by Jane Leavy
Of course, he hadn’t yet been to Sing Sing. The Yankees arrived at the prison on September 5, 1929, to play the home team, known as the Black Sheep. Sports Illustrated described the scene in 1967: “A home run in the yard at Sing Sing is a home run almost anywhere. It is 270 feet down the left-field foul line, 440 in dead center and 340 in right. A thick 30-foot-high stone wall, topped by three watchtowers, encloses the outfield.”
The game was played before what the New York Times called 1,500 “more or less permanent residents,” who saw the last of his three home runs carry high over the wall, past the center field guardhouse and across the New York Central railroad tracks that bisected the prison, finally returning to earth some 600 feet away. “Gee, I wish I was riding out of here on that one!” exclaimed the Black Sheep shortstop, who still had ten years to go on a twenty-five-year stretch.
Contemporaneous accounts estimated that the ball traveled 620 feet, but it was never measured. The Times called it “the longest non-stop flight of an object or person leaving Sing Sing.”
In gratitude, the inmates made him a double-hinged cedar chest with a pair of inlaid baseball diamonds on the top labeled “Nat. League” and “Am. League.” It was sold by members of the Ruth family for $23,395 in January 2017.
The fifty-year revolution to remake baseball in the image of mathematicians continues unabated despite the 2004 warning of Paterfamilias Bill James that “the fog of data” was becoming an impediment to enlightenment.
Nearly fifteen years later, James et al. remain committed to the quest of developing a single statistic that can measure the value of an individual player to his team in such a way that his achievements can be compared with the living and the dead, no matter what era they played in, what position they manned, or what ballpark they called home. This remains the holy grail of sabermetrics.
What is clear a half century into the search is how well Babe Ruth fares in all the formulations. The Batting-Fielding Wins (BFW) metric included in Retrosheet’s career record was devised by Pete Palmer, also the father of the now standard On Base + Slugging (OPS) statistic. While working overtime in Raytheon’s computer lab during the 1960s, Palmer created a system of linear weights, assigning a value to each of the seven possible outcomes of an at-bat. This became the foundation for his Total Player Rankings published in The Hidden Game of Baseball in 1984. BFW attributes to each player the number of wins over (or under) the number an average player would contribute in his place. Ruth ranks second behind Barry Bonds in this formula.
James was still working as a security guard at the Stokely Van Camp pork and beans factory when he created the formula for Runs Created using the equation for “total bases” that F. C. Lane began compiling for Baseball Magazine in Ruth’s time. (Ruth had 457 total bases in 1921.) In 2002, James unveiled a new metric called Win Shares, an extrapolation of Runs Created, which, he wrote, “are in essence Wins Created.” Unlike the other überstats, Win Shares is tied to actual team wins. So, if the Yankees win 100 games, there are 300 Win Shares available to Yankee players, which are then distributed to players, each according to his contribution in a victory.
Ruth ranks first with 752 Win Shares, followed by Ty Cobb with 722.
Wins Above Replacement (WAR), today’s most commonly cited metric, calculates the number of wins a player contributes to his team above the number the team would be expected to win if he was substituted with a replacement-level player. Ruth ranks first overall among all major-league players (pitchers and batters) with 182.5 WAR, followed by Cy Young with 168.5. According to Baseballreference.com, Ruth is also second among position players with 162.1, just behind Bonds.
Clay Davenport, a meteorologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and longtime statistician for Baseball Prospectus, spent more than a decade working on a system that converts the fancy new statistics back into the familiar Black Ink stats—the boldfaced league leaders—recognizable to the average fan. He calls them DTs—Davenport Translations—a comparison of how a given player did against the average player in his era and how he would have fared against the average player of 2000. Ruth’s career totals in translation look like this: .319 BA, 972 HR, 1991 BB, 2120 RBI, SLG .714. Davenport then translated those projected totals into an Equivalent Average (EqA) of .362, and Equivalent Runs (EqR), his estimation of Runs Created.
