Billiards is not an athletic pursuit. Baseball obviously is. Football and basketball basics are the same as they were too, it's a question of do you see the similarities more than the differences or vice versa?

I don't agree with that. If you took Red Grange and sent him to an NFL game in 2023 he'd have no idea what was going on.

It would take him 5 minutes to adapt, and then he would realize he was not nearly up to the challenge physically because of the evolution in athleticism.

The point I have consistently made and don't see much of a challenge to is that the physical evolution in the NFL you're mentioning doesn't exist in major league baseball, at least not in my opinion.

Thank you for posting this. It was wonderful. There have been some very great posts this morning.

I want to add anecdote to the conversation. Many of the stars today excel in some very random way that most people can't comprehend. Like the Pujols story - his pitch tracking ability set him apart. I would say most star hitters share that ability: Miguel Cabrera, Barry Bonds, Griffey Jr, Ichiro, Clemente, Mays, Aaron, Williams, Ruth, Cobb. We want to say that Ruth's physical build might harm him, but that's something that can be controlled through regimen. Pitch tracking is something that is god given. You either have it or you don't.

Another anecdote is from going to autograph signings. I've always been fascinated by how large HOF'ers hands are. I'm 6 feet tall, but I have baby hands. My ring size is #7. I had mad hops in basketball, I could jump above the rim. But my little hands couldn't palm a basketball. My little hands couldn't move a baseball to my fingertips -- so essentially I was always throwing a changeup. When I met Gaylord Perry, Don Larsen, Bob Gibson.....my God! their hands and fingers were huge! If you've listened to how to throw, it's all about the placement of the baseball on different parts of your fingers. Closer to the palm is the changeup, further out is the fastball, out on the tips gets the curveball and slider, and don't forget the knuckleball. We can talk about how fast a pitcher throws and training and science....but hand size and finger length is something that is God given.

Pitchers from the pre-war era who could throw "junk" would find success in any era. They are competitive, and they adapt. It's a cat and mouse game and these players took immense pride in winning the game. Satchell Paige, WaJo, Smoltz, Clemens....the list goes on. They would find a way to compete across generations.

I think this is what you are referring to

https://everything-everywhere.com/je...20in%20history.

All of these things were actually put into a test that was run by the CBC in Canada. They got Olympic sprinter Andre De Grasse to run under similar conditions as Jesse Owens. De Grasse was a bronze medalist at the 2016 Olympics in the 100m

How fast did he run under these conditions? He ran the 100m in 11 seconds,

That is .8 seconds slower than Jesse Owens personal best.

I think a player like Ruth would still be decent in MLB, but he would not dominate like he did in his era. First, as everyone has said, there is talent to be drawn from all over the world rather than just in the US, so the overall talent of every player is at a higher level. Then there have been a lot of new pitches that have been "invented" since Ruth's era such as the cutter, different variations of the fastballs, etc., which can be thrown at different arm angles. Then there is the analytics and scouting where pitchers can pinpoint which pitches that you are bad at handling or the location. If you are not a switch hitter, the opposing team can also bring in a specialist such as lefty on lefty just to get you out. (Of course, you can say that analytics/scouting can help the hitter also, but I think they still help the pitcher more.) Then of course, there the fresh closers, which really did not exist in Ruth's era to nail down the final innings. There are even things like pitchers increasing how much spin or rotation/s they put on the baseball to increase the movement. I think all of these different things will lower a batter's batting average in general, even someone like Ruth who was very gifted with hand/eye coordination, etc.

But what are you pointing to when you suggest he wouldn't dominant in any era? You can look at very detailed breakdowns for Ruth on Baseball Reference. You can see who he performed at home, on the road, against leftys, rightys, even relief pitching. You can even go by first at bat against, 2nd, 3rd, inning by inning, batting order placement, anything you want. In every context you will see stats that represent the most elite player on the field.

He loses nothing by playing in the modern game. There are only things for him to gain today. So why wouldn't he be even better than he was?

One other factor I haven't heard mentioned yet: the insane travel conditions players from even as late as the 1960s had to endure. Mostly coach flights were difficult and longer. going back further, Train rides were less than ideal. Granted, they didn't travel west of Mississippi in Ruth's day, but the travel was still a challenge compared to today. Not to mention the equipment improvements, as well as the nutrition and training regimens available today. Even since the 80s. Remember the story where Jordan wore some of his vintage air jordans just 10 years later and then couldn't walk for a few days after due to the pain caused by the old sneakers?

I wonder if Pheidippides could outrun Jesse Owens.

From Marathon to Athens, probably.

I think either you buy that today's pitchers are bigger, stronger, faster, and more sophisticated than in Ruth's day, or you don't. That's the key to our differences here. No difference on the proposition that relative to his time, Ruth is in a class by himself.

I was thinking of Babe Herman who swung a mighty bat but had difficulty making a simple PO. He would have been perfect for the DH rule.

