Have enjoyed the discussion - and I do share your view on Ruth overall - the greatest player - ever...

For me the deciding factor is that he was on track to be the greatest left handed pitcher ever - before
becoming a "full-time" hitter at around age 24.

He was a truly unique athlete...

It is fun to speculate how many more homers he would have in a day of better nutritional knowledge [he
may not have heeded it] and a press that would have tried to reign in his lifestyle a bit...

He was such an amazing athlete - one of my favorite "bar bet" questions is who had more career triples - the Babe or Pete Rose - the Babe wins by 1...

Another little stat that I always thought was interesting - and probably had a story behind it was that he started two games late in his career - one at age 35, the other at age 38 - he won them both and pitched complete games in both...

bruce

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I certainly agree that it's tough to make absolute statements about the performance of players in Ruth's era given the complete lack of integration with black players. Aside from the fact that Ruth would have had to face a better pool of pitchers (had there been integration), there were also many excellent power hitters playing in the Negro Leagues who would undoubtedly have excelled in the Major Leagues as they did in the Negro Leagues.

My point is just that given the statistics that do exist, accepting lack of integration and use of performing-enhancing drugs as historical fact, Ruth's numbers are way better than anybody else's numbers from any era or league. This is just the comparison of how far above his contemporaries he was. Sure Bonds has hit a lot of home runs, but during the same era so too have Sosa, A-rod, Pujols, Cabrera, and others. (See how I threw Cabrera in there just to make you happy? heh.) If a modern player out-homered every other team in the league as Ruth did, it would be almost hard to believe it after the fact.

By the way, generally speaking, I don't really enjoy discussions about "who was the best XXX", such as who was the best left fielder of all time. The fact of the matter is that any sensible baseball fan, from ONLY the perspective of on-field production, would have been happy to have Bonds, Ted Williams, Rickey Henderson, Stan Musial, or Carl Yastrzemski on his or her favorite team. I just don't see a lot of value in discriminating among, say, the top 10 or the top 100.

But in the case of Babe Ruth, it's worth remarking how far ahead of everybody else he is. Eyewitness accounts suggest that he hit a lot of homers in excess of 500 ft. If he played today, it's possible he would have hit 800 or 850 HR, even with that big belly and spindly legs.

Been away for a bit - but very glad you and I agree on Ruth...

But I have been involved in a number of discussions on Aaron vs Ruth - many
of my friends contend that the lack of minorities in the majors taints the
Babe's record ["he never had to face a Satchel Paige"] as much as the
steroids era taints Bonds. Peter Gammons seems to have the sanest approach.

Ruth was the greatest for the first 50 years of the 20th Centure
Aaron was the greatest for the last 45 or so years
Bonds was/is the best of the performance enhancing era

would be nice if we could leave it at that - but we all
know the debate will continue...

Best

Points well made on Cabrera's attitude and weight issues - I grew up in Pittsburgh in the Clemente era and witnessed him get regularly hammered by the local papers for a "bad attitude" which was really more of a language/communication/shyness problem - not sure if the same consideration does - or should apply to Cabrera - I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The weight/in-shape concerns are more troubling - but he is an awesome hitter - and too your later point on Bonds not having a protector - Cabrera has the same problem - why on earth would you pitch to him with first base open and men on late in the game with men on base...

And yes - Bonds probably suffered a lot due to the lack of his
Eddie Mathews - a great arguement can be had around why it is hard to call Aaron the best home run hitter of all time - for about ten years he he may not have been the best home run hitter on his own team - neck and neck with Eddie Matthews for that honor until the early 60's

- To me, there are two things working against Howard's favor in terms of him breaking the HR record. One is that he hasn't been hitting for very long. It's quite possible that by his 4th or 5th season, he'll be way behind the pace already. The other, as you point out, is that he's quite a bit older than A-rod, Pujols, or Aaron were when they got started with big HR totals.

