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Posted By: Rhys

Before I say this I am a HUGE Ruth fan and I think he is the greatest baseball player ever without a real solid competitor. But, Ruth did not change the way the game was played, he was just the first to take advantage of the way the game was changing naturally. If you had put Ruth in the 1880's he would have led the league in home runs for sure, but he probably would have also led the league in flyball outs because the ball was mush and no matter how hard you hit it it would not have flown 400 feet. In the late 1910's they changed the construction of the actual ball to make it tighter and able to go further when hit, and after the Ray Chapman incident directed all sorts of things to go into the hitters advantage. Ruth was there to take advantage of these changes like never before and speed change into the direction we know the game today.

Ruth was the greatest player ever but he did not change baseball or the way it was played, it would have changed without Ruth to the same game we know today, he just made the change more dramatic and quick to catch on. Right player at the right time to speed up change, but the game would have changed with or without Ruth.