Posted on 07/06/2012 11:07:56 AM PDT by jazusamo
Edited on 07/06/2012 12:18:22 PM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
Awesome joke! An alternate punchline I’ve heard is: “Maybe I shoulda said DiMagio???”
Amen to all that!
Who hit the first home run at Yankee Stadium (on opening day)? Who was the first player to hit a ball out of Comiskey Park after the double deck was added? Who was the first player to hit a home run in an All-Star game? Who was the first player to hit 30, 40, 50, and 60 home runs in a season? What player hit more home runs in a season than any other team in the major leagues? What player hit more home runs in a season than any other team ninety different times? What famous slugger stole home run more times than Lou Brock? Whose last hit at the age of forty was the first ball ever hit out of Forbes Field (a five hundred footer at that)? Who once hit a fungo a world record distance of 447 feet? Who led the league in slugging average a record 13 times (would have been 14 times but he missed a third of the games in 1925)? Who was the first player to hit three home runs in a world series game (twice, actually)? What famous slugger played on a team that went two years without being shut out? The “Big Train” Walter Johnson once gave up only two home runs over a two year period - who hit both? What player averaged fifty home runs a season from 1926-1931? You get my drift - the “Ruth, the whole Ruth and nothing but the Ruth.” I do love Aaron and Maris, but it’s no contest. Just remember that Aaron had nearly 4,000 more at bats than Ruth. Believe me, I used to be a skeptic about Ruth. I think that was understandable after watching the abominable Babe Ruth Story starring William Bendix. (Ruth was also ill-served with that biopic starring John Goodman - was any athlete in history more ill-served by the movies than Babe Ruth?) It was an article by Dr. Sowell that inspired me to read up on Ruth. I became a believer after reading Marshall Smelser’s The Life That Ruth Built and The Babe by Robert Creamer. His exploits at St. mary’s defy credulity. The odd thing is that “real” Ruth is actually greater than the “mythic” Ruth! Long live the memory of the Prince of Pounders!
If Ruth wasn’t such a good hitter, he might have wound up as one of the game’s greatest pitchers.
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