You nailed it, sir.

I forgot where I read this, but it was an article about Ruth's ability to hit home runs. Sometime at his peak, a group of academics decided to time Ruth's reaction to an incoming pitch when he swung. According to their findings, Ruth was fractionally quicker when he swung in comparison to other hitters that were measured.

Considering that the methods and tools used in this test were barbaric in comparison to today's standards, we would have to guess what the speed of his reaction time would be today. Let's say that we transported Ruth to the time when Pujols reaction time was tested. If Ruth took that same test and still maintained a quicker reaction time than the average ballplayer of today, he would possibly have a chance to peform well. In any era, that reaction time would give an advantage to any hitter. Yes, there are other factors, plate discipline, the type of swing, etc. that influence the possible outcome of any at bat. This is not to conclude that Ruth would still produce the same outcomes in the modern era as he did during career, but that potential remains.

Phil aka Tere1071

Complete 1953 Bowman Color, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, and 1975 Topps Baseball sets under revision as the budget and wife allows

Under construction:
1967 Topps Baseball - 330/533: Overall p-g, missing all of the bigger name stars and many commons, no high numbers or posters

1968 Topps Baseball - 420/598: Overall good, missing all of the bigger name stars and many commons from 1-375; no game cards

1969 Topps Baseball - 320-664: Overall good, missing all of the stars and many cards after #217; no deckle edged cards

1969 Topps Baseball Team Stamps- Dodgers, Royals, A’s, Phillies; missing everything else

1970 Topps Baseball Insert sets:
Booklets- missing 7; 9; 11; 13; 14; 15; 17; and 23.
Posters # 1; 8; 14; 17; and 19
I do not have any 1970 scratch offs yet.

1971 Topps Coins- 120/153
I do not have any 1971 scratch offs yet.

1974 Topps Baseball Washington variations- 32; 53; 77; 102; 125; 226; 241; 309; 364; and 599

These questions bother me more than they should. Humans have NOT evolved in the 5 or so generations from 1900 to today. The differences are in nutrition, health, training etc.

So could 1927 Babe Ruth hit today's pitching? Maybe.

But could Babe Ruth born in 1995 and able to avail himself of everything players today have at their disposal hit today's pitching. Of freaking course he could.

"Nutrition, health, training etc." are way, way overrated. These guys stub their toe or get a blister, and they go on the IL, all the while collecting millions upon millions of dollars.

I will leave this discussion with this, and some of you aren't going to like it.

You guys are obviously highly, highly educated and successful in life by any measure. How else could you afford the very expensive cards we all love?

Why, then, this weird fixation on the pitching in the 1920s and 30s as crazily inferior, while trying to justify the pitching of today?

Do you realize how you make yourselves sound in doing this?

Let me reiterate - I played high school and American Legion baseball, and I know how fast the pitching was. I am almost 66 years old. There is a huge outdoor recreation area/amusement park maybe 5 miles from where I live that has go-karts, mini golf, driving range and, among other things, very sophisticated baseball batting cages that ALL the high school teams around here regularly utilize. They have pee wee, junior high, high school, minor and major. As a form of exercise and stress relief, I regularly use the high school cage, 78 mph. Minor is 84, and major is 90. I can hit 78 even now at 66, and I'm just some schmo. I can occasionally foul one or two off in the minor cage. The safety monitors won't even allow me into major.

Please, please, PLEASE...for the love of God...stop saying that the MAJOR LEAGUE pitching in the 1920s and 30s and 40s and 50s was 70/80 mph.

I break out in laughter when you write that insanely dumb stuff. You truly have no realization as to what you're saying, how incredibly dumb it sounds. I wasn't around, I don't know, but with a grand total of 16 teams in all the major leagues, and after hearing that Walter Johnson, Lefty Grove, Bob Feller, and on and on and on, when they bore down the ball made a certain "zzzzzz" noise as it went by. That's the heat, folks. That's what it sounds like. 70/80 mph? That insults my intelligence.

I think you're not quite understanding my claim, or perhaps I didn't state it clearly enough rather. I'm not saying that the best arms during that era were only capable of pitches in the 70-80 mph range. I'm claiming that the MEDIAN pitch speed that these hitters saw was likely in the high 70s, low 80s. It's really not that much of a stretch. Median pitch speeds mean half the balls they faced were above that speed, and half were below. This would include fastballs and off-speed pitches. As a point of comparison, even the median fastball when Ken Griffey Jr. was called up in 1989 was about 87 mph. That's 1989. So the median pitch speed (fastballs & off-speed pitches) was certainly lower than that. Likely low 80s. Saying that the median pitching speeds from the 1920s was likely in the high 70s isn't exactly a stretch and it's almost certainly true.

