Babe’s Best Year Ever

It was a century ago that Babe Ruth was in the middle of what can be considered his best season ever and one of the best in Major League Baseball history.

We all know the basics of the Babe Ruth story—the son of a saloon keeper, the rowdy youngster sent off to private school. The young man who could hit a baseball a mile and pitch darts with unmatched velocity. There were his early years with the Boston Red Sox where he pitched them to three World Series Championships and then began his conversion from outstanding pitcher to phenomenal hitter.  And then the astonishing, fateful trade from the Sox to the New York Yankees in December 1919.

Ruth changed the sport with his sensational 54 home runs in 1920 as he became a full-time outfielder and the game’s first superstar slugger. He was even better in 1921 when he hit 59 home runs and led the Yankees to their first ever American League pennant. With his unmatched power and fun-loving personality Ruth was now the most popular and dominant player in baseball. The country had just come out of the dark days of a world war and baseball was recovering from the “black sox scandal” of 1919. The bombastic Babe was just the tonic the country yearned for, and baseball needed so desperately.

Ruth hit an unfathomable total of 113 home runs over those first two years with the Yanks and single-handedly changed baseball from a game of station-to-station strategy to one of crowd pleasing, majestic moon shots. But his career had a setback in 1922 when he missed the first month due to a suspension and more games due to an altercation with a fan. He missed a total of forty-two games, and his production was way lower than was expected of him. Although the Yankees once again won the pennant, the New York Giants for the second straight time, beat the Yanks in the World Series. The Babe was a huge disappointment for his growing fan base as he batted a miserable .118 against the Giants.

Determined to make amends for his lackluster 1922 season Ruth went on a tear in 1923. One hundred years ago this month Ruth was hitting .381. He ended July batting .390 with 24 home runs. In August he hit .500, going 40-for-80 and moved his average over .400 as he battled Harry Heilmann for the batting title. One notable change for Ruth was the opposition’s strategy to walk him constantly. Lou Gehrig was not yet a fixture in the Yankee lineup and Ruth lacked his protection, so it was common to give the Bambino a base on balls. One afternoon in June against Cleveland, the Babe doubled in his first at bat and was walked intentionally his next four times up. He walked an incredible 170 times that year—a record that stood for the rest of the 20^th century and was only broken during the steroid era. Ruth eventually came in second in the batting race, though his .393 still stands as one of the highest ever for a power hitter eclipsed only by Ted Williams in 1941. Ruth completely dominated the AL in stats in 1923. He won the home run title with 41, was first in runs (151), total bases (399), RBIs (131), walks (170), on-base percentage (.545), and slugging percentage (.764). His on base plus slugging percentage was a scintillating 1.309. He was fourth in hits (205) and third in doubles (45). But his most incredible stat was one that we don’t hear much about. He reached base an astonishing 379 times. Think about it. In 152 games the big guy averaged being on base almost 2 ½ times per game! And that is a record that no amount of PED’s could overcome and still stands today.

Ruth continued his torrid hitting in the World Series as the Yankees once again faced the Giants. The Bambino blasted three home runs and batted .368 leading the Yankees to their first World Series Championship beating their cross-town rivals four games to two. This was also the year Yankee Stadium opened having been built because the Yanks, who were also playing in the Polo Grounds, were no longer welcome. Along with helping to bring the first championship to the new stadium Ruth christened the sparkling new venue with its first home run which he hit on opening day in April.

What makes this Ruth’s best season ever was his outstanding performance in the field. He was the American League’s best right fielder. The Babe is not often thought of as a great fielder, but he was a sound outfielder for most of his career and in 1923 he was at the top of his game leading all AL right fielders with a .973 fielding percentage. He also threw out 20 baserunners and had 378 putouts.

Babe Ruth would go on to have many stellar seasons and a Hall-of-Fame career but in 1923, one hundred years ago, he had his best season ever.

References: New York Yankee Seasons of Glory by William Hageman and Warren Wilbert and Baseball-reference.com