How Would Albert Pujols Perform During Babe Ruth’s Era?
Posted by Zolly | Under Nutrition Friday Oct 30, 2009CARLOS BELTRAN asked a question here: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;…
I thought it was really interesting and someone brought up the point about how the “what if”s go both ways. So how would Albert Pujols do during Babe Ruth’s era.
Some things to ponder before you answer:
1. The point of diet, training, and conditions was brought up and how much harder it was during Ruth’s era.
Consider this: Players were hardier because of the conditions they lived in. We’re all products of our environment If they lived in modern times and were raised the way today’s players are raised I don’t think you’d see much, if any, difference in physicality.
Special diets weren’t need because food was fresh and more wholesome. There are a wider array of foods and supplements today but with that comes processed foods that have little nutrition, pesticides, and hormone-injected beef (cancer risk).
Training: I don’t think modern training has much effect on players. Modern training is needed because players aren’t raised to be strong like they were back then. Life was a lot more physical in those days and constant, scheduled exercise wasn’t necessary.
2. The pool of talent was much smaller. The world has gotten much smaller with all the technology of today so it is possible to obtain a much larger pool of talent. Baseball was also segregated. Babe Ruth wasn’t facing Satchel Paige (Babe Ruth never even faced him during exhibition games which I think is sorta fishy) or Joe Williams. So Babe Ruth only had to face the best white players of which half probably wouldn’t have played if the leagues were integrated and allowed blacks and hispanics to play.
While it might be true that Babe Ruth never faced Satchel Paige, it’s also then true that Satchel Paige never faced Babe Ruth. It works both ways. If Paige didn’t face Ruth, then he didn’t face the greatest player of all time.
Both the Negr0 Leagues AND the all-white Major Leagues suffered by not putting ALL of the best players into one league. You can’t automatically assume that every Negr0 league player would have automatically made the major leagues had they been given the opportunity to try. I’ll guarantee that Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker and Joe Jackson could easily have taken jobs away from Negr0 League players, just as Oscar Charleston, John Henry Lloyd and Josh Gibson could easily have taken away jobs from white major leaguers.
Neither Babe Ruth NOR Satchel Paige faced ALL of THE best players of their eras.
As far as how good Pujols would be in another era, my opinion is that any true superstar from any era could compete very well no matter when or where you put them. If Pujols were teleported to the 1920s, he’d definitely live a different life than he does now… and the game would be somewhat different on the field… it might take him a while to get used to the humongous strike zone of the 1920s, which covered from the knees to the shoulders (as opposed to the present-day knees to the belt strike zone). Travel was much more difficult… long train or bus rides vs. luxury flights. Fleabag hotels instead of luxury hotels on the road. No personal trainers. Plus, you might have to get an off-season job, since MLB didn’t pay most players well enough to make a year-round living… plus, as Bob pointed out, pitchers threw pitches back then that would get them tossed out of games today for cheating.
Re: the pool of talent… until the 1960s and 70s, baseball got just about ALL of the best athletes. Any athlete who could play all sports would usually choose baseball if he could… baseball paid better than either football or basketball in those days. Baseball doesn’t necessarily get all of the best athletes any more.
But a great player is a great player… Pujols would be a great player no matter where or when he played, just as Honus Wagner would have been great under any circumstances.
Also, “Albert Pujols” the player would be different if we teleported a 2009 Pujols back to the 1920s as opposed to an “Albert Pujols the player” who would have been born around 1900. The 1900 Pujols wouldn’t be the same man as the 2009 Pujols.
I read your piece above and it was interesting and you make some excellent points. Short and sweet, with some exceptions, most players who excel in one era(and Pujols has), I believe would do well in another era. There probably are exceptions. Pujols is an excellent hitter, who has also become a wonderful fielder, and would well in the Babe’s time.
Good question.
Im not going to write an essay but I will say this….
He would be a man among boys.
