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Bill Johanesen -> RE: MLB General Information PT 4 (10/20/2025 5:24:54 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Mark Anderson
quote:
ORIGINAL: Bill Johanesen
And another notable difference is Ohtani has pitched and hit almost his entire career. Ruth pitched for about 5 years, at the beginning of his career.
It's tough to compare era's. Mantle, Mays, Dimaggio, Aaron are all in the conversation.
Today you have specialized pitchers all throwing gas. Back then it was probably 80-85 MPH fastball.
But, today if you throw inside too much, you can get ejected. Back then they threw at people's heads and it was part of the game. The deterrent was the other team would return the favor.
I'm not dismissing Ohtani at all. Love to watch him play.
Bad part about baseball right now is it looks like a work stoppage is on the horizon. Most teams(Owners) want hard salary cap and the players say no way.
One other thing. Ruth's "miniscule" ERA (2.28) isn't miniscule considering scoring was relatively low when he pitched (in the dead ball era):
This was a period when all major-league teams combined to hit .254/.316/.332 (batting average/on-base average/slugging average), and the average game featured only 3.9 runs, 8.4 hits, and 0.15 home runs per team.
Now it is 4.5 runs per team. 2.28 then equates to 2.63 now. Very good but it's not like he shut out everyone; that ERA would have placed 7th this past regular season.
Once that era changed, Ruth bailed on pitching and became an outfielder.
Ruth's career accomplishments are defined by the dead & live ball eras:
- Dead Ball: Pitched while doing next to nothing as a hitter (Ohtani's at bats in just 2025 was about equal to Ruth's at bats for his first 5 years combined).
- Live Ball: Hit while doing nothing as a pitcher because he basically stopped pitching.
Clearly, Ruth being a simultaneous/same game dual threat didn't occur much at all. His career has distinct divisions WRT pitching to batting. I didn't know this until now.
Meanwhile, Ohtani does both simultaneously.
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