So let's start with the pre-World War II era. I do know a lot about the history of baseball, but not surprisingly, this is the era I know the least about. I wasn't alive and neither was my dad. The Dodgers didn't win a World Series until after the war, so there are no Dodgers for me to love, with the possible exception of Zach Wheat (the Dodgers' all-time hit leader).
I came up with four players, all very obvious choices, in reverse order:
4. Grover Cleveland Alexander (1911-1930). First of all, great name. He's one of the top ten pitchers of all time, with 373 wins (tied for third all time) and a 2.56 career ERA. In the 1926 World Series against a Yankee lineup featuring Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, he pitched a complete game in a 10-2 win in Game 6 on October 9. On October 10, he pitched the last two and a third in the Cardinals' Game 7 win by a score of 3-2 at Yankee Stadium. So that's 11 and a third innings in two elimination games in back to back days against a lineup with two of the greatest hitters of all time.
3. Lou Gehrig (1923-1939). I always thought Gehrig was underrated. After his final home run in 1938, his 493 home runs was second all time behind Babe Ruth. In third place was Jimmy Foxx with 429 and in fourth place was Mel Ott with 342. He dominated the game in a way that nobody had until that point with the exception of Babe Ruth. He hit .340 in his career. He's fifth all time in on base percentage at .447. The guy was amazing. Also, the Iron Horse is a great nickname.
2. Walter Johnson (1907-1927). He's the greatest pitcher of all time. 417 wins, 2.17 career ERA, 3509 strikeouts. I haven't really researched it, but I can imagine that his 1913 season was the best ever for a pitcher (36-7, 1.14 ERA). In the 1924 World Series, he pitched 24 innings in three games. He actually lost both of his starts, but two days after pitching a complete game in Game 5, he pitched the last four innings of a 12-inning game without allowing a run in the Senators' Game 7 victory over the Giants. Another great nickname with the Big Train.
1. Babe Ruth (1914-1935). He's the greatest player of all time and it's not even close. I got really mad some years back when people would suggest that Barroid was at all close to Babe Ruth. Even if Barroid had been clean, he still wouldn't be close. In basketball, I would say Bill Russell is the greatest player of all time. A lot of folks would say Michael Jordan. Whoever you think it is, the gap between the two is fairly small (although I would say there's a big gap between 2 and 3). The gap between Babe Ruth and whoever comes next is huge. He's one of two players to ever legitimately hit 60 home runs in a season. He's one of two players to ever legitimately hit 700 home runs in a career. In 1919 (the first season in which Ruth played more than 100 games), he hit 29 home runs. That might not sound special, but the league average for an entire team that season was 28 home runs. The next year, Ruth hit 54 home runs. The only teams with more than that in 1920 were the Phillies (64) and the rest of the Yankees (61). When Ruth hit 60 in 1927, the league average for teams that weren't the Yankees was 51 (Gehrig hit 47 that year). This year, the league average for a team was 164. So when somebody starts hitting 150 home runs in a season, then we can compare him to Babe Ruth. Also, everybody has the image of Babe Ruth as a fat guy (including fictional George Steinbrenner in Seinfeld: "Babe Ruth was nothing more than a fat old man, with little-girl legs. And here's something I just found out recently. He wasn't really a sultan."), but he also had 136 triples in his career. He was a career .342 hitter, he was second all time in on base percentage at .474, second all time in RBIs with 2213, second all time in home runs with 714 (I don't recognize Barroid), and first all time in slugging percentage at .690 (well ahead of Ted Williams, who is second at .634). And if all that wasn't enough, he was a great pitcher early in his career. His career record was 94-46 with an ERA of 2.28. If he hadn't been a good hitter and continued his pitching career, he might have made the Hall of Fame as a pitcher. And his World Series numbers were also amazing: (41 games, 15 home runs, 33 RBIs, .326 batting average, .467 on base percentage, .744 slugging percentage, 3 games as a pitcher, 3-0, 31 innings pitched, 0.87 ERA). And a cool bit of trivia about Babe Ruth: the last uniform he ever wore was a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform (as a coach).
This post is long enough, I'll get to the Cold War era later in the week. But it gave me an idea for another post: Who is the second best baseball player of all time? I think I have two good candidates in this post (Gehrig and Johnson). But if you have any thoughts on that topic, leave a comment.
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