You seem more interested in what the top speeds that the best pitchers were capable of, which is a different question. I think there were likely several guys throwing mid to high 80s fastballs, with a few elite arms like Walter Johnson touching low 90s. But none of these guys were capable of 100 mph. Sorry, but that simply wasn't happening back then. 50 oz bats would not have been used by anyone if they were facing 100 mph pitching. It's simply not possible for anyone to turn on pitches that fast with lumber that heavy.


I think this is an interesting note you've made here. You can hit 78 mph pitching with some sort of relative consistency, but dial that up by just 6 mph and what previously had been a relatively easy, or at least achievable, task has now become so challenging that you can barely get a foul tip on the ball at those speeds. A few mph really does make all the difference in the world at the plate. This is precisely what this debate is all about. We know these hitters from the 1920s were hitting slower pitching. Hell, just from the time Griffey was called up in 1989 to what hitters are facing today on average, the median fastball has gone up by more than 6 mph. That's a remarkable jump. And the pitchers from the 1920s to 1989 were even a bigger jump than that. The median fastball today is without question AT LEAST 10-12 mph faster than it was in the 1920s. And a difference of 10-12 mph is, as you've noted, significant enough for someone capable of hitting 78 mph pitching to not even be allowed in the cage by the safety personnel at your local batting cage. That's how big of a difference the pitching was that these guys were facing in the 1920s vs what guys are facing today. It's a completely different game.

Could some of the best hitters from that era have adjusted to faster pitching and still been star players? Sure, absolutely. Some of them would. But some of them also wouldn't. Which players could and which players couldn't is anyone's guess. But I don't think it's as simple as just rank ordering the players and saying all the best ones would have still been great. It's not a linear transition. Some guys can just absolutely destroy 91 mph pitching, but they can't hit 100 mph. This is why top prospects fail so often. More so than in any other sport.

And since I like data, here's a plot of median fastball speeds from 2002 to 2019.
...

The current thinking in baseball seems to be roll through as many pitchers as you need in a game to make sure the team is always pitching well into the 90s. The increased torque required for that seems to result in increased injuries and surgeries. Personal observation but I would guess it’s supported somewhere. :) I imagine many great hitters of the past would be able to catch up to the speed with training but in their day they most likely never had to think about facing a 100mph pitch, much less a constant barrage of them.

I forgot to address the comments earlier about record breaking being more a function of technology and environmental factors than evolutionary factors. This is certainly true as well, though the degree to which this applies varies greatly by sport.

Here's an interesting TED talk on the topic

https://youtu.be/8COaMKbNrX0?si=Dzvz-03MvT086MUS

Love this Ted talk on the subject. Just posted it and saw you had as well.

Right. Even assuming some top pitchers from the 20s could hit the low 90s, there's no chance they were throwing consistently in the 90s for 9 innings every 4th day. I don't care how manly they were compared to today's wimps.

Pedro famously said to wake up the Bambino so he could drill him in the ass, but if he had thought about it he probably would have said so he could strike him out. :)

So please explain how the Splendid Splinter, Ted Williams, who wasn't ripped or jacked could have hit a baseball over 500 feet to a painted seat in Fenway, and nobody else on the Red Sox, including super strong Big Pappi has even come close. Baseball has always been the "everyman" sport. Hitting has always been about load, swing path, and timing . . . not brute strength.

And your assessment of Babe Ruth in today's era is laughable. I suppose Satchel Paige couldn't have pitched in the majors today either, even though he had a heater so fast that he was known for sitting his outfield down from time to time, and pitching the entire inning without them.

The modern baseball has been altered. Over the past several years, the stitches have been sewn down closer to the surface, making the ball more aerodynamic. This could explain why so many pitchers today can throw 100 MPH.

This is so silly. Pitchers in the 1960s and '70s were doing this REGULARLY throughout the course of any given season. Jim Palmer, for example, pitched 25 complete games one year. This year, the entire American League starting pitcher staff only combined for 22.

Oh, and Pedro would get the same wakeup call pitching to Ruth that Satchel Paige got when his fastball in 1935 was turned into a 450+ foot blast over the centerfield fence.

I doubt it. If Koufax was, look what it did to him.

You might want to actually check out how big Ted Williams was.

Oh my, Mr Paige doing that was more of an example of how poor his competition actually was during those exhibitions. To be clear there is zero chance Babe Ruth could magically appear and not look absolutely foolish against todays best pitchers.

Now if Mr Ruth was born 30 years ago and had all the benefits of todays training, food, supplements, and ate the horse meat he would still be one of the best to ever play.

The question was if Babe Ruth was transported to todays game could he hit. Not if he was afforded all the benefits of todays technology/training could he hit.

Funny how people keep changing the question, isn't it? :) And yeah, Paige could strike out the side therefore he must have been throwing everything in the 90s. There's a logical conclusion. BTW, from all I've read Paige also had an extraordinary arsenal of offspeed and trick pitches.

