Followers of other sports argue about their ゛best-ever゛：Jack Nicklaus versus Tiger Woods in golf；Don Bradman versus Sachin Tendulkar in cricket；umpteen contenders for the title of best boxer pound-for-pound. Baseball is different. Here Robert Weintraub, a leading American sports columnist, is able to claim that just one man, Babe Ruth, is ゛by general consensus the most important and greatest player in the game's history.゛
Mr Weintraub's main theme is the role Ruth played in the 1923 season, when the New York Yankees famously won their first World Series after moving to a brandnew stadium in the Bronx. His far more interesting sub-theme is how Ruth's might helped change the character of baseball for the better and for good.
Pre-Ruth the prevalent style of play was known as Scientific Baseball or Inside Baseball. ゛Runs came at a premium, earned with difficulty through cunning, aggression and patience. They weren't so much scored as crafted. The sacrifice hit, the stolen base and hit-and-run play...It was the baseball equivalent of the trench warfare in France. Nothing came easily.゛
John McGraw, manager of the then New York Giants, was the chief proponent of Scientific Baseball. He saw the home run as an abasement of the game he loved, a cheap, undignified method of scoring runs. Ruth's slugging thrilled the crowds, broadened baseball appeal and filled the stands, but for McGraw he was a mere slugger, ゛the Big Baboon゛or ゛the Big Ape゛.
Ty Cobb, a rival baseball star, was even ruder. He fanned the slander that Ruth seldom took a bath by sniffing hard and pretending to detect a horrible smell whenever the slugger came near him. McGraw was the loser. In 1920 the rules of baseball were changed to favour batters. Pitchers were forbidden to give the ball an artificial spin or trajectory by, for instance, nicking it or spitting on it and from discolouring the ball with dirt or tobacco juice or hair grease. And a new ball would be used whenever the one in play showed any sign of wear. Taking advantage of the new ゛live ball゛ rules, Ruth alone clubbed 54 home runs in his first year with the Yankees. No other team made more than 50.
After Ruth wowed mainstream America, there was no turning back. A run he hit in 1923 World Series against the Giants was described by an awed sportswriter as a wallop that sounded like a barrel of crockery being pushed down the stairs゛. The ball rocketed more than 300 feet off the ground, and far beyond the right field roof of the Giants' Polo Grounds - a blast later estimated at 475 feet (144.8 meters).
As Mr Weintraub says, by dethroning the Giants, the Yankees and their bashing style had accelerated the decline of Scientific Baseball. The national pastime was no longer a game for the purists. Support for baseball exploded and the new fans wanted home runs and lots of them. ゛Hitting and running and steal and spiking - McGrawism - were for the birds. Totally wet. The Ruthian scene was the one that people wanted to be part of.゛
