Babe Ruth is widely considered the greatest baseball player who ever lived. In his era, he would out-homer entire teams. When he hit 60 homers in 1927, he passed the single season home run mark. Of course, he was beating his own mark, a feat he would accomplish on a number of occasions.

By the way, Ruth was also an accomplished pitcher. He had a career 122 ERA+, and he once held the record for consecutive scoreless innings in the World Series. No one in the history of baseball would dominate the sport in the way he did.

Fast-forward a century later, and many people scoff at the notion Ruth is the greatest player in Major League history. Their argument is Ruth never faced the type of pitching we see in the modern game. Assuredly, Jacob deGrom and his stuff would make Walter Johnson look like a Four-A pitcher . . . at best.

Of course, part of that misses the point. A century ago, deGrom would never make it to the Major Leagues. Remember, deGrom would undergo Tommy John surgery in 2010. We wouldn’t see Tommy John undergo that surgery until 39 years after Ruth played his last game. To put it further in perspective, medicine was so far behind where it was now that penicillin wasn’t discovered by Alexander Fleming until Ruth was in his 15th Major League season.

If you were to put modern day pitchers back in the game a century ago, they couldn’t compete, or better yet, they wouldn’t be anywhere near the pitchers they are now. There aren’t the modern training techniques or training. There isn’t the focus on changing baseballs as frequently as they do now.

In fact, it was routine until 1920 that one baseball would be used per game. As a result, you would get dirty, heavy, and hard to pick up on baseballs. While that would suppress pitch velocity, it would also reduce exit velocity. It wasn’t until Ray Chapman‘s death, that things would change.

Aside from that, while it is true Ruth probably never saw a pitcher like Noah Syndergaard‘s fastball or slider, pitches were routinely scuffed, and pitchers were permitted to use the spit ball (and likely used many other substances). Fact is, every time Ruth stepped to the plate, he was effectively facing Mike Scott on the mound. Also, keep in mind, someone like Johnson or Smoky Joe Wood was throwing their fastballs in the lower 90s.

Another consideration is during Ruth’s playing days, he routinely used bats which weighted as much as 54 ounces. The modern day bat weighs around 33 – 36 ounces. Ruth was hitting the ball when it was likely mostly thrown in the 70s and 80s. Keep in mind, he was hitting the ball out of ballparks whose fences were typically deeper

Even if we were to assume Ruth could not keep up with the current velocity, he could drop 15 ounces on his bat and be much better positioned to catch up to that velocity. It should also be noted Ruth would be using a significantly better quality bat than he was using a century ago.

That’s exactly the point. If you put Ruth into baseball a century later, he would have every advantage the modern day player has. If you put the modern day player in baseball a century ago, they may not be able to even step on the field. Overall, Ruth dominated his era like no one ever has or ever will. If you gave him all of the modern advantages, or you took them away from the modern player, he would absolutely destroy those pitchers because Ruth was that great.