Later in his career, Ruth, knowing he needed a timing edge against fastballs, switched to a much lighter bat and got even better homerun results than what he got with the big stick.

Don't forget about the "pea at the knee," which was his go-to pitch, his fastball.

And how shot putters have been banned for roids?

Well of course he had a great heater, but we don't know the actual speed and cannot infer it from his success.

This is all patently false, with no evidence whatsoever. The barnstorming teams had some pretty elite competition, I believe, including such guys as Oscar Charleston, Cool Papa Bell, and Josh Gibson just on the Negro League side. On the MLB side, well, you had the stars of that era as well. How can you just dismiss and denigrate them all unless you wish to remain in denial about it?

What about the baseballs they hit back in Ruth's day? Spitballs, emery balls, scuffed balls but today the hitter gets to hit a new ball every other pitch.
Could these guys today have stayed in the box against the old headhunters without batting helmets and body armor and hitting back rounds? After all the only player ever killed while playing was in 1920.
Would they have done a Pete Reiser or Earle Combs and risked life and limb vs a concrete wall?
No DH back then either so it was 154 games in the outfield for Ruth and not doing the Ohtani just hitting 4 times and then sit on the bench and pick his nose.

Are those the 3 players Mr Paige pitched against when he had his outfield sit down. If so that is very impressive if not why would you even mention their names?

I am not dismissing how amazing Babe Ruth was against others in his era. I am simply saying the technology and supplements have greatly improved athletes over the last 100 years.

We don't really know the context of those anecdotes. It's highly unlikely any pitcher, even Paige, could have been sure of striking out the side in a real game all the more so with that type of opposition. There may have been an element of show there.

The story Buck O'Neill told of Paige walking the bases full to get to Josh Gibson, if indeed true, was awesome.

I think Ruth would have to adjust his batting styles to meet the new variety of pitches developed since when he was in his prime, eg. the split finger fastball and all its' variations. I think he would have been a major force but never hit 614 dingers lifetime I doubt he would have taken roids, even if he could find them,
since beer, hot dogs and women of loose morals were more his thing.
Who knows, he might have been Ohtani-like, a great hurler and DH on his days
off.
But, too, he was such a social force during the roaring 20's, but it a far different time these days.

Good point. Transport the modern players back to 1927 and they would struggle with things like scuffed balls, metal spikes, taunting, shoulder checks, smaller bases, chin music, spitters, bad diet, long train rides, doing their own laundry, working in the off season, etc. I do think modern scrapper guys would do well back then cuz that's the style of play.
And just for perspective, Ty Cobb held 90+ major league records when he retired, 90+!, some of which still stand today. He was not only better than all of his peers but he was better than most of the players that followed him by a wide margin.
Imagine a player retiring today with 90 MLB records.
And let's invite the modern day players to throw a silver dollar across the Rappahannock River, Walter Johnson did it at age 48 and threw it 430 feet, 23 yards farther than a modern day football field. Or let's get modern day catchers out to the Washington Monument to test their skill at catching a ball dropped from 555 feet like Gabby Street.

Did George Washington throw in the 90s?

It is a cool story but if you bring reality into the story it really isn't impressive at all. Even the greatest hitters have a lower batting average against the great pitchers. So realistically Josh Gibson had what a 20-25% chance of getting a hit. Pretty good odds for Mr Paige being able to put on a show that looks WAY more impressive than it really is.

If you like those type of cool stories I highly recommend finding an old copy of the book More Strange but true Baseball stories. It is full of stories like the Walter Johnson and Gabby Street(pic on front cover) ones.

Would Harper have a beard in his coal mine job to make ends meet back in the 20's?

I think Ruth would have a been very successful hitter in today’s era. Back in 1920 he was a test subject by psychologists at Columbia. He scored superior in areas that can’t really be trained or taught. The findings were published by Popular Science Oct 1920. Below is the article:
The game was over. Babe, who had made one of his famous drives that day, was tired and wanted to go home. “Not tonight, Babe,” I said. “Tonight you go to college with me. You’re going to take scientific tests which will reveal your secret.”

“Who wants to know it?” asked Babe.

“I want to know it,” I replied, “and so do several hundred thousand fans. We want to know why it is that one man has achieved a unique batting skill like yours — just why you can slam the ball as nobody else in the world can.”

So away we went. Babe in his baseball uniform, not home to his armchair, but out to Columbia University to take his first college examination.

Babe went at the test with the zeal of a schoolboy, and the tests revealed why his rise to fame followed suddenly after years of playing during which he was known as an erratic although a powerful hitter. How he abruptly gained his unparalleled skill has been one of baseball’s mysteries.

Albert Johanson, M.A., and Joseph Holmes, M.A., of the research laboratory of Columbia University’s psychological department, who, in all probability, never saw Ruth hit a baseball, and who neither know or care if his batting average is .007 or .450, are .500 hitters in the psychology game. They led Babe Ruth into the great laboratory of the university, figuratively took him apart, watched the wheels go round; analyzed his brain, his eye, his ear, his muscles; studied how these worked together; reassembled him, and announced the exact reasons for his supremacy as a batter and a ball-player.

