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Judge Dred (Fred)Ted pretty much lost 5 full seasons to his military service. If you extrapolate his numbers (averaging out what he did prior to and after the time periods in question) he'd possibly have broken Ruths HR record. He'd definitely have about 3500 hits and he'd probably be the all time RBI leader (even today) with somewhere near 2400+. Who knows, those were 5 prime seasons, he could have done more than the extrapolated numbers.
Without a doubt people can make a very realistic arguement about Ted Williams being the greatest hitter of all time.
Look at A-Rod (I'm not a big A-Rod fan), holy crap that guy is throwing up some pretty incredible numbers at an early age. We'll see where longevity will take him. Look at Kid Griffey, he had some incredible numbers and then he just dropped off the charts. Everyone thought he'd be the next lifetime HR king.
It's just so difficult to compare ball players of different eras. Each era saw a different approach to conditioning with this latest era having the most competitive physical players/specimens the game has ever seen. Ok, so steroids are a part of it. In any case, could you imagine what kind of numbers Ruth could have put up if he really put his mind to conditioning himself? Who knows. It only leads to that "what if..." or "what could've happened".. or "woulda, coulda, shoulda..." game/nonsense.