Yes, 1927 Was a Very Good Year for Ruth, but Perhaps Two Others Were Better

Half a century after he retired, most baseball fans would probably say that Babe Ruth’s best season was 1927, when he hit 60 home runs. But a lot of baseball historians rate ’27 no better than Ruth’s third-best season.

His 1920 and 1921 seasons, when Ruth was 25 and 26, may have been the greatest back-to-back years in baseball history.

Ruth had been sold from the Boston Red Sox to the Yankees after the 1919 season, when he had hit a record 29 home runs while playing the outfield and achieving a 9-5 record in his last season of pitching. He was informed of the the deal, incidentally, on the 18th hole of Los Angeles’ Griffith Park Golf Course.

Ruth hit 54 home runs, an astounding figure, in 1920, and 59 in 1921. His batting averages were .376 and .378. But most impressive of all: His slugging average, total bases divided by at-bats, in 1920 was .847--still the major league record--and .846 in 1921. In the history of baseball, a slugging average of higher than .704 has been achieved only 20 times, eight times by Ruth.

Ruth played in only 142 games in 1920. His home-run percentage that year was 11.8%, compared to 11.1%, in 1927, when he hit 60 in 151 games.

In 1920, when he hit 54 homers, the second-highest total in baseball that season was 19, by George Sisler. Only one other team in the American League hit more than 44 home runs.

THE BABE’S THREE BIGGEST SEASONS

YR G AB H 2B 3B HR R RBI BB SO BA 1920 142 458 172 34 9 54 103 137 148 80 .376 1921 152 540 204 36 16 59 158 171 144 81 .378 1927 151 540 192 29 8 60 158 138 138 89 .356