Baseball employs scores of scouts to explore the country and discover baseball talent. These scouts are known as “Ivory hunters,” and if baseball-club owners take the hint from the Ruth experiments, they can organize a clinic, submit candidates to the comprehensive tests undergone by Ruth, and discover whether or not other Ruths exist. By these tests it would be possible for the club owners to discover — during the winter, perhaps — whether the ball-players are liable to be good, bad, or mediocre; and, to carry the [p. 20] practical results of the experiments to the limit, then may be able to eliminate the possibility, or probability, of some player “pulling a boner” in mid-season by discovering, before the season starts, how liable he is to do so.

The scientific ivory hunters of Columbia University discovered that the secret of Babe Ruth’s batting, reduced to non-scientific terms, is that his eyes and ears function more rapidly than those of other players; that his brain records sensations more quickly and transmits its orders to the muscles much faster than does that of the average man. The tests proved that the coordination of eye, brain, nerve system, and muscle is practically perfect, and that the reason he did not acquire his great batting power before the sudden burst at the beginning of the baseball season of 1920, was because, prior to that time, pitching and studying batters disturbed his almost perfect coordination.

**Ruth the Superman

**The tests revealed the fact that Ruth is 90 per cent efficient compared with a human average of 60 per cent.

That his eyes are about 12 per cent faster than those of the average human being.

That his ears function at least 10 per cent faster than those of the ordinary man. That his nerves are steadier than those of 499 out of 500 persons.

That in attention and quickness of perception he rated one and a half times above the human average.

That in intelligence, as demonstrated by the quickness and accuracy of understanding, he is approximately 10 per cent above normal.

It must not be forgotten that the night on which the tests were made was an extremely warm one, and that in the afternoon he had played a hard, exhausting game of baseball before a large crowd, in the course of which he had made one of those home-run hits which we at Columbia were so eager to understand and account for. Under such circumstances, one would think that some signs of nerve exhaustion would be revealed. The instigation lasted more than three hours, during which Ruth stood for most of the time, walked up and down stairs five times, and underwent the tests in a close warm room. At the end of that time I was tired and nervous, and, although Ruth showed no symptoms of weariness, it is probable that under more favorable conditions his showing would have been even better.

The tests used were ones that primarily test motor functions and give a measure of the integrity of the psychophysical organism. Babe Ruth was posed first in an apparatus created to determine the strength, quickness, and approximate power of the swing of his bat against his ball. A plane covered with electrically charges wires, strung horizontally, was placed behind him and a ball was hung over the theoretical plate, so that it could be suspended at any desired height.

I learned something then which, perhaps, will interest the American League pitchers more than it will the scientists. This was that the ball Ruth likes best to hit, and can hit hardest, is a low ball pitched just above his knees on the outside corner of the plate. The scientists did not consider this of extreme importance in their calculations, but the pitchers will probably find it of great scientific interest.

**Science Discovers the Secret

**The ball was adjusted at the right height, and, taking up a bat that was electrically wired, Ruth was told to get into position and to swing his bat exactly as if striking the ball for a home run, to make the end of it touch one of the transverse wires on the plate behind him, then swing it through its natural arc and hit the ball lightly. The bat, weighing fifty-four ounces (exactly the weight of the bats Ruth uses on the diamond), was swung as directed, touched the ball, and the secret of his power — or, rather, the amount of force with which the strikes the ball — was calculated. At least, the basis of the problem was secured: The bat, weighing fifty-four ounces, swinging at a rate of 110 feet a second, hits a ball travelling at the rate of, say, sixty feet a second, the ball weighing four and a quarter ounces, and striking the bat at a point four inches from the end. How far will it travel? There are other elements [p. 21] entering into the problem, such as the resilience of the ball, the “English” placed on it by the pitcher’s hand, and a few minor details. But the answer, as proved by the measurements, is somewhere between 450 and 500 feet. This problem cannot be worked down to exact figures because of the unknown quantities.

The experimenters, however, were not so much interested in the problem in physics as they were in the problems in psychology. The thing they wanted to know was what made Ruth superior to all other ball-players in hitting power, rather than to measure that power.

Babe Could Beat His own Record!

Before proceeding to the psychological tests, however, we tried another in physics to satisfy my curiosity. A harness composed of rubber tubing was strapped around Ruth’s chest and shoulders and attached by hollow tubes to a recording cylinder. By this means his breathing was recorded on a revolving disk. He was then placed in position to bat, an imaginary pitcher pitched an imaginary ball, and he went through the motions of hitting a home run. The test proved that, as a ball is pitched to him, Babe draws in his breath sharply as he makes the back-swing with his bat, and really “holds his breath” or suspends the operation of his breathing until after the ball is hit. But for that fact, he would hit the ball much harder and more effectively than he now does. It has been discovered that the act of drawing in the breath and holding it results in a sharp tension of the muscles and a consequent loss of striking power. If Ruth expelled his breath before striking the ball, the muscles would not become tense and his swing would have greater strength and rhythm.

