It was the end of a decade and the beginning of perhaps the most memorable era during the twentieth century, The Roaring Twenties.

In the world of Baseball, the Boston Red Sox (previously called the Americans or the Pilgrims) stunned their fans by letting go of a once-in-an-eon player. His name was Babe Ruth. He hit baseballs farther than anyone could remember, won an ERA title as the best lefthanded pitcher in the American League, if not all of baseball, and posted two 20+ wins seasons. He also set the record for most consecutive scoreless innings pitched in the World Series with 29.2 (a record that would last over forty years.)

In 1919, Ruth set the Major League record by hitting 29 homeruns, while out-homering ten of the other fifteen teams. Such dominance had never been witnessed on a baseball diamond.

However, the Red Sox (a team which won five-of-five World Series during the first two decades of the twentieth century) finished sixth in the American League that year and were suffering financial woes.

So, they sold Ruth, down the river, to the New York Yankees.

And thus began the blossoming of the Greatest Player and Greatest Hitter in the history of the National Pastime, precisely at the beginning of the Roaring Twenties, in New York City – the city that never sleeps!

For in 1920, Babe Ruth became the first player to hit 30, 40 and 50 homeruns in a season, ending up with 54. He outhomered 14 of a possible 15 teams and 11 pairs of teams. His homerun percentage was nearly 16 times better than the rest of baseball. The Sultan of Swat also posted a slugging average of .847, which was 2.189 times better than the Major League average (which, by the way, was not equaled by Barry Bonds in either 2001 or 2004.)

In the world of statistical outliers, Ruth produced the ultimate outlier!

And his 1921 season was even better, as we will soon see!

But just to give a little peek…in 1921 (a season which consisted of 154 games), the Bambino set the following seasonal records which still stand:

• Most Runs Scored with 177
• Most Total Bases with 457
• Most Extra Base Hits with 119

Not to mention that Ruth also pitched in two games and won both of then in 1921.

Was anyone “close” to Ruth, either season-wise or career-wise?

Well, there were Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner before Ruth; Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Jimmie Foxx and Joe DiMaggio followed the Big Bam. Then there were stars like Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. George Brett. Tony Gwynn. Mark McGwire. Sammy Sosa. Barry Bonds. Alex Rodriguez. Albert Pujols.

But how close is close?

Dominance is one thing…Transcendence is something else.

And when players like McGwire, Sosa and Bonds start hitting home runs at such a rate late in their careers that their cumulative home run percentages kept increasing, questions certainly arise.

Do these questions which directly lead to other questions about Steroids, HGHs, PEDs, etc. give us a certain plausibility for comparative analyses?

We shall see.

Baseball historian, Bill Jenkinson, has thoroughly covered Ruth’s 1921 season in his book, The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs (2007). Many researchers including Bill James, John Thorn, Pete Palmer and a myriad of other analysts have also written extensively on this subject in the past.

And also in the present.

For example, a Dominican Friar, Father Humbert Kilanowski, a Mathematics professor at Providence College, is currently working with a SABR Century Committee furthering analysis of Ruth’s remarkable record, posted 100 years ago.

A West Point colleague, Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Cummiskey, a Professor of Statistics, will now provide further findings on this most amazing of seasons.

In 1921, Babe Ruth hit 59 home runs with an on-base percentage plus slugging (OPS) of 1.359. It was an exceptional season with no other players coming close to matching these numbers until Bonds, Sosa, and McGwire in the late 1990s. Figure 1 depicts OPS versus home runs for every Major League hitter by season with at least 502 plate appearances (approximately 13,000 data points.) The points in the upper right are the elite few who hit with exceptional power and consistency. Their names are familiar to even the casual fan of baseball: Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Roger Maris, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bonds.

*To calculate relative home run ratios (RHRR), we looked at every 50+ seasonal HR hitter and we took his HR and divided it by his AB. So, the individual’s RHRR is defined as HRIND/ABIND. Next we took the ML HR total and divided it by the total number of ML AB for that season. We defined the ML Home Run Ratio as HRML/ABML. We divided the first ratio by the second and defined the ratio of ratios as the Relative Home Run Ratio.

For example, in 1921, Ruth hit 59 HR in 540 AB; MLB players hit 937 HR in 85172 AB. Hence, (59/540) divided by (937/85172) gives an RHRR of 9.93.

While Ruth’s 1920 season may have been the greatest season relative to the Major Leagues, we feel that the 1921 season was better on an absolute scale. We have noted Ruth’s still standing seasonal records of most Runs Scored, most Total Bases and most Extra Base Hits (in 154 games, no less.) Bill Jenkinson's exhaustive research reinforces this choice. (See, Chapter 4, The Year Babe Ruth hit 104 Home Runs.) However, as we all know, with Ruth, no matter how you look at him, his records defy complete analysis. And, as Bill wrote in his other book (Chapter 7, Baseball’s Ultimate Power), there is no rational explanation for Babe Ruth.

Ruth, himself, felt that his best year was 1923, when he batted .393 and was the unanimous choice for the Most Valuable Player award. For some reason, though it is hardly ever brought to attention, Babe Ruth was only 4 additional hits short of batting .400 that year!

 References

• Costa, G. B., Huber, M. R., & Saccoman, J. T. (2019). Understanding Sabermetrics: An introduction to the science of baseball statistics. McFarland.

• Friendly, M., Dalzell, C., Monkman, M., & Murphy, D. (2019). Sean Lahman’s Baseball Database. R package version 7.0-1.

• Lahman, S. (2020) Lahman’s Baseball Database, 1871-2019, Main page, http://www.seanlahman.com/baseball-archive/statistics/