Babe Ruth Cheated
Prior to the 1930 season in the bigs, there were no ground-rule doubles. If the ball bounced out of the park, provided the first bounce was in fair territory, then it was a home run, no questions asked.
So, like... am I the only person in the universe who didn't know about this? My Grampa Noyes taught me everything about baseball and he worshipped Babe Ruth, and he never told me about this. And I'm starting to see why. Just how many of Babe Ruth's home runs were on the bounce anyway? You see where I'm going with this? I mean, forget the steroids controversy. If Bonds hit the majority of his homers on the juice, so what? Freakin Babe Ruth was bouncing them out of parks left and right, so they're even.
The American League adopted the ground-rule double rule before the start of the 1930 season, and the National League followed suit on this day in 1930, making the one (or two... Jesus two) bounce home run gratefully extinct.
The Babe retired in 1935. Of his 714 home runs, he hit 516 of them in the glory days of the old nod-nod-wink-wink bouncy bounce. I say that warrants an asterisk.
7 Comments:
Did he or anyone ever hit one bounced over the green monster? I didn't know about this at all. Why doedn't the media talk about this more?
I heard and read about this rule many years ago. Historians researched it long ago and found that none of Ruth's homers bounced. You are trying to make something out of nothing.
The bigger asterisk-worthy note about Ruth's career is that his numbers came during the segregated era of baseball. How many great pitchers and fielders did Ruth not face because they were relegated to the Negro Leagues? The talent pool that Ruth faced was significantly diluted.
I have unearthed CIA-protected proof that 326 of Ruth's home runs bounced out of the park. It turns out the Sultan of Swat was a line-drive hitter at best.
if anyone ever bounced one over the green monster, I think it's actually just an immediate game over.
I think Keith Olbermann mentioned this on Dan Patrick's radio show once, so no, you aren't the only one that knows about it. Do you know how many of these were estimated? I think I heard around dozen maybe...
"Doesn't" know about this, anon. Am I the only person in the world who "doesn't" know about this? I thought I knew a good bit about the game and its history - I can't believe a rule like this slipped me by.
A dozen has to be undercutting it, wouldn't you think. I mean, think how many times you see a ground-rule double. Once every two games at least. Although I guess it was the dead ball era and there was no turf.
An interesting question here is "were there NO ground rule doubles at all?" Meaning - if someone sliced a liner and it bounced into the third-field box seats, was that a home run? I don't know.
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