interesting old baseball article

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Posted By: John(z28jd) 

I have an article from the Boston Golbe dated Sept 11,1919 and theres a story about Babe Ruth and him breaking the single season home run mark.The interesting part was they took a picture of Buck Freeman who was a coach in the minors at the time and did a short interview with him.Unlike most retired players,he said the players were better now(1919) then they were back in his day,and the fields were bigger too.

At the time of the article,Freeman was considered the man who held the record for single season homers with 25 in 1899.I guess because Ned Williamson wasnt alive in 1899,he wasnt there to argue the fact that he hit 27 in 1884 and shouldve been the record holder till Babe passed him.Besides Williamson,over half of his teammates from that season(12 of 20) werent alive still in 1919,just 35 years later,and most of them were in their mid to early 20s in '84

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

Hmmmmmmm.......I swear I had read somewhere that when Ruth hit 29 he broke Gavy Cravath's single-season record. I hadn't even realized Buck Freeman was that close.

I wonder whether Williamson got the short end of the stick because he hit his 27 in the American Association. It could also be because people all knew that the Chicago park he hit 25 of his 27 homers in that year had an outfield fence that was only 200 feet away and prior to 1884 balls hit over it were considered only doubles.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Cravath held the carrer mark prior to Ruth.

Jay

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Posted By: runscott

but his reputation as a legitimate power hitter was hampered by having hit so many of them in the "Baker Bowl" with it's short left-field fence.

http://www.homestead.com/runscott/Gavvy.html
http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/B/Baker_Bowl.stm

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Posted By: Three25hits

Unless one is starting in 1901, according to baseball-reference, Ned Williamson was in fact the single season record holder until 1919.

http://baseball-reference.com/leaders/HR_progress.shtml

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

It has been pointed out to me that I erred in one of my statements above. Ned Williamson did, in fact, hit his 27 home runs in 1884 for the Chicago White Stockings of the National League.

The fact that he hit 25 of them in the Little League park he called his home field still stands!

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Posted By: Three25hits

This topic is discussed in Worth's article found here -- http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/submit/Worth_Fred2.stm



The Most Impressive Single-Season Home Run Records

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by Fred Worth (Arkadelphia, AR) SABR

<<snip>>
I debated with myself for a while as to whether Babe Ruth's most impressive record was the 29 in 1919 or the 54 he hit in 1920. His 29 home runs in 1919 only broke the old record of Ned Williamson (27 in 1884) by 2. But Williamson's total was greatly over-inflated due to the bandbox dimensions of his home field. For evidence of that, consider the fact that 142 of the entire league's 323 home runs that season were hit by Williamson and his Chicago teammates. Additionally, consider that Williamson hit 42.9% of his career home runs that season in only 9.2% of his career at bats. That season he hit 6.5 home runs per 100 at bats. For the rest of his career his rate was 0.9 home runs per 100 at bats. For a good discussion of the causes of Williamson's one year explosion, see John c. Tattersall's article "Clarifying An Early Home Run Record" in the 1972 edition of the Baseball Research Journal.

Even if 1884 had never happened, Ruth's 29 would not have broken the record by much. Buck Freeman's 25 in 1899 would have been the record, followed closely by Gavy Cravath's 24 in 1915. Yet, Ruth must take first place on this list because of the way he redefined baseball. Freeman and Cravath both led the league other times but with no totals like their career highs. Ruth's 29 circuit clouts were the signal of the change of an age in baseball. No longer was the home run a rarity. Instead it became a defining part of a baseball player's value.
<<snip>>

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

It wasn't that he hit so many, but that he had the great habit of hitting them in the post season.Like all of the posts in this thread, "You could look it up."