Whenever Babe Ruth is mentioned, towering home runs come to mind, but hitting long shots was not the only thing the all-time slugger did on a Hall of Fame level. Despite being known for his 714 round trippers, the Bambino without that number still might have been a member of Cooperstown. Other legendary career milestones were a big part of the Babe’s 22 years in the big leagues. He was also a great guy off of the field as well; big supporter of the fans and community, but all in all, Ruth was not just a home run hitter.
Along with becoming the first player to 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, and 700 homers, Ruth collected some other great numbers. There have only been 7 players in history to score 2000 times or more, and Ruth is one of them with 2174. He is also one of three legends to drive in more than 2000 runners with 2214 RBI’s. Even though a majority of those stats are due to the fact that the Babe hit a massive amount of balls over the fence, other factors played a role as well, such as his career total of 506 doubles. Now the Bambino might not have had racked up 3000 hits, but that doesn’t mean he struck out a lot and couldn’t hit for average. After playing in 2503 games, Ruth came out with a batting average of .342 (only 4 seasons under .300) and 2873 total hits (3 times 200+), all while never striking out more than 93 times in one campaign (averaged 60 K’s per season). Due to this fact about consistency, he also had great plate discipline with over 2000 walks in 22 seasons (11 times led the league), which helped an enormous amount to creating a lifetime on base percentage of .474. And once on base, according to Ty Cobb when he was once compared to the Babe, “ran well for a fat man.”
To record over 100 triples is hard to do, especially when the player is over 6 foot and weighs more than 200 pounds. Well, Babe Ruth hit a total of 136 three baggers, and that speed to get to third base was also used to steal 123 bases during the course of 22 seasons. All in all, Ruth knew how to run around the diamond as he racked up 5793 total bases (6th on all-time list) to finish his Hall of Fame campaign. As one might have thought, it also helped him to play right field.
Ruth played 1132 games in right field. During that time, he led the AL in range factor/game twice and fielding percentage once. For the most part, his numbers were slightly below average, but at times he could be very productive with the glove. Get the Babe in tip top shape, hand him a glove, put him in the outfield, and place him in the cleanup spot in the lineup, the Bambino would still be one of the greatest players ever to play the game, even if 500 or so homers were subtracted. The famous Yankee Clipper might be remembered as baseball’s slugger, but his other phenomenal statistics should receive just as much credit.