I’m not going to get into your assumptions about diet and training, because there’s not enough room to dissect that fallacious reasoning. However I’ll say this: Look at the pitching. Pitchers in Ruth’s era had two pitches. A fastball and a not-so-fast-ball. We’re not talking about pitchers of the modern era, who can do things with a ball that defy physics. People of today are bigger, stronger, smarter and faster than they were in the 20′s. That’s not even up for debate, really. So Pujols in Ruth’s era?
.550 career batting average, 1400 home runs, 5,000 hits and 6,000 rbi’s. And that might be a conservative estimate. Think about it, he gets to face poor pitchers, who pitch nearly everyday and always go 9 innings. I don’t think a day goes by where Pujols doesn’t go at least 3-4 with a home run.
“However I’ll say this: Look at the pitching. Pitchers in Ruth’s era had two pitches. A fastball and a not-so-fast-ball. We’re not talking about pitchers of the modern era, who can do things with a ball that defy physics.”
You know ‘diddley-squat’ about the early days of baseball. Pitchers back then also threw wicked curve balls, screwballs, drop balls, etc. AND, they could ‘doctor’ the ball with saliva, cuts, emery paper, tobacco juice, etc. Plus, baseballs weren’t always clean and white. They were used until they were almost completely useless.
So learn a little about the history of MLB before you make dumb statements.
Bob
One note about the talent pool: Yes, it was smaller due to segregation and fewer international players (though Ruth did face Luis Tiant Sr., the father of the major leaguer from Cuba and by some accounts a better pitcher than his son, and Tiant struck him out). However, that smaller pool was more concentrated with only 8 teams per league. Players were also pushed harder, which was often beneficial to the years they played, but sometimes detrimental to their overall career.
It’s hard to take a player out of their era, but I think Pujols is among the all-time greats and would fit in fine in that era (if he were allowed to play, if not, he’d have been among the greats in the Negro Leagues, which many of the players considered better anyway).
I do think there is more talent in the game today than there was in the 1920′s. It’s not just black players. There are so many players from Latin America today (there were only a couple in the 1920s) and more and more coming from Japan and the rest of Asia and scouting to find the best talents is so much more sophisticated than it was then.
Really talented players like Ruth, I think would have still done well in this era I think but a lot of players who played in the 1920s would not be major league calibre players in the modern era.
As long as he could adjust psychologically to playing in the 1920s there’s no reason Pujols’ talent wouldn’t allow him to be a star in that era as well.
Assuming he grew up in that environment I’d gues he’d be a very similar player to Ruth…Great eye, great power and a consistent .300+ hitter.
Simply assuming, however, that play back then was vastly inferior to play today is simply silly.
As for the “pool of talent” and “race” questions, look at it this way. If you took all the white players from all 30 current MLB teams and formed 12 all-white teams, do you really think those teams would be “inferior” talent-wise? Would you discount a player’s stats because he “only” had to face Josh Beckett, John Lester and Tim Linceum over a three-day series?
As for the “bigger, stronger” points. How much “bigger and stronger” would guys like Albert be if they were born in 1920? Understand that if you’re going to use that argument you’re basically admitting that it’s all about modern context and not about pure talent. I for one think that, talent-wise, Pujols would be a star in 1930 and Ruth would be a star today.
Finally, I believe it DOES work both ways. Take the top 20 stars of today, put them in wool unis and hard leather shoes…take away the batting helmets and body armor, then have them face pitchers who routinely threw hard, inside “brush back” pitches which umpires all considered “part of the game.” By the way, the stadiums would be poorly lit and the balls wouldn’t be spotlessly white either.
I’m guessing that about half the guys would struggle and see thier numbers go down by as much as 30%…I’m also guessing that the top two or three guys (of which Albertis one) would do just fine.
Forget Babe Ruth’s era he better save the Card’s **** against the Dodgers.
St.louis was the favorite to come out of the NL and they are down 2-o.
Major choke job last night.
Time to put the team on your shoulders Pujols.
This guy would be a stud in any era. ( assuming his physique is natural, as they didn’t pump steroids in the 20′s)