MAYBE St. Louis third baseman Gary Gaetti has been sampling a bit too much of the other product for which St. Louis and the former owners of the team are famous. No comparison between
Ruth and McGwireThat's the only conclusion I can come to when he calls Mark McGwire "the modern-day Babe Ruth."
Don't take this Basher bashing the wrong way.
Sure, hitting a grand slam on opening day is the stuff that legends are made of. And McGwire's a great guy who donates lots of money to charities for abused children. Also, he might very well break Roger Maris' record of 61 homers in a 162-game baseball season -- if he doesn't get injured, and if he doesn't fall into a protracted power slump as he did last season. But those two ifs are as huge as Big Mac's sizable biceps.
Even if McGwire does crush Maris' mark, it's ridiculous to compare him to Ruth. McGwire may be the best power hitter of his generation, but Ruth is the greatest player of all time -- a far better slugger than McGwire over the long haul, a hitter for average on par with Tony Gwynn, and a two-time 20-game winner as a pitcher.
Ruth's lifetime batting average was .342. That's about 80 points higher than McGwire. When he was 35, McGwire's current age, Ruth had hit 565 home runs. That's nearly 200 more than McGwire has now.
The Bambino fielded his position as well or better than McGwire does his, and he even stole 123 bases -- a mere 116 more than McGwire.
Every now and then, the obvious bears repeating: Babe Ruth was and is, by far, the greatest baseball player ever. He dominated his game the way Michael Jordan does (or did?) basketball. But as far as I know, Ruth never tried to play hoops.
Oh, and Ruth didn't do his damage against pitchers that belong in Triple-A at best. The only thing expanding in those days was the Sultan of Swat's girth.
SPEAKING of expansion (I wasted 10 minutes looking for Barry Sanders in the Detroit-Tampa Bay box score yesterday), why doesn't anyone ever say that, logically, the great pitchers should benefit by facing inferior hitters as much as the strong sticks do against lousy pitching?
If McGwire or Ken Griffey Jr. is a lock to blast 70 homers, shouldn't Greg Maddux or Randy Johnson be able to win 30 games with the addition of 50 opposing players who -- without the advent of the Devil Rays and Diamondbacks -- would be pitching, hitting and fielding in places like Syracuse or Louisville?
Well, unless the four-man rotation comes into vogue again, Denny McLain will remain the last 30-game winner in big league history (31 in 1968), no matter how many teams they add to The Show.
These days, even the best pitchers get at the very most 35 starts in a season. With pitch-count limits and specialty relief pitchers, aces get a lot of no decisions and few complete games.
In '68, McLain completed 28 of his 41 starts. Maddux, for example, led the National League in '94 and again in '95 with 10 complete games each season.
Look for the top aces to have slightly lower ERAs and higher strikeout totals this season. And there might be a couple more 20-game winners than usual. But 30? Forget about it.
I used to count 4,256 reasons why Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame -- the number of hits he amassed in his career, which also happens to be the all-time mark.
Now there's one more. Les Keiter -- who has as much integrity as anyone I've met in sports -- says so.
Keiter himself will be enshrined in Cooperstown later this month. Or at least his autobiography, "Fifty Years Behind the Microphone," will be.
"Rose and Joe Jackson have served their punishment," says the General. "There are many others in the Hall who had personal problems. Credentials on the field should be the determining factor for these great players."
Couldn't agree more.
Dave Reardon is a magazine editor and freelance
writer who has covered Hawaii sports since 1977.
He can be reached via the Star-Bulletin or
by email at dreardon@hmsa.com.
