The year Ruth hit 54 home runs, that was more home runs than any American league team had hit that year. That should tell you something about the caliber of pitching that was around before expansion. Ruth was doing something that entire teams could not do. Some of the greatest pitchers ever were pitching back in Ruth's days, and those rosters had only four starters. Todays pitching rosters have five starters, and these 5th starters are guys who wouldn't have made any major league team in Ruth's days, and probably not even any minor league team.
BTW, exactly which Black and Latino pitchers has Bonds had to face in his career that were better than Walter Johnson (110 career shutouts, 3,509 K's), Bob Feller, (44 career shutouts, 2,581 strikeouts in 18 yrs) , Dizzy Dean (23 shutouts in a 6 year span, won 120 games in his first 5 seasons), Lefty Grove, (172 wins in a 7 year span, 35 career shutouts), Grover Cleveland Alexander ( 373 career wins, 2.56 career ERA)??
Another consideration is that Ruth played during the days of the 4-man pitching rotation; Bonds played during the 5-man rotation. This means, of course, that the "5th" pitchers in today's rotations are garbage men who would not have made the rosters of any Major Leage team in Ruth's day, and probably not even the minor leagues. This probably adds another 100 or so cheasy home runs to Bonds' already steroid-tainted total.
Lastly, how can you compare the greatest all around baseball player ever, the only man who absolutely mastered both pitching and hitting and was an AllStar in both, with an artificially pumped up steroid freak?
For the record, Babe Ruth was an excellent base runner. In fact he successfully stole home 10 times, stole 123 total bases even though he never had an attempt in his first four years (as a pitcher). He was a very competent fielder with a strong, accurate throwing arm.
Babe Ruth has 7 World Series rings; Barry Bonds is working on 7 Grand Jury indictments and Congressional investigations. To sum up, Ruth was the better player, the better man, and (unlike Bonds) was good for the game of baseball.
Yeah, but on the flip side, Ruth never had to face fresh specialist relievers who started coming into the game in the 6th or 7th innings, like today. That probably would have reduced his HR total some.