Real home run king
DARIEN — The chart in Monday’s paper comparing Barry Bonds and Hank Aaron should have contained an additional column for Babe Ruth, without question the most prolific home-run hitter of all time. Here’s a comparison:
*Games played: Aaron 3,298; Bonds 2,955; Ruth 2,503.
*At-bats: Aaron 12,364; Bonds 9,768; Ruth 8,399.
*Slugging percentage: Aaron .555; Bonds .608; Ruth .690.
Ruth hit 40 fewer homers in hundreds fewer games and thousands fewer at-bats. His pitching exploits include 94 wins with a 2.28 ERA and a .671 winning percentage covering the first five years of his career, including a then-World Series-record 29 2/3 scoreless innings set (vs. the Cubs) in 1918 that was not broken until 1962. During the first five years of his career as a pitcher he hit 20 homers, meaning he hit 694 over the next 17 years, plus 15 World Series homers, while carrying a .342 lifetime average.
Let’s forget the steroids thing — Bonds may never be found guilty of anything, so let him have his moment in the sun. Alex Rodriguez is going to zip past him in a few years, and all it will mean is that A-Rod will be the second best ever to play the game. Nobody will ever achieve what Babe Ruth accomplished, and he did it on hot dogs and beer – my kind of guy.
— Jim Kratky
Babe the best
SKOKIE — To name Barry Bonds as the greatest home run hitter of all time is simply ridiculous. All one has to do is look at the “all-time list” of home run hitters published in the Tribune sports section on Aug. 8 and you will quickly recognize that Babe Ruth is one name that stands out above the rest.
Of the 25 names listed, all but Ruth played in the era beginning in the mid-1930s. The highest total among these players (excluding Henry Aaron and Bonds) was Willie Mays at 660. Ruth, whose career began in 1914 and ended in 1935, hit 714 home runs. Which means there was not one other player in Ruth’s era who made the top 25 list.
Babe Ruth is the most prolific home run hitter of all time if you consider he is third on the career list with 714 home runs in an era that did not promote homers as is done today. Babe Ruth would have certainly exceeded Bonds’ total if Ruth had played in the same time frame as Bonds.
— Charles Bloom
Cheers for Aaron
GRAYSLAKE — Willie Mays, Eddie Mathews, Ernie Banks, Henry Aaron and many other great ballplayers were great to watch and outstanding representatives for Major League Baseball. Barry Bonds and others like him have been allowed to muddy the waters.
So let me understand this: Bonds never hit more than 49 homers in a season before his 73-homer explosion in 2001 and he greatly increased his strength. With Bonds’ formula for success, President Bush might offer him a job running No Child Left Behind so that test scores all over the U.S. hit new heights.
The sad part about this and other recent MLB events is that people make up excuses for these individuals. Henry Aaron is and always will be one of the greatest in my book. Way to go, Hank.
— Ron Dernick
Not so royal
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Sunday’s Tribune sports headline, “A Pair of Kings,” was redacted in the heart and minds of genuine baseball fans to read “A King and A Joker.” No one who knows of the excellence and dignity of Henry Aaron would equate him with the cartoonish Mr. Bonds. Aaron has brought lasting honor to the game; Bonds has rendered a contemptible legacy.
— Jim Lewis
Don’t forget Oh
SPRINGFIELD, Va. — Now that Barry Bonds has broken the American home run record, he has 111 more to go to break the world record — 868 by Sadaharu Oh. It’s a mark he might reach in six or seven more years.
Isn’t it time to open the doors of Cooperstown to Mr. Oh? Ichiro Suzuki, Daisuke Matsuzaka and others have shown that Japanese baseball is a pretty fast league.
— John B. Holway
Stone helps Hawk
FRANKFORT — Steve Stone clearly brings a new dimension to the White Sox telecasts. Somehow he brings out the best in Hawk Harrelson (no small feat) while offering insights to the game that are outstanding.
Did anyone else notice Stone’s observation about the rookie Danny Richar in Tuesday’s game with Cleveland? On an attempted steal, A.J. Pierzynski had thrown the ball over Richar’s head and into center field. Stone pointed out that Richar held his (empty) glove on the baserunner, who had to stay at second instead of continuing to third because he wasn’t certain where the ball was.
That’s good stuff. Even the one-time infielder Harrelson didn’t seem to have noticed. I’ll be sorry to see Stone go at the end of the week.
— Jerry Strick
Don’t knock Singleton
TINLEY PARK — I couldn’t agree with Teddy Greenstein less regarding Chris Singleton and the White Sox radio broadcasts (Tribune, Aug. 10).
Singleton adds a breath of fresh air to local announcing. He knows the game, he’s articulate, has a nice voice and presentation and comes across as a genuinely nice individual. Although Ed Farmer is an interesting announcer who also knows his baseball, he has a tendency toward egocentricity which Singleton nicely ameliorates as he is just the opposite and gives much-needed balance to Farmer’s commentary.
— J.P. Croke
Awful Cubs fans
AURORA — For the better part of four decades, Cubs fans have blamed their losing on anything from goats to black cats to curses. After booing Ryan Dempster off the field during the Aug.3 loss to the Mets, perhaps they should start looking in the mirror. Only the famously nasty fans in Philadelphia would so lustily boo a closer who hadn’t given up a run in two months, with their team tied for first in August. “Baseball’s greatest fans” must have stayed away from Wrigley that day.
— Brian Gandy
Guillen a winner
CHICAGO — Ed Nowinski ends his “Other Views” commentary (Tribune, Aug. 4) about the handling of the White Sox by Ozzie Guillen and the handling of the $300 million Cubs by Lou Piniella by saying, “Simply put, Piniella gets it and Guillen does not.” How many World Series rings has Piniella brought to Chicago? For that matter, how many has he brought anywhere in the past 15 years?
— David Mansfield
Notre Dame bombast
NORTHBROOK — The Aug. 7 Chicago Tribune declared the beginning of fall with full-page coverage of America’s Team. With five out of the last six games at home and one of the last six against a team ranked in the coaches’ Top 25, Notre Dame will doubtless make its annual march to the Top 10 on the way to another bowl loss.
Big Charlie’s quote, “Strike me dead if I say rebuilding,” is a little troubling. It would have been enough if he had said, “Strike me mute.”
— Mike McMichael
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