As always in the pursuit of objectivity, there are caveats, best articulated by John Thorn, Palmer’s coauthor, who is now the official historian of Major League Baseball. “Ruth’s dominance was not only the measure of Ruth; it was also, in part, the measure of the competition he faced,” Thorn said. “A colossus may so far outdistance his peers as to create records that are unapproachable for all time. But Ruth faced pitchers who threw complete games about half the time (today it is one in a hundred) and thus faced the same delivery through four to six plate appearances. He saw relievers only when starting pitchers were beaten into submission, and unlike today these pitchers were second-raters. Ruth never had to hit at night; never faced a slider or a split-fingered fastball; rarely faced a pitcher who would throw a breaking ball when behind in the count; and so on.
“Ruth never hit against an African American or dark-hued Latino pitchers, at least in the big leagues. If men of color had played in his day, many white players would have lost their positions and the average level of play would have risen.
“Ruth may have been better than any anyone ever was or will be; however, it defies reason to claim that Ruth’s opposition was as strong as that faced by Bryce Harper or Mike Trout.”
STANDARD CAREER RECORD
AB R H BA HR RBI SB On-base% SLG. OPS
8,399 2,174 2,873 .342 714 2,214 123 .474 .690 1.164
SABERMETRICS CAREER RECORD
WAR BFW WS EqA OPS+
183.7 (1) 114.8 (2) 726 (1) .362 206
LIFETIME BATTING RECORDS:
1ST SLUGGING: .690
1ST OPS: 1.164
1ST OPS+: 206 (OPS adjusted by ballpark and era)
2ND RBI: 2214
2ND ON BASE %: .474
2ND RUNS CREATED: 2,718
3RD HOME RUNS: 714
3RD BASES ON BALLS: 2,062
4TH RUNS SCORED: 2,174
4TH EXTRA-BASE HITS: 1,356
7TH TOTAL BASES: 5,793
10TH BATTING AVERAGE: .342
LIFETIME PITCHING RECORDS:
W-L RECORD: 94-46
W-L %: .671, 12th all-time (minimum of 1,000 innings pitched)
ERA: 2.28, 17th all-time
BEST SEASON: 1916, 23–12, 170 strikeouts, 1.75 ERA (league leader), 23 complete games; also led the league in games started (40), shutouts (9)
MOST COMPLETE GAMES IN AL 1917: 35
WORLD SERIES: 3–0, 0.87 ERA, 2 complete games, 1 shutout. His record for 292/3 consecutive scoreless innings stood for forty-two years. Pitched 14 innings in Game 2 of 1916 World Series, beating the Brooklyn Robins 2–1.
BATTING RECORD
Year Team G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SB CS AVG OBP SLG BFW
1914 BOS A 5 10 1 2 1 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 .200 .200 .300 0.0
1915 BOS A 42 92 16 29 10 1 4 20 9 23 0 2 0 0 .315 .376 .576 0.0
1916 BOS A 67 136 18 37 5 3 3 16 10 23 0 4 0 .272 .322 .419 0.0
1917 BOS A 52 123 14 40 6 3 2 14 12 18 0 7 0 .325 .385 .472 0.0
1918 BOS A 95 317 50 95 26 11 11 61 58 58 2 3 6 .300 .411 .555 3.6
1919 BOS A 130 432 103 139 34 12 29 113 101 58 6 3 7 .322 .456 .657 7.4
1920 NY A 142 458 158 172 36 9 54 135 150 80 3 5 14 14 .376 .532 .847 9.4
1921 NY A 152 540 177 204 44 16 59 168 145 81 4 4 17 13 .378 .512 .846 9.6
1922 NY A 110 406 94 128 24 8 35 96 84 14i 80 1 4 2 5 .315 .434 .672 3.8
1923 NY A 152 522 151 205 45 13 41 130 170 93 4 3 17 21 .393 .545 .764 10.8
1924 NY A 153 529 143 200 39 7 46 124 142 81 4 6 9 13 .378 .513 .739 8.9
1925 NY A 98 359 61 104 12 2 25 67 59 1i 68 2 6 2 4 .290 .393 .543 1.8