The first test to discover the efficiency of his psychophysical organism was one designed to try his coordination; a simple little test. The scientists set up a triangular board, looking some thing like a ouija-board, with a small round hole at each angle. At the bottom of each hole was an electrified plate that registered every time it was touched. Ruth was presented with a little instrument that looked like a doll-sized curling iron, the end of which just fitted into the holes. Then he was told to take the instrument in his right hand and jab it into the holes successively, as often as he could in one minute, going around the board from left to right.

He grew interested at once. Here was something at which he could play. The professor “shushed” me, fearing that I would disturb Ruth or distract his attention as he started around the board, jabbing the curling-iron into the holes with great rapidity. He would put it into the holes twelve to sixteen times so perfectly that the instrument barely touched the sides. Then he would lose control and touch the sides, slowing down. Only twice did he pass the hole without getting the end of the iron into it. With his right hand he made a score of 122. Not unnaturally, his wrist was tired and Babe shook it and grinned ruefully.

Then he tried it with his left hand, scored 132 with it, proving himself a bit more left- than right-handed — at least in some activities. The significance of the experiment, however, lies in the fact that the average of hundreds of persons who have taken that test is 82 to the minute, which shows how much swifter in the coordination of hand, brain, and eye Ruth is than the average.

**Every Test but Another Triumph

**In a sequel to this test that followed, Babe tapped an electrified plate with an electrically charged stylus with the speed of a drum-roll, scoring 193 taps per minute with his right hand and 176 with his left hand. The average score for right-handed persons undergoing this wrist-wracking experiment is 180, and, while there is no data covering right-handed persons using the left hand, it is certain that Ruth’s record is much above the average, as he is highly efficient with the left hand.

But steadiness must accompany speed and so they tested the home-run king for his steadiness of nerve and muscle by having [p. 110] him thrust the useful little curling-iron stylus in different-sized holes pierced through an electrified plate which registered contacts between the stylus and the side of the hole. These measured respectively sixteen, eleven, nine, eight, and seven sixty-fourths of an inch; small enough, but not too small for Babe, for he made a score that showed him better than 499 persons out of 500.

The tests that interested me most were those to determine how quickly Ruth’s eye acts and how quickly its signals are flashed through the brain to the muscles. Showing an amazingly quick reaction time, they interpreted what happens on the ball-field when the stands rock under the cheering that greets another of Ruth’s smashes to the fence, proved an eye so quick that it sees the ball make an erratic curve and guides the bat to follow.

The scientists discovered exactly how quickly Ruth’s eye functions by placing him in a dark cabinet, setting into operation a series of rapidly flashing bulbs and listening to the tick of an electric key by which he acknowledged the flashes.

The average man responds to the stimulus of the light in 180 one thousandths of a second. Babe Ruth needs only 160 one thousandths of a second. There is the same significance in the fact that Babe’s response to the stimulus of sound comes 140 one thousandths of a second as against the averages man’s 150 thousandths.

Human beings differ very slightly in these sight and sound tests, or rather the fractions are so small that they seem inexpressive; yet a difference of 20 or 10 one thousandths of a second indicates a superiority of the highest importance.

Translate the findings of the sight test into baseball if you want to see what they mean in Babe Ruth’s case. They mean that a pitcher must throw a ball 20 one thousandths of a second faster to “fool” Babe than to “fool” the average person.

If the results of these tests at Columbia are a revelation to us, who know Ruth as a fast thinking player, they must be infinitely more amazing to the person who only comes into contact with the big fellow off the diamond and finds him unresponsive and even slow when some non-professional topic in under discussion.

The scientific “ivory hunters” up at Columbia demonstrated that Babe Ruth would have been the “home-run king” in almost any line of activity he chose to follow; that his brain would have won equal success for him had he drilled it for as long a time on some line entirely foreign to the national game. They did it, just as they proved his speed and his steadiness — by simple laboratory tests.

For instance, they had an apparatus with a sort of a camera shutter arrangement that opened, winked, and closed at any desired speed. Cards with letters of the alphabet on them were placed behind this shutter and exposed to view for one fifty-thousandth of a second. Ruth read them as they flashed into view, calling almost instantly the units of groups of three, four, five, and six letters. With eight shown he got the first six, and was uncertain of the others. The average person can see four and one half letters on the same test.

When cards marked with black dots were used, Ruth was even faster. He called up the number of dots on every card up to twelve without one mistake, The average person can see eight.

