Great Babe Ruth / Walter Johnson story

I came across the article in the link below by accident. Previously unknown to me, in 1942, the 47 year old Ruth and 55 year old Johnson were taking part in a war benefit exhibition game on August 23rd for Army and Navy between games of a Senators and Yankees doubleheader.

https://www.baseballhistorycomesalive.c ... -showdown/

How did Ruth fare against Johnson in his career? Check out the article at the link below, which breaks down lifetime records of some great hitters against great pitchers.

https://fenwaypark100.org/2014/05/21/wh ... he-greats/

It's a very interesting article.

The article says that "in 107 at bats, Babe hit .280 with 8 doubles, 2 triples and 7 home runs. He walked 19 times giving Babe an on base percentage of .389, and Ole Walter punched him out 25 times. Not bad, but let’s take a closer look. Babe hit .342 lifetime but Johnson held him 62 points under his lifetime mark. In his career, his home run to at bat ratio was 1 homer in every 11.76 at bats; against Johnson he hit a homer in every 15.29 at bats. Babe whiffed 1 in every 6.43 at bats but when he faced the Big Train, he went down swinging once every 4.28 at bats. Babe’s numbers against Johnson were pretty damn good however, in essence, the Big Train reduced the Sultan of Swat to a mere mortal.

However, there is a flip side. Throughout Johnson’s career, opponents hit .222 against him. He surrendered a total of, ready for this, 97 home runs. THAT’S IT!! That translates to a home run every 227.2 batters! The on base percentage of opposing batters throughout Johnson’s career was .281. So, if you consider that Babe took him deep once every 15.29 at bats and hit him at a .280 clip and got on base 39% of the time then one could conclude that Babe reduced the great Big Train Walter Johnson to a mere mortal as well."

Not surprisingly, the numbers for each player while facing each other were worse than their career numbers, which is generally what we see in the SOM online ATG game.

fabulous analysis BD...

most interesting and how true and realistic when we compare them to what we encounter here in head-to-head matchups...

thanks a lot for sharing...

Put another way...Babe Ruth hit 13% (7 out of 97) of the homeruns Walter Johnson gave up in his career.

I just finished a great Ty Cobb biography last night by Leerhsen (2015). Cobb was by no means the monster that Al Stump's fabricated biographies about him depicted him as.

According to Cobb, Walter Johnson was the best pitcher he ever saw. He said something to the effect of his fastball being so good it looked like a watermelon seed as it whizzed past you.

But Ty Cobb was one of the brightest men to every play baseball. He studied every aspect of the game endlessly and obsessively. Unlike Ruth, Johnson proved to be no problem at all for Cobb. Cobb solved Johnson by constantly crowding the plate, knowing full well Johnson's great aversion to hitting batters because of the damage his fastball might inflict. His lifetime batting average against the Big Train was .366, in close to a full season of at bats over the course of their careers.

Babe Ruth admittedly copied his swing from Shoeless Joe Jackson who Cobb lauded as the best natural hitter ever with a perfect swing. But against Johnson, who Ruth only faced during the latter half of Johnson's career, hit .062 points below his career average against Johnson and his home run percentage against Johnson was no where near his lifetime homerun percentage. I would argue that while Johnson and Ruth both reduced each other to mortal status, such was not at all the case with Cobb vs. Johnson.

Brains over brawn. Cobb's performance was not affected by Johnson, Ruth's clearly was.

great posts

Interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing.

Doug

The Cobb biography is called "Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty" by Charles Leerhsen. It is a must read for any fan of baseball history. It is meticulously researched and effectively argued. It turns the legend of Ty Cobb the Monster completely on its head and shows convincingly how that false legend was created, then propagated. Because of the injustice done to Cobb's reputation through the years, I think this is one of the most important baseball biographies ever written.

Put another way...Babe Ruth hit 13% (7 out of 97) of the homeruns Walter Johnson gave up in his career.

According to Baseball Reference, Johnson actually surrendered 10 of his 97 homeruns to Babe Ruth.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/play ... nswa01&t=p

Who is Joe Hauser, who hit 5 homeruns off of the Big Train?? That alone should qualify him for an ATG card!!