Ruth must've been a faster baserunner than most of us would've believed. You've got to assume the centerfielder was playing deep (after all, it was the Babe) and there doesn't appear to be any nooks 'n' crannies in the configuration of the fence (ball getting lost). Maybe, just maybe, all those years the Sultan was a five-tool player after all. Oops, I forgot ... he was put in Right Field for a reason. Nice work Len!
Thanks for the feedback on the article. I was not intending to write another article on the Senators just 2 days after my last one, but when I opened the newspapers from Aug 26, 1924 and saw Johnson's "no-hitter," I couldn't resist writing about it. And then the Babe Ruth story just put this one over the top.
Regarding Ruth's baserunning, at 29 years old, Ruth could actually run when he needed to. But in this case, Ruth hit the ball nearly 500 feet. This was no normal inside-the-park-home run that could be hit anytime in the past 50 years.
Ruth must've been a faster baserunner than most of us would've believed. You've got to assume the centerfielder was playing deep (after all, it was the Babe) and there doesn't appear to be any nooks 'n' crannies in the configuration of the fence (ball getting lost). Maybe, just maybe, all those years the Sultan was a five-tool player after all. Oops, I forgot ... he was put in Right Field for a reason. Nice work Len!
Thanks for the feedback on the article. I was not intending to write another article on the Senators just 2 days after my last one, but when I opened the newspapers from Aug 26, 1924 and saw Johnson's "no-hitter," I couldn't resist writing about it. And then the Babe Ruth story just put this one over the top.
Regarding Ruth's baserunning, at 29 years old, Ruth could actually run when he needed to. But in this case, Ruth hit the ball nearly 500 feet. This was no normal inside-the-park-home run that could be hit anytime in the past 50 years.