To test him for quickness of perception and understanding, he was given a card showing five different symbols — a star, a cross, and three other shapes — many times repeated, and was told to select a number — one, two, three, four, or five — for each symbol, then to mark the selected number under each one as rapidly as he could go over the card. He scored 103 hits on that test, which his the average of all who have tried it. But when given a card covered with printed matter and told to cross out all the a’s, he made a score of sixty, which is one and a half times the average.

The secret of Babe Ruth’s ability to hit is clearly revealed in these tests, His eye, his ear, his brain, his nerves all function more rapidly than do those of the average person. Further the coordination between eye, ear, brain, and muscle is much nearer perfection than that of the normal healthy man.

The scientific “ivory hunters” dissecting the “home-run king” discovered brain instead of bone, and showed how little mere luck, or even mere hitting strength, has to do with Ruth’s phenomenal record.

Double post

Yes, but only with a dollar, not a rounders ball.

My takeaway from watching this TedTalk is that it is likely many of the players of baseball in 1910s would be pushed into other sports due to their body types. If we really think about it, it is amazing Billy Hamilton and Elly de la Cruz are baseball players rather than running for a track team at some university. In 1920, professional baseball was the game of choice. However, today players opt out of baseball to pursue Football -- like Kyler Murray, Russell Wilson, and Tom Brady. If Ruth, Foxx, Gehrig, and some of the other two sport athletes from 1920 were transplanted today would they do the same thing?

I think physically and with his reactions Ruth and most great hitters would still be great hitters.

What I think would cause them trouble hitting today and require a lot of adjustment is how batters and pitchers are analyzed. Over 20 years ago some teams were exchanging annotated game film of every at bat. I'm fairly sure that it's now all teams.

Using that, they were able to tell things like what pitch in what location a batter had trouble with. Or what pitch a pitcher was most likely to throw in a certain situation. And use it to spot if a pitcher was tipping his pitches and how.

If any of the greats had a weakness it would probably be found. Like in the article saying Ruth preferred a low outside pitch. Knowing that, a pitcher could throw him only pitches that were inside or up in the zone.

Mostly because of this, I don't think they would become dominant hitters, but still great.

Would Ruth be as successful as a pitcher today?

Exact same answer as hitting.:D

I'm still wondering why anyone thinks today's pitching is better than in the past. Are people throwing harder more consistently, sure. But why does that make pitching harder to hit? It clearly isn't hard to hit a 100 MPH fastball. If it were, you would have a lot more elite pitching in the league. But since 100 MPH is becoming fairly common and being an elite pitcher who throws 100 MPH is not, I think it's fair to assume it's not very difficult to hit modern power pitching.

What I think would be difficult is to hit pre-war pitching. That was a world where everyone could PITCH. Maybe not throw 100 MPH, but they could certainly pitch. The same differences would exist as they do when you're in the box against Aroldis Chapman vs Greg Maddux. Except in the pre-war era everybody had to have a little Maddux in them because they would be expected to pitch 9 innings and go through the order three times. That meant developing craft.

Babe Ruth....(and Mickey Mantle) were both ambi-dexterous. I have no-doubt that they could "handle" 90+ MPH pitching and be as effective as they were when
they were playing the game.



TED Z

T206 Reference
.

I look at a guy like Noah Syndergaard. He's huge and he throws super hard. But he can't actually pitch and that's why he's had such limited success (along with injuries from trying to throw hard).

I just don't see why throwing hard today means anything. It clearly isn't hard to hit a 100 MPH fastball. What is hard is hitting against someone who knows how to pitch, and that person can come from any era.

The bold part is easily the most ridiculous thing posted in this thread.

They have done tests for everything. From 2015-2017 they tested data from MLB hitters on this exact subject. Hitters that bat 300 against a 90mph fast ball were only hitting 200 against a 100mph fastball.

Why is it ridiculous? I can rattle off dozens of pitchers in the modern era who didn't throw hard but experienced a lot of success. Guys like Jamie Moyer, Tim Wakefield, Roy Halladay, Andy Pettitte and on and on and on.

It is not hard to hit a 100 MPH fastball. There are a million guys in the minors throwing 100 and they'll never pitch in the major leagues. There are equally as many pitchers in the majors throwing 100 with unsustainable ERAs that will mean their careers are over in a few seasons.

These people can't pitch and that's their problem. They can only throw 100 MPH.

Mike Trout pretty clearly seems to think the heat is making life harder as a batter. I get it that heat without skill doesn’t amount to much but heat with skill seems harder to hit than lower heat with the same skill. Not sure you can argue around that.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jv5Yo6C8ao4

While being able to throw 100+ doesn't necessarily make you a good pitcher, saying it's not hard to hit a 100 MPH pitch seems like a stretch to me.

From Baseball-reference.com, career batting average against for Jamie Moyer is .268 and for Aroldis Chapman it's .165.

No I wouldn't argue that a pitcher who can both pitch and throw super hard isn't going to be successful. Just look at Randy Johnson.

