Opinion: Babe Ruth Didn’t Need Steroids To Be Great, He Just Needed Hard Work And Systemic Racism

People these days.

Everyone wants to talk about Josh Gibson all of a sudden. I have two words for you: Babe. Ruth.

Hitters these days, too…

People say, “What about Ronald Acuña? Mookie Betts? Juan Soto?” I have two more words for you: Babe. Ruth.

See, (and try to learn something here, kids) the Babe came up during an era that knew about mental toughness and adversity. You didn’t lift weights or “train” in the off-season. You showed up four Schlitzes in, drank another nine during the game, housed at least four ball park franks, and stepped up against a malnourished, gaunt pitcher who said things like, “Golly gee, it’s 1923!” And you hit a ton.

Hitters these days can’t go 3-for-4 without shooting science juice into their ass. And playing first base while throwing up those four hotdogs between pitches? Forget it. You never see that anymore.

See, everybody back then had the right stuff. They feared jazz. They couldn’t dance unless it was the jitterbug. And their athleticism was, on the whole, extremely limited and extremely white.

But today? Take a look at a guy like Mike Trout. He hit .263 last season. A hundred years earlier, the Bambino batted .393, with 23 more dingers. And look at the guys Trout’s facing: Julio Urias, Taiwan Walker, and don’t even get me started on Shohei Ohtani. These guys WOULDN’T HAVE EVEN MADE THE TEAM back when Babe was king. Why not? Simple: They weren’t allowed to play.

Some ask how Babe would have fared against Satchel Paige, like Josh Gibson did. Luckily, we never found out! Because the guys of Major League Baseball in Babe’s era? Well, they had that roaring 20’s work ethic. Real grit. And they had players that looked like them, drank too much bootlegged liquor, and moved the correct way: slowly and very, very whitely.

That’s what made Babe able to step up to the plate, point to the outfield, and hit bombs.

That’s! Hitting!

And that’s why the Sultan of Swat was — and always will be — the greatest hitter of all time.