> 1926 NY A 152 495 139 184 30 5 47 153 144 9i 76 3 10 11 9 .372 .516 .737 8.6
1927 NY A 151 540 158 192 29 8 60 165 137 3 89 0 14 7 6 .356 .486 .772 9.2
1928 NY A 154 536 163 173 29 8 54 146 137 8i 87 3 8 4 5 .323 .463 .709 7.1
1929 NY A 135 499 121 172 26 6 46 154 72 3i 60 3 13 5 3 .345 .430 .697 5.0
1930 NY A 145 518 150 186 28 9 49 153 136 8i 61 1 21 10 10 .359 .493 .732 7.6
1931 NY A 145 534 149 199 31 3 46 162 128 4i 51 1 0 5 4 .373 .495 .700 7.8
1932 NY A 133 457 120 156 13 5 41 137 130 4i 62 2 0 2 2 .341 .489 .661 6.4
1933 NY A 137 459 97 138 21 3 34 104 114 3i 90 2 0 4 5 .301 .442 .582 4.6
1934 NY A 125 365 78 105 17 4 22 84 104 0i 63 2 0 1 3 .288 .448 .537 3.1
1935 BOS N 28 72 13 13 0 0 6 12 20 0i 24 0 0 0 0 .181 .359 .431 0.1
Total NL (1 Year) 28 72 13 13 0 0 6 12 20 0i 24 0 0 0 0 .181 .359 .431 0.1
Total AL (21 Years) 2475 8327 2161 2860 506 136 708 2202 2042 57i 1306 43 113 123 117i .343 .475 .692 114.7
Total (22 Years) 2503 8399 2174 2873 506 136 714 2214 2062 57i 1330 43 113 123 117i .342 .474 .690 114.8
i = incomplete
Source: David W. Smith, Retrosheet: Babe Ruth; http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/R/Pruthb101.htm
WORLD SERIES BATTING RECORD
Year Team G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG
1915 BOS A 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000
1916 BOS A 1 5 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000
1918 BOS A 3 5 0 1 0 1 0 2 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 .200 .200 .600
1921 NY A 6 16 3 5 0 0 1 4 5 0 8 0 0 0 2 1 .313 .476 .500
1922 NY A 5 17 1 2 1 0 0 1 2 0 3 1 1 0 0 1 .118 .250 .176
1923 NY A 6 19 8 7 1 1 3 3 8 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 .368 .556 1.000
1926 NY A 7 20 6 6 0 0 4 5 11 1 2 0 0 0 1 1 .300 .548 .900
1927 NY A 4 15 4 6 0 0 2 7 2 1 2 0 1 0 1 0 .400 .471 .800
1928 NY A 4 16 9 10 3 0 3 4 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 .625 .647 1.375
1932 NY A 4 15 6 5 0 0 2 6 4 0 3 1 0 0 0 0 .333 .500 .733
Total (10 Years) 41 129 37 42 5 2 15 33 33 2 30 2 3 0 4 3 .326 .470 .744
Source: David W. Smith, Retrosheet: Babe Ruth; http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/R/Pruthb101.htm
PITCHING RECORD
Year Team G GS CG SHO GF SV IP H BFP HR R ER BB IB SO SH WP HBP BK 2B 3B W L ERA RS PW
1914 BOS A 4 3 1 0 0 0 23 21 96 1 12 10 7 3 2 0 0 0 2i 0i 2 1 3.91 5.67 -0.3
1915 BOS A 32 28 16 1 3 0 217.2 166 874 3 80 59 85 112 14i 9 6 1 11i 3i 18 8 2.44 5.21 2.8
1916 BOS A 44 40 23 9 3 1 323.2 230 1272 0 83 63 118 170 23i 3 8 1 17i 3i 23 12 1.75 3.97 5.7
1917 BOS A 41 38 35 6 3 2 326.1 244 1277 2 93 73 108 128 31i 5 11 0 39i 7i 24 13 2.01 3.68 4.9
1918 BOS A 20 19 18 1 0 0 166.1 125 660 1 51 41 49 40 25 3 2 1 18i 3i 13 7 2.22 4.00 2.9
1919 BOS A 17 15 12 0 2 1 133.1 148 570 2 59 44 58 30 24i 5 2 1 26i 3i 9 5 2.97 3.80 1.4
1920 NY A 1 1 0 0 0 0 4 3 17 0 4 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 4.50 14.00 -0.1
1921 NY A 2 1 0 0 1 0 9 14 49 1 10 9 9 2 0 0 0 0 2 0 9.00 13.00 -0.6
1930 NY A 1 1 1 0 0 0 9 11 39 0 3 3 2 0 3 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 3.00 9.00 0.3
1933 NY A 1 1 1 0 0 0 9 12 42 0 5 5 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 5.00 6.00 0.0
Total 163 147 107 17 12 4 1221.1 974 4896 10 400 309 441 0 488 120 25 29 4 115 20 94 46 2.28 4.33 17.0
i = incomplete
