"The interesting thing, among the many many many endlessly interesting things about Babe Ruth — certainly the most stunning figure in baseball history — is that he was nearly as great a pitcher as he was a hitter.
In his coming-up as a raw boy from Baltimore he mowed down his opponents in the American League;
he was the best left-handed pitcher in the 1910s, without question, in the American League, and it was only because of the prodigal strength that resided in his bat that he moved off the mound.
When people get into discussions about who's the greatest ballplayer in history and they say, Well there was Ruth, but there was also DiMaggio and Cobb and Mays and Aaron and the other claimants. To me it seems like an utterly wasted discussion.
Let us say that Ruth was not as good a defensive player as Willie Mays...but he was also one of the greatest pitchers ever!
It is as if imagining that Beethoven and Cézanne were one person producing the same work.
It just can't be compared to anything else."
~ Daniel Okrent (American writer and editor)
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