greatest American baseball player of all time, but do they really know what they are talking about. To start out, the era in which Ruth played in was in the time of segregation, depression and hostility. In his era outstanding players like Willie Hays, Hank Aaron, and Sandy Koufax were stuck in the Negro leagues because of racism. Adding to that, many talented baseball players were involved in World War I; Babe was not, so technically one may consider them the true American heroes. Babe Ruth is not a true All-American baseball hero because his stats do not compare to modern day baseball, he was an inappropriate and irresponsible “role model”, and in his era, Baseball had many advantages compared to today.

On Baseball-reference.com’s evaluator (which is voted by fans) of the 10 all-time best batters, 4 not including Ruth played while Ruth played. Many pitches had been banned in 1919, which many all-time greats relied on, so this raises the question was Ruth just a product of an era that was increasingly becoming more hitter friendly? So let’s start with pitching, in the years when Ruth pitched for Boston the average ERA for the league was 1914- 2.73, 1915- 2.93, 1916- 2.82, 1917- 2.66, 1918- 2.77, 1919- 3.22, Ruth’s ERA during this time was 2.19. Yes it is better than league average but an ERA of 2 was not as good as it is today, last year’s average ERA was 4.08. Fielding is often overlooking when judging a player. According to baseball-reference.com Babe Ruth committed 83 errors while playing right field, which puts him at 19 on the all-time errors for a right fielder. Babe is also ranked

In his early days little George spent his days unsupervised on the streets and docks committing petty theft and vandalism. He grew up in his father’s bar and stole money from the till, and drank the beer and even developed a taste for chewing tobacco. He was only six years old. During his baseball years babe has been known to eat and drink to excess, fight fans during games, and often frequent prostitutes. Babe was often very immature and childish if he did not achieve what he wanted. For example, Babe broke his toe after kicking a dugout bench due to being walked. He constantly argued with umpires and challenged them to fights, in 1917, feeling squeezed by home plate umpire Brick Owens, Ruth stormed off the mound and punched Owens in the head. Also according to sabr.org Ruth quit his team because “wanted to hit more”. Ruth once said “I didn’t mean to hit the umpire with the dirt, but I did mean to hit that bastard in the