If you wanted to say Babe Ruth would have a hard time against Randy Johnson, I would agree because I think anyone in any time would. But I don’t think Ruth would have any more trouble with a league average power pitcher just because he throws hard. Ruth was an incredible hitter. I would say the same about Gehrig, DiMaggio and any of the truly elite players.

:confused:

For a major league player it’s almost a requirement. It’s not a select skill among professional baseball players. Is it?

Looks like only three pitchers averaged 99.5 mph + on their fastball this season:

Jhoan Duran - opponents hit .118 against his fastball
Jordan Hicks - opponents hit .229 against his fastball
Felix Bautista - opponents hit .144 against his fastball

Thank you for posting this information in detail, this was the study that I was referring to in my prior post. There would be other batters, past or present, who wold measure in the higher than average range if given the test that was used to evaluate Ruth's reflexes or the computer simulation that measured Pujols reactions. Seemingly Ruth would have at least the ability to compete and probably thrive in today's game, though the batting statistics may not be as lofty.

Phil aka Tere1071

I think he would excel, even dominate, because he would study and adjust. He would also eat right and exercise. Maybe he would carouse. There are those who do so today and continue to excel. There are also those who can't, on the other hand.

It's a hell of a lot harder to hit a 100 mph fastball on the outside corner than a 90 mph one. Your post is not looking at the full context. The discussion of increased velocity over time assumes pitchers are still as good at locating. If the only way to hit 100 was to just send one with no movement down the middle of the plate, what you say might be logical.

But a lot of pitchers do just that. For every Jhoan Duran there are ten Kyle Farnsworths.

Name someone who is Ruth-like today. There's the problem. You can't.

I very rarely watch baseball now so I have no idea on current players. He has been retired for a couple years but Albert Pujols.:D He had a 10 year run that was beyond incredible.

Barry Bonds on roids.

Sorry. Did not have the Ruth factor. If playing alongside Ruth he would shrink away to, well, perhaps not insignificance, but no matter how you compensate or adjust, he just isn't Ruth. Plus Barry didn't pitch. I personally love the guy, roids or otherwise, but he's no Ruth.

Foxx is darned close. Look at how the 29-30-31 A's compare to the 26-27-28 Yankees that get all the hype. If Mr. Mack hadn't broken them up, we might be talking about XX in a different Ruthian light. Pre-WW2 DiMaggio, ehhhh, maybe. Mantle, if he hadn't had his knee damaged, close also. Aaron, ehhhh, maybe. These guys never pitched either.

7 or 8 guys throwing 94 to 100 + mph for 9 innings? Great hitters adjust to that. When he's not stubbing his toe, Judge does pretty good, doesn't he? So did the above-mentioned Albert Pujols, among others.

If your criteria is someone who can hit for power and also pitch, then Ohtani is the only answer.

I guess so. But not just pitch, but pitch very well. And if you take away the pitching, then not just hit for power, but hit with tremendous power. And of course sustain it without breaking down.

Modern Pitching
 

Joe DiMaggio & Ted Williams would SPANK modern pitchers. Want the proof? They both wore out Bob Feller, who threw approx. upper 90s - 100 mph as well as having one of the filthiest “12 to 6” curveballs in MLB history. Joltin Joe batted .342 lifetime against Feller (17 points higher than his lifetime batting average) in 193 at bats with 11 home runs. Meanwhile, Williams batted .344 lifetime against Feller (equal to his career average) in 154 at bats with 10 homers and an incredible 1.135 OPS! DiMaggio was way ahead of his time, utilizing a virtually “no stride” swing resulting in him rarely missing the baseball (evident by him only striking out only 369 times in 13 seasons). Regarding Williams, his superior vision was literally off the eye charts, and it is no coincidence that his uncanny eyesight led to Ted being one of America’s finest fighter pilots in the Korean War.

One must also keep in mind that pre-1950 players utilized much heavier bats (36+ ounces in many instances). Modern players use lighter bats (roughly 32-34 ounces) since the lighter bat results in significantly more bat speed. That said, imagine putting a 33/34 ounce bat in Babe Ruth’s hands versus the typical 36-44 ounce bats he used throughout his career! If you look at early to mid 1920s film of Ruth’s swing, he swung that 40+ ounces bat like it was a toothpick - utilizing incredible hip speed and torque to whip that lumber around like no one I’ve ever seen. His athleticism and strength was uncanny, and had he used a bat weighing 6-8 ounces LESS, that would have easily assisted him in handling the faster velocity.

One final critical point is that pre-1950 players never had the advantage of high-tech training programs that have ably assisted many pitchers reaching high 90s to 100+!mph. Can you imagine Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx, DiMaggio, Williams, etc. reaping the benefits of this advanced training that would easily put them above the levels of most modern day players!

DH on non-pitching days is tough work alright.