Are you a baseball fan who believes (like me) that, Babe Ruth still holds the single season home run record?
I think that for a player to genuinely (anything "official" doesn't necessarily means it's real or true) have the single-season home run record he must hit 61 home runs in 154 games or less because imagine if Ruth had played for the eight extra games (162 games) he could've had more than 60 and Roger Maris would not have been able to pass the Babe.
As for McGwire and Sosa, those guys were phony and I'm sure that without the help of steroids they would not have hit as many home run as they did.
I think Sosa didn’t use roids, so i guess that he would be hit, having hit 66 in ‘98, although Pujols is on pace to get about 62-63 homers so HE might be the one, but I don’t want Pujols to break 60.
I cannot believe that there is anybody alive that has not come to peace with the fact that Roger Maris holds the record for most homers in a season. You can state that the Babe holds the record in the 154 game season. That can never be taken away from him.
And lifetimehomers? A mister Aaron beat him, at the very least.
It is time to get with the program.
Why wouldn’t you consider Roger Maris the single season home run record holder? Is it because he played 8 more games than him? You have to remember that the short right field fence has benifited every great lefty power hitter that has worn pinstripes.
Commissioner Ford Frick was a personal friend of Babe Ruth’s , which is why he put the 162 game notation next to Maris’ record.
What does the record book say? Most home runs - Season.
Maris broke Ruth’s record.
McGwire broke Maris’ record.
Bonds broke McGwire’s record.
btw, Maris’ record stood for 37 years, and was never challenged…. Ruth’s record stood for 34 years, and was challenged many times.
If baseball didn’t like players using steroids, then it should have banned those players. But they let it go.
It’s stupid to worry about this. Hitting 61 home runs in 1961 doesn’t mean that Roger Maris was a better baseball player than Babe Ruth.
Why was Hank Aaron recognized as the all time HR king, when he played more games and had 3,000 more at bats than Ruth when he hit his 715th?
Why does the NFL still use 1,000 rushing yards as a standard of excellence? In a 16 game season, that’s less than 70 yards a game. Who the hell couldn’t do that?
Why should Emmit Smith be recognized as the all time NFL rushing leader when he played 226 games as opposed to Jim Brown, who played 118 games? After 118 games, Smith trailed Brown by something like 1,600 yards.
Babe Ruth was the greatest player in MLB history. It just so happens that he no longer holds the record for most home runs hit in a season.
What about Bonds? He was never tested positive, and Im sure they tested him every day during those last few years. Don’t say he just exploded into what he became. He grew over the course of a 20 year career. As far as I’m concerned if you get tested that much and never get tested positive there is no way you could have done steroids.
We can never know how many home runs Babe Ruth would have hit in a 162 game season, so he holds the record for most home runs in a 154 game season. Never take away from what Roger Maris did, the pressure that was on that man was unreal. I recommend you watch the movie 61, then tell me that man doesn’t deserve the record. As for all the steroid users that were jaw dropping in their own right, let them have their own league.
No. But he’ll always be the first one to hit 60 home runs. Nobody can take that away from him.
An argument can be made that Ruth’s record is tainted because he played in a white only league.
No I am not, you can only compare statistics if you consider the environment in which they were achieved.
As another poster pointed out, Babe Ruth didn’t have to face the talent that McGwire and Sosa did. The modern game is much different now, as MLB draws from a GLOBAL talent pool.
Ruth had to face maybe 1-2 pitchers a game, where there were only 8 teams in the AL and none West of St. Louis. Minorities were not allowed to play.
McGwire and Sosa would routinely face 3-4 pitchers a game, with 30 teams and players from all over the world.
And you can absolutely NOT say that Ruth would have hit more than 60 homeruns if he had played 8 extra games. He could just as easily have gotten injured or had a power slump.
But you CAN say that Ruth was so far above his contemporaries in identical environments (much more so than Maris, McGwire, or Sosa) that he was the greatest homerun hitter in MLB history, regardless of single-season records.
So, anyone born after 1950 could never achieve a bona fide single season record in your view, through no fault of their own. You related to Ford Frick?
But just for giggles - why must it have been in 154 games? Because that was the season length back then? All you are doing is inferring that because the season was 154 games in length, that’s the magic number. Your argument needs to quote something that states 154 games is the only true measurement of a championship season. Why isn’t the number 151? That’s the amount of games Ruth played in 1927. Imagine if Ruth had played those three extra games, he could have had more than 60.
Players don’t change the schedules. Ford Frick had an asterisk (*) put next to Maris’ record. Idiotic. To say that Ruth and Maris were taking illegal substances is absolutely stupid.
Sosa, McGwire and Bonds did.
Bob
YES I TOTALLY AGREE… FINALLY SOMEONE AGREES WITH ME, OR I AGREE WITH THEM.
yes because steroids werent used back then. i ashamed sosa and mcgwire.
How do we know what was used back then? What gets to me is that people assume when the steroids started being used. Maybe it wasn’t steroids that was being used then, but to say that they played it perfectly cleanly, with no evidence, isn’t fair. I will give players from back then the benefit of the doubt though. Just remember though, there’s always a way to cheat.