Source: David W. Smith, Retrosheet: Babe Ruth; http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/R/Pruthb101.htm
WORLD SERIES PITCHING RECORD
Year Team G GS CG SHO GF SV IP H BFP HR R ER BB IB SO SH SF WP HBP BK 2B 3B W L ERA RS
1916 BOS A 1 1 1 0 0 0 14 6 48 1 1 1 3 0 4 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0.64 2.00
1918 BOS A 2 2 1 1 0 0 17 13 68 0 2 2 7 0 4 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 0 1.06 2.00
Total (2 Years) 3 3 2 1 0 0 31 19 116 1 3 3 10 0 8 3 0 1 1 0 1 0 3 0 0.87 2.00
Source: David W. Smith, Retrosheet: Babe Ruth; http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/R/Pruthb101.htm
Appendix 2: The Babe’s Portfolio
In 1927, Babe Ruth became the first professional baseball player to earn as much money off the field as on it and the template for every modern millionaire and multimillionaire celebrity athlete. His agent, Christy Walsh, the first of his kind, created a blueprint for a business that would become synonymous with the catchphrase from the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire: “Show me the money.”
Here’s how they did it.
Employing equal measures of persuasion and coercion, Walsh convinced Ruth to open a trust fund at the Bank of Manhattan in February 1927 and to deposit all of his nonbaseball income into the account. When their contractual relationship ended in May 1938, Walsh summarized Ruth’s earnings under his management in a letter and accounting sheet. Economist Michael Haupert translated those figures, and Ruth’s annual Yankee salary, into 2016 dollars. Matthew Zaft, a financial adviser with Morgan Stanley in Washington, D.C., examined trust documents, bank statements, and income reports in Walsh’s files in an effort to determine just how well Ruth was advised, how well the trust performed before and after the Great Depression, and how wealthy Ruth was compared with the average American.
PAID TO GEORGE H. RUTH BY CHRISTY WALSH
APRIL 15, 1921—MAY 1, 1938, INCLUSIVE
Year Syndicate Spalding McLoughlin MFG. CO. (Under-wear) Candy Vaudeville Barnstorm Adolph Kastor (Knife) Diamond Point Pen Esso Quaker Oats Sinclair Oil Radio Miscel-laneous Benrus Watch Milton Bradley (Game) Moving Pictures Putnam “Babe Ruth’s Own Book” Miscel-laneous Total Across
1921 4,246.90 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 4,246.90
1922 7,985.12 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7,985.12
1923 11,509.29 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 11,509.29
1924 13,092.91 - - - 1,250.00 19,019.45 - - - - - - - - - - - 33,362.36
1925 13,218.85 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 13,218.85
1926 12,607.46 - 1,250.00 4,914.08 18,640.97 11,080.99 - - - - - - - - - - 1,750.00 50,243.50
1927 12,807.59 3,235.25 2,250.00 576.61 - 28,281.93 - - - - - - 500.00 - 22,488.46 - 3,107.50 73,247.34
1928 13,735.96 5,459.12 1,463.69 774.55 - 15,954.91 - - - - - 1,500.00 - 975.00 - 1,000.00 3,370.00 44,233.23
1929 20,484.76 5,781.98 2,195.45 - - 1,694.98 - - - - - 1,500.00 - - - - 2,567.50 34,224.67
1930 15,189.74 3,336.51 1,749.56 120.00 - 4,195.81 341.83 - - - - 1,875.00 - - - 183.37 1,975.00 28,966.82
1931 13,131.73 2,076.00 988.88 - - 10,887.09 308.16 - - - - - - 1.66 5,625.00 23.36 325.00 33,366.88
1932 8,714.84 1,703.12 1,890.52 - - - 117.04 - - - - - - 64.77 - - 1,498.75 13,989.04
