Ruth Brought Baseball Roaring Into the ‘20s

Seventy years ago today, a first-year outfielder for the New York Yankees hit his 30th and 31st home runs of the 1920 season in the second game of a doubleheader at the Polo Grounds.

So what?

So, George Herman (Babe) Ruth became the first to hit 30 home runs in a season. In the next several weeks, he would also become the first to hit 40 and 50 home runs, too.

He was on his way to a home run record that, in 1920, was almost beyond belief--he would hit 54, then 59 in 1921.

Reference points: When Ruth hit 54 in 1920, the second-highest total in baseball that year was 19, by George Sisler. Only one other team in the American League that year hit more than 44 home runs.

When he hit his 30th homer that afternoon, it was the 138th of Ruth’s career, making him, at 25, the all-time home run leader. Many baseball historians claim today that Ruth’s 1920 and ’21 seasons were the greatest consecutive seasons by any hitter in baseball history. And many even believe either season was superior to his more famous 1927 season.

Ruth played in only 142 games in 1920, yet drove in 137 runs. His home run percentage that season was 11.8%, compared to 1927, when it was 11.1% as he hit 60 in 151 games.

But most impressive of all, Ruth’s slugging percentages in 1920 and ’21 were .847 and .846. Neither figure has ever been approached. In fact, a slugging percentage higher than .704 has been achieved only 20 times, eight by Ruth.

Ruth has the three highest slugging percentages ever. His .772 mark for 1927 is No. 3. No. 4 is Lou Gehrig’s .765 in 1927. Ruth and Gehrig are on the top-20 list 11 times. The most recent player to make the top 20 was Ted Williams, who hit .731 in 1957 to rank 12th.

Ruth joined the Yankees after the 1919 season, when Boston sold him to New York. In his last Red Sox season, playing in 130 games, Ruth was 9-5 as a pitcher, and hit 29 home runs--then a record--and drove in 114 runs as an outfielder.

Before 1920, no 20th-Century player had ever hit 30, 40 or 50 homers in a season. Only three had ever hit 20, and one was Ruth. Three late-19th Century players hit between 20 and 27 home runs, but some of those, it is believed, were inside-the-park homers, many coming in fenceless ballparks.

So in 1920, no one had ever seen this kind of home run production. As recently as 1918, Ruth co-led the major leagues with 11 home runs.

And people paid plenty to see home runs in bunches. The Yankees, who after two more seasons would be able to afford to build a new ballpark--Yankee Stadium, a.k.a. “The House that Ruth Built”--became the first team to draw 1 million fans in a season, in 1920. They drew 1,289,422, breaking the previous attendance mark by 380,000.

COMPARISON OF THE EARLY YEARS

YEAR G AB H 2B 3B HR R RBI BB AVG 1920 142 458 172 36 9 54 158 137 148 .376 1921 152 540 204 44 16 59 177 171 144 .378 1927 151 540 192 29 8 60 158 164 138 .356