Usually, when that question is asked, you think of two people. You would think of Ted Williams and Babe Ruth. They were both TREMENDOUS hitters.  However, who was better? Are you going to take the Splinters .344 career batting average and .482 on base percentage? Or, do you prefer the Bambino’s 714 home runs and .690 slugging average? Would Ted Williams have gotten 700 homeruns if it wasn’t for World War II and the Korean War? Would Ruth have hit 800 home runs if he didn’t pitch? 900 possibly? Read the article if you want to find out these questions and, more importantly, the biggest question of all! Who was a better hitter, George Ruth or Ted Williams?

            Now, if you take 10 people who call themselves baseball fans and ask them who the greatest hitter of all time was, I think it’s safe to say 6 or 7 would say Williams. Now if you ask them who was a better hitter Ted Williams or Babe Ruth, you would probably get a different response for some odd reason. I used to contradict myself the same way, until I researched this topic. First lets a take a look at their career totals.

 

Ruth     G        AB        R        HR        RBI     BA     OBP     SLG

            2,503   8,399   2,161   714      2,201   .342    .474      .690

Williams    G         AB        R         HR      RBI     BA     OBP     SLG

                   2,292   7,706    1,798   521     1,798   .344    .482     .634

Now, you can argue that Ruth missed 4 years of his prime due to the fact that he was pitching. You can’t say that Ruth would of hit 50 homeruns a year from 1915-1919. You just can’t. That was the dead ball era no one hit homers like that. From 1915-1918 the most home runs hit was 12 by Wally Pipp. In 1919 Ruth had a semi-full year at the plate. He hit .322, 29 homeruns, drove in 114 in only 432 ABs. Now here’s what I did. It’s a bit confusing but bear with me. 1920-1933 were Ruth’s best and full-time years.  So you take how many ABs he had from 1920-1933, then you divide it by 14. So that’s 6,851 divided by 14. That’s 489. So in Ruth’s full time seasons he averaged 489 ABs. Now in 1919 Ruth hit 29 homeruns in only 432 ABs. That’s one homerun in every 14.8 at bats. Now you divide 489 by 14.8 and that’s 33. So Ruth would have hit about 33 homeruns per year from 1915-1919. Now I’m no scientist or mathematician, but it’s a pretty decent estimate. Now, you take the number of homeruns that Ruth hit from 1920-1933, and you get 637. You add 165 (33 multiplied by 5) and you get 802 homeruns. It’s only a rough estimate.  You also do the same for any other statistic that you would like to figure.

So, if Ruth’s first full season was in 1915 as an outfielder, his numbers could have looked something like this.

Projected Ruth- HR       R          RBI     BA

                           802      2,476   2,522    .339

 

Now I took a few points off his average because I think it’s safe to say that the pitchers would have been better . Anyway, not too shabby, eh?  Ruth would be the leader in homeruns, runs, and RBI.

Williams also lost a few years of his career. He lost a few more than Ruth did. Williams did not play from 1943-1945 because of World War II. It’s pretty easy to estimate what Williams would have done if he did in fact play those years. You take 1941 and 1942. The two years he played before the war and 1946, the year he came back from the war. In 41, 42, and 46 he had 1,492 ABs, 547 hits, 111 homeruns, and had 380RBI. That’s an average of .367, 36 homeruns and 127 RBI per season.

 However, we’re not finished. He also was in the Korean War, poor Ted.  He left on April 30, 1952, and came back August 5, 1953. He played 43 games during those two seasons. He hit .406, but we can’t assume he would’ve went on to hit .400 for both of the seasons at age 34 and 35. The year before he left for Korea he played in 148 games and the year he came back he played in only 117. That averages out to 132 games a year. So let’s assume if he played in 1952 and in 1953 he would have played 132 games each year. In 1951 and in 1954 Williams averaged 29 homeruns, a .329 batting average and 107 RBI per year, for those two years. We can’t just average those two years in because Williams did actually play in 43 games. So we have to subtract 43 from 264 (projected number of games played) Therefore, in the 222 games that Williams missed, he would have hit 59 additional home runs, 181 runs and 191 RBI.

Now, let’s compare Ruth’s and Williams’ projected careers.

Projected Ruth- HR       R          RBI     BA

                           802      2,476   2,522    .339

Projected Williams- HR    R          RBI       BA

                                 691    2,397   2,410     .346

Wow! Ruth would have still killed Williams in the homerun department, but Williams definitely caught up in RBI and runs. Phew, it’s too close. I think I need some more statistics before I’m forced to pick one.

 

Both Williams and Ruth batted left-handed and played in ball parks that would favor left handed batters. Since many “experts” love to see how great hitters hit on the road opposed to what they did at home, let’s compare.

Ruth had 547 more at bats on the road than Williams did. Considering that, we’ll give Williams the extra ABs and project what he would have done.

H         BB        2B     3B     HR      BA     OBP     SLG    OPS

Ruth                 1,475   1,019    269    66      367    .338     .463      .682    1.145

Williams           1,430   1,128    236    41      312    .328     .466      .615    1.081

If you believe that the numbers a batter has on the road is a better reflection of what he can actually do, rather than what he does in his home ballpark, then Ruth has pulled ahead of Williams.  Let’s examine the numbers. Hits and walks are pretty much even. Ruth has a good lead in 2B, 3B, and HR. He actually hit higher than Ted by ten points. The OBP is about even. Ruth’s SLG is WAY ahead of Williams’. Ruth therefore had a higher OPS by a pretty good margin.

I’m not going to bother to compare how they did against the league because NO ONE has a chance against Ruth in that category.  I will compare their three best seasons.

BA     HR    RBI     OBP    SLG                            BA     HR    RBI     OBP    SLG

Ruth                                                                 Williams          

1921   .378     59     171      .533     .849            1941      .406     37      120    .553      .735

1923   .393     41     131      .545     .764            1946      .342     38       123    .497     .667

1927   .356     60     164      .486     .772            1949      .343     43        159    .490     .650

Whoa! Those are some pretty damn good years. To get a better view let’s average each players three best years into one.

Ruth- .375     53    155       .521    .795              Williams .363   39      134       .513   .684

Okay, now I’m convinced. Ruth was the better hitter and there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. If you wanted to, you could say that Ted was a more well-rounded hitter than Ruth was. However, Ruth was just a better hitter overall. Numbers don’t lie. Ruth is the best hitter the game has ever produced.