1933 4,892.13 517.37 187.25 - - - 37.52 - - - - 1,125.00 - 37.67 - - 8,567.79 15,364.73
1934 3,108.95 1,600.07 366.49 - - - 4.35 1,125.00 12,375.00 38,625.00 - - 187.50 29.55 - - 589.00 58,010.89
1935 1,200.44 1,061.70 416.52 - - 2,911.91 - 232.80 - 18,750.00 - 1,478.68 614.32 - - - 724.55 27,390.92
1936 1,070.00 778.11 213.27 - - - 2.77 167.61 - 5,412.50 - 750.00 - - - - 675.00 9,069.26
1937 33.52 588.07 327.03 - - - - - - - 14,625.00 1,860.00/ 15.00 - - - - 370.00/ 5.00 17,823.62
1938 - 244.29 144.43 - - - - - - - - - - - - - 750.00 1,138.65
Total 157,030.19 26,381.59 13,443.09 6,385.24 19,890.97 94,027.07 811.65 1,525.41 12,375.00 62,787.50 14,625.00 10,103.68 1,301.82 1,108.65 28,113.46 1,206.73 26,275.09 477,392.07
Total Payments to Mr.Ruth (1921-1938): $477,392.07
RUTH’S TOTAL EARNINGS FROM YANKEES AND OUTSIDE INCOME UNDER CHRISTY WALSH MANAGEMENT
This table shows how much Babe Ruth earned each year in salary and outside income with the dollars translated into today’s purchasing power.
Year Salary Contracted Salary, Adjusted for Inflation (Value in 2016 Dollars) Total Endorsement Income Endorsement Income, Adjusted for Inflation (Value in 2016 Dollars) Salary Plus Endorsement Income Salary Plus Endorsement Income, Adjusted for Inflation (Value in 2016 Dollars)
1920 $
20,000 $4,180,000 $20,000 $4,180,000
1921 $20,000 $5,020,000 $4,246.90 $1,065,972 $24,247 $6,085,972
1922 $52,000 $13,052,000 $7,985.12 $2,004,265 $59,985 $15,056,265
1923 $52,000 $11,232,000 $11,509.29 $2,486,007 $63,509 $13,718,007
1924 $52,000 $11,024,000 $33,362.36 $7,072,820 $85,362 $18,096,820
1925 $52,000 $10,608,000 $13,218.85 $2,696,645 $65,219 $13,304,645
1926 $52,000 $9,880,000 $50,243.50 $9,546,265 $102,244 $19,426,265
1927 $70,000 $13,510,000 $73,247.34 $14,136,737 $143,247 $27,646,737
1928 $70,000 $13,230,000 $44,233.23 $8,360,080 $114,233 $21,590,080
1929 $70,000 $12,460,000 $34,224.67 $6,091,991 $104,225 $18,551,991
1930 $80,000 $16,160,000 $28,966.82 $5,851,298 $108,967 $22,011,298
1931 $80,000 $19,280,000 $33,366.88 $8,041,418 $113,367 $27,321,418
1932 $75,000 $23,475,000 $13,989.04 $4,378,570 $88,989 $27,853,570
1933 $52,000 $16,952,000 $15,364.73 $5,008,902 $67,365 $21,960,902
1934 $35,000 $9,765,000 $58,010.89 $16,185,038 $93,011 $25,950,038
1935 $7186* $27,390.92 $6,875,121 $34,577 $6,875,121
1936 $9,069.26 $1,986,168 $9,069 $1,986,168
1937 $17,823.62 $3,564,724 $17,824 $3,564,724
1938 $1,138.72 $242,547 $1,139 $242,547
Inflation-adjusted salary using relative share of GDP (https://www.measuringworth.com/)
* Ruth signed a three-year $25,000 contract with the Boston Braves in 1935. This is what he would have received before being released on June 2.
Source: Michael Haupert, Professor of Economics, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse
When the trust was executed in April 1927, Ruth deposited $40,000 in the account, thanks to the windfall of outside income he earned in 1926–27. By November 1928, the amount had doubled to $80,000 ($1.1 million in 2016 dollars). Most of the investments made on his behalf were made in 1928, prior to the crash of October 1929. Of sixteen investments made during this period, only three came after the crash, according to Zaft’s review of the account, yet the trust produced more income than the previous year.