- I think there are several things that work against Cabrera, in terms of his not getting as much national attention. The first is that the Marlins haven't made the post-season since 2003. To many (fair or not), Cabrera is another guy putting up good numbers on a non-contending team. He was equivalent perhaps to Mark Teixeira, a great hitter on a team that went nowhere every year. The second thing going against Cabrera is that he has been accused by some as having an attitude problem. Allegedly, he can be surly and standoffish with some members of the media, and like Bonds or Eddie Murray before him, that can cause the perception that he's a bad guy (which most would argue was true for Bonds, and absolutely false for Murray) and cause the media to pay less attention to him. The third reason is the widely-acknowledged fact that Cabrera is not keeping his body in shape. There was a recent article in ESPN The Magazine that discussed this. (It's available at ESPN....look up Cabrera's page, click on news, and read the article by Jorge Arangure Jr.) While his hitting performance hasn't declined yet, it's been well-established that for any player to break long-term records, they need to stay in shape. With Cabrera already well overweight before age 25, it's tough to imagine him being productive at 38 or 40.

- A number of people have pointed out Bonds' crazy walk totals. He's #1 all time, already way pay former leader Rickey Henderson. I think it's very tough, though, to say what he would have done if he had walked less. Bonds couldn't have forced anybody to pitch to him. In many ways, aside from a hitter own natural propensity for taking a base on balls, I think walking is a sort of "market value" phenomenon. What I mean by that is that for Bonds, and indeed for most power hitters in history, the higher their power production, the higher their walk rate. As Bonds' HR/PA appearance numbers grew, the less and less disadvantage it was to walk him, ensuring that any given PA would not end in a long ball. There seems to have been a positive feedback effect, though, that Bonds became more and more focused on the few hittable pitches he would see a night, becoming incredibly efficient at putting good swings on the ball. Right now, a lot of people are quick to call him a cheater and talk about steroids. Those discussions may certainly have merit, but it's also impossible to ignore that the man had massive talent. Even what he has done in the "Big Head era" has been amazing. Steroids or not, taking something like 1 out of every 4 pitches in the strike zone and putting it over the fence is absolutely incredible.

- Therefore, I tend to agree with your comment about the "steroid penalty"...not that because of suspected steroid use was he being "punished" but simply because his power rate was so high that he walked a lot. But the fact of the matter is that if he had walked more, it would have been because his power rate was lower, but he would have had more at-bats and more hittable pitches, and thusly perhaps hit close to the same number of homers. This is what I really mean by "market value."

- One other thing to keep in mind about Bonds' walk totals is that he hasn't been paired with many power-hitting teammates over the years. Even before his HR rate went so high, he was by far the most dangerous hitter on him teams, and walking him made a lot of sense. The only teammates he's ever had with 30 HR were Bobby Bonilla (once) Matt Williams (twice) Jeff Kent (three times) Ellis Burks (once) Rich Aurilia (once.) In this day and age, that's not a lot of support around him in the lineup. For the sake of argument, Aaron's 30+HR teammates were Eddie Mathews (10 times), Joe Adcock (two times), Mack Jones (once), Joe Torre (once), Felipe Alou (once), Orlando Cepeda (once), Earl Williams (once), Darrell Evans (once), Davey Johnson (once), and George Scott (once). That's 8 for Bonds and a whopping 20 for Aaron. That alone is probably the biggest reason why Bonds walked so much more...Aaron had so many more teammates who put up big power numbers.

Have been a big fan of Cabrera since he broke through in the 2003 post season [good lcs - not so hot Series] - always find it amazing how he gets little mention when the best players in the game are talked about - will be interesting to see if he gets a power "bump" in his late 20's like many hitters seem to do...

One of the things that I have been surprised that no one seems to talk about with Bonds is how many walks he has been given - over 2500 and counting - one out of five plate appearances. Take 1000 of those and convert them into hits and homers he is well past 3000 hits and probably has another 50-75 home runs.

I have argued that this has been his "steroid" penalty - had he not gotten so intimidating he would have been pitched to more.

Your thoughts?

If you look at where they stood at 24 - Cabrera's current age.
1. Griffey Jr. - 172 HR
2. Pujols - 160 HR
3. A-Rod - 159 HR
4. Jones - 150 HR
5. Cabrera - 132 [and counting - should be past 140 by year end]
...
XX Howard - 2 HR
BTW - Ruth - even though he was still pitching at 24 had 49 and Aaron had 140 - about the same as Cabrera - but Migy will have about 150 fewer plate appearances. Bonds was at only 84 at 24. Mel Ott was the leader at this age with 176...