Did Babe Ruth actually hit 715 home runs?
A model of this story was initially revealed in December 2021.
Babe Ruth’s 714 residence runs are a type of baseball numbers that turn out to be ingrained within the minds of so many who comply with the sport. Even after Henry Aaron handed him with No. 715, the Babe’s whole carried some weight. He nonetheless held the file for residence runs by a left-handed batter for one more 32 years, till Barry Bonds eclipsed him. Even now, these three are the one gamers to membership greater than 700 homers in AL/NL historical past.
But what if George Herman Ruth really hit 715 round-trippers? Well then, Aaron’s record-breaking clout would’ve come on April 11, 1974, three days later than his 715th, and it might’ve been a special Dodgers pitcher who served up historical past. Instead of Al Downing, the reply to the trivia query can be Charlie Hough. Rather than a game-tying two-run homer within the fourth inning, Aaron’s record-breaking shot would’ve been a go-ahead solo shot within the seventh.
That would’ve been the case had the preliminary ruling of MLB’s Special Baseball Records Committee in April 1969 stood. But after initially giving Ruth credit score for his missed 715th residence run, the committee reversed itself, and the file remained at 714. Here’s what occurred.
When is a house run not a house run? When it is 1918 and the foundations say so.
Before 1920 — earlier than there was a Commissioner of Baseball and the assorted leagues performed underneath their very own guidelines — video games that ended with the house crew profitable within the ninth inning or later (what we now name walk-off wins) had been over as quickly because the decisive run crossed the plate. So if there was a runner on first base in a tie recreation within the backside of the eleventh and the batter hit the ball out of the park, the sport ended as quickly as that runner crossed the plate, leaving the batter on third with a triple.
This situation performed out within the backside of the tenth at Fenway Park on July 8, 1918. With the rating 0-0, a 23-year-old Ruth stepped to the plate with Amos Strunk on first base. The Babe was within the midst of his transition 12 months from being a pitcher who hit to a hitter who as soon as pitched. Here are his innings pitched and plate look totals from his age-21 to age-24 seasons in Boston:
1916: 323 2/3 IP; 152 PA
1917: 326 1/3 IP; 142 PA
1918: 166 1/3 IP; 382 PA
1919: 133 1/3 IP; 543 PA
Stan Coveleski, additionally a future Hall of Famer, was on the mound for Cleveland, and Ruth clobbered a pitch over the right-field wall – reported to be the longest residence run within the ballpark’s temporary historical past to that time, three-quarters of the best way up the bleachers. But as a result of the foundations of the day stated the sport was over as soon as Strunk crossed the plate, Ruth solely received credit score for a triple.
Even then, observers noticed the flaw within the rule. “RULES SHOULD BE FIXED TO COVER HITS LIKE RUTH’S,” learn a headline within the Boston Globe the subsequent day. “There is no reason why the circumstance of having a man on base when Ruth made what ordinarily would have been a home run, should be turned to the disadvantage of the batter,” Melville E. Webb Jr. wrote. “It is not a question of the ball game being won the moment the first runner touches the plate — every one knows that this is now the rule. But what harm would it be for the rulemakers to shift the scoring rules so that such a hit as Ruth’s would be officially recorded?”
Those scoring guidelines would change lower than two years later however wouldn’t be retroactively utilized. That would are available in 1968, when Commissioner William Eckert convened the SBRC to standardize MLB’s statistics and data for the publication of the primary Baseball Encyclopedia. That committee was the one which decided which leagues had been to be generally known as Major Leagues, leaving out the National Association of 1871-75 and, extra notably right this moment, the Negro Leagues (which weren’t even thought of).
But the committee additionally determined to retroactively apply the foundations as they had been within the late ’60s to all of baseball historical past again to the founding of the National League. Specifically: “Major league baseball shall have one set of records, starting in 1876, without any arbitrary division into nineteenth- and twentieth-century data.”
In the course of its analysis, the committee discovered 37 situations when a batter on the house crew hit what right this moment — and in 1968 — can be thought of a walk-off residence run however was solely credited with a single, double or triple. It was introduced in April 1969 that when The Baseball Encyclopedia was revealed later that 12 months, these 37 hits can be recorded as residence runs.
Headlines on the time, naturally, targeted on Ruth:
“Ruth Hit 714, Right? Wrong! 715 for Babe” – Chicago Tribune
“Babe Ruth Belts 715th Home Run” – Tampa Bay Times
“Ruth’s 714 homers finally topped” – Arizona Republic
“Sorry About That, Willie: Babe Just Hit Another” – Wisconsin State Journal
“51 Years Later, the Sultan Has Another Swat” – Minneapolis Star Tribune
But there was pushback. Columnist Dick Young wrote within the New York Daily News, “I mean, somebody decided that Babe Ruth hit one in 1918 that was called a triple and should have been called a home run. That’s 51 years ago, and while 51 years is not too long ago to correct a mistake or an oversight, this was not a mistake or oversight, this was the simple and proper application of the rule as written at the time.”
Not two weeks after the news broke, the committee met once more and determined, by a ballot of its members, that it wouldn’t apply present guidelines to earlier years.
“The mission of the computer people as authorized by baseball’s special records committee, was to research all data, correct obvious errors, uncover missing material and clear up gray areas,” Joe Reichler, a member of the committee, was quoted as saying. “Upon reflection it was felt that the committee had gone beyond its authority in the interpretation of its instructions.”
And so Ruth’s whole remained at 714. In truth, he may’ve come out forward. As Young identified in his column, commending the committee for its reversal, “I say this in behalf of Babe Ruth, because I am sure he doesn’t want two homers taken away from him — the two he hit that bounced into the stands and which, under the rules of their day, were home runs, but would be doubles today.”
Yeah, 713 residence runs simply doesn’t have fairly the identical ring to it.
