How good of a player would Babe Ruth be if he was around today?

[MassNole]

I was thinking about this for whatever reason tonight and was pondering this. If Babe Ruth were to be cloned how good of a player would he be today?

Honestly if you looked at him, he was in horrible physical condition and had some severe off the field issues. With ESPN today he would more hated than Terrell Owens. And I don't think his skills would translate to the modern athlete.

Thoughts?

[SPTO]

Re: How good of a player would Babe Ruth be if he was around today?

How severe were his off the field problems? He liked women and boozing that's no different then most athletes today. As for his skills on the diamond, you're probably right. I think he would be strictly a DH/1B type in today's game and I have the sneaking suspicion that he'd be a lot like Steve Balboni or Ken Hamelin but with a little more plate discipline.

[MassNole]

Re: How good of a player would Babe Ruth be if he was around today?

How severe were his off the field problems? He liked women and boozing that's no different then most athletes today. As for his skills on the diamond, you're probably right. I think he would be strictly a DH/1B type in today's game and I have the sneaking suspicion that he'd be a lot like Steve Balboni or Ken Hamelin but with a little more plate discipline.

Great comparison with Steve Balboni.

I ironic would it be for a Yankee fan to say he could be just like David Ortiz?

[Knight165]

Re: How good of a player would Babe Ruth be if he was around today?

Here is what I think.
You guys should lay off the cheeb.
The guy was surrounded by other players who were(except for the weight training) in as good a shape as any ballplayer around today and he still blew them off the face of the earth.
The guy was just a pure baseball machine in spite of himself.

M.K.
Knight165

[mvb34]

Re: How good of a player would Babe Ruth be if he was around today?

I think Babe Ruth would been an average player at best.

[Marino]

Re: How good of a player would Babe Ruth be if he was around today?

he would be god

[55]

Re: How good of a player would Babe Ruth be if he was around today?

I think he would still be one of the premier sluggers in the sport. He would obviously still have same power.

[ELDoro]

Re: How good of a player would Babe Ruth be if he was around today?

If taken from his form then (and not brought up, trained, and on a workout plan like today) The timing and hand eye coordination are no different than now and then. Pitchers dont throw any harder now but they do locate a lot better. Also no one was throwing a splitter back then; the 2-seamer come back or shuuto; circle-change moving away from a lefty hitter; and most breaking balls back then were more of the 12/6 break than a slider. Pitchers would have the advantage to find his holes through use of video and stuff like that also. I think he could hold his own.....but no 62HR seasons.

However, any other sport where athletic ability has more of an effect such as basketball or football and those guys would have no chance.

[Brandon13]

Re: How good of a player would Babe Ruth be if he was around today?

He'd probably still be a great player.

[dkgojackets]

Re: How good of a player would Babe Ruth be if he was around today?

The guy was surrounded by other players who were(except for the weight training) in as good a shape as any ballplayer around today

um, not at all. They were in top shape for the time, but todays players as a whole are much stronger/faster/etc and the best have done nothing but play baseball from as soon as they can hold a bat.

[Knight165]

Re: How good of a player would Babe Ruth be if he was around today?

um, not at all. They were in top shape for the time, but todays players as a whole are much stronger/faster/etc and the best have done nothing but play baseball from as soon as they can hold a bat.

Sorry...I just don't agree.
While you do have the freak player who is an absolute workout monster, I think most ballplayers are simply just very good athletes. Nothing spectacular like guys in T&F and other Olympic sports.
MOST ballplayers probably workout as much(or as little) as they did back then. Do you think the Latin players of today from the various countries, which are producing great amounts of players and TOP NOTCH guys have access to all this great workout facilities and nutrition?....Nope they have sandlots all over the place and work out at what makes ballplayers the best player they can be....throwing the ball.....hitting the ball and catching the ball.....same as it was a century and more ago.
Yes, today they do have access to MUCH more as far as facilities, machines etc...but obviously Babe Ruth was a freak as far as hand/eye coordination. Nobody during his time could even come close to what he did. You don't hit 714 homeruns by accident.
We've had the "are pitchers better now or then" argument before also and I wasn't impressed with the facts for "now" that much either. As far as the different pitches of today....1. For as many K's/outs as a splitter or 2-seamer(which I think they threw back then anyway...if you read pitching reference guides all the pitchers refer to some funky pitches they threw, just didn't name them) would get, they probably make just as many mistakes on them that will get hit hard and 2. there are plenty of mediocre/sucky pitchers today that Ruth would HAMMER every time he stepped up.

Like I said before.....was Ruth out of shape? Certainly...but that's what makes it all the more amazing. He was a great ballplayer IN SPITE of himself. He wasn't a Jim Thorpe and he still was able to be the best ballplayer of his time....for a long time.
Do you seriously think the teams of yesteryear couldn't compete with the teams of today?
Okay.....

M.K.
Knight165

[fugazi]

Re: How good of a player would Babe Ruth be if he was around today?

you don't have to be a monster to hit/play well. Look at Aaron. Ted Williams, etc...

Ruth would have struggled like all hitters against the top pitchers, but he would destroy the 2nd tier pitchers and below. 50 hrs in a season...likely. But when facing Santana, Hamels, Buerhle he would have the same trouble most have, and some success.

NOw...

could he pitch today?

[Knight165]

Re: How good of a player would Babe Ruth be if he was around today?

you don't have to be a monster to hit/play well. Look at Aaron. Ted Williams, etc...

Ruth would have struggled like all hitters against the top pitchers, but he would destroy the 2nd tier pitchers and below. 50 hrs in a season...likely. But when facing Santana, Hamels, Buerhle he would have the same trouble most have, and some success.

NOw...

could he pitch today?

Exactly how I feel.
Only you managed to say it in less than my usual 1000 words.
Babe Ruth is the Albert Pujols-Alex Rodriguez of today, in spite of looking like Doug Heffernan.
Baseball, probably of all sports is the one where you just "have to have it" from birth.
I believe all the training in the world will not make you a great player. It might improve your skills somewhat....of course...but except for the oddball guy I don't think that baseball players benefit from exceptional athleticism as some other sports might.
Look at Michael Jordan and even to some extent Bo Jackson.
Two great athletes who EXCELLED at their "first" sport....but while Jordan couldn't even play pro ball....Jackson would have been an average to slightly above average ballplayer....and he was rated as high as a rating as you could get in college in just about every category. But once he got to the real pro level.....ehh....

M.K.
Knight165

[Sportsforever]

Re: How good of a player would Babe Ruth be if he was around today?

Exactly how I feel.
Only you managed to say it in less than my usual 1000 words.
Babe Ruth is the Albert Pujols-Alex Rodriguez of today, in spite of looking like Doug Heffernan.
Baseball, probably of all sports is the one where you just "have to have it" from birth.
I believe all the training in the world will not make you a great player. It might improve your skills somewhat....of course...but except for the oddball guy I don't think that baseball players benefit from exceptional athleticism as some other sports might.
Look at Michael Jordan and even to some extent Bo Jackson.
Two great athletes who EXCELLED at their "first" sport....but while Jordan couldn't even play pro ball....Jackson would have been an average to slightly above average ballplayer....and he was rated as high as a rating as you could get in college in just about every category. But once he got to the real pro level.....ehh....

M.K.
Knight165

I think it's really impossible for us to know how players of yesteryear would fare against modern players...we can only look and see how they compared to their peers and rate them that way. Ruth comes out pretty darn impressive. I agree completely that baseball isn't an athlete's game, it's a baseball player's game.

I realized this in college. I was a late starter in baseball (didn't start playing until freshman year of high school), but I'm a pretty good athlete and ended up becoming good enough my senior year to get looks and ended up playing college ball. Well, I got to college and I was still a better athlete than almost anyone on the team, but our best player by far was this slow, pudgy, unathletic guy who could just flat out play. Best baseball player I ever played with. When I first saw him I thought it was a joke that he was on the team, but after watching him play for all those years I realized it was his amazing eye hand coordination and the baseball instincts he was born with that made him so good.

[CMH]

Re: How good of a player would Babe Ruth be if he was around today?

Unfair comparison because if Babe Ruth were playing today he wouldn't look like Babe Ruth. He's have grown up in a different environment, he would have gone through different training in the minors.

Too many variables to factor. We want to compare Babe Ruth, and all his weight and problems, as if they would carry over into the year 2009. Chances are, if he were drafted today, they wouldn't be.

I could ask just as bad a question by suggesting that Jimmy Rollins wouldn't succeed in 1920 because he'd have to deal with more criticism than he could imagine. It's a ridiculous notion because we don't know how true that is. We don't know what he would do or how he would behave in that time period.

And I don't mean to insult you MassNole. We all have these questions. I just think it's unfair to really put a lot of weight into it.