Did Babe Ruth dominate baseball at the same level Wayne Gretzky did hockey?

[HRBAKER]

Originally Posted by Sean

I believe that would be Lenny Dykstra.

Man I have been asleep awhile if Lenny Dykstra is in the HOF.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by HRBAKER

Man I have been asleep awhile if Lenny Dykstra is in the HOF.

Sorry, I missed the HOF reference.

[prewarsports]

I played both Hockey and baseball in College and still play both sports and follow them actively.

If anyone genuinely thinks there was a better hockey player than Gretzky, then they are just trying to stir the pot. Orr was basically a forward with a D next to his name in the scorecard and Howe was a great player for a LONG time that had probably half the skill Gretzky did in a much bigger body frame. Mario Lemieux had all the potential in the world but he is the Ted Williams of Baseball. He could have been the best but for injury, but the fact is he WAS injured a lot and he simply did not achieve the level of career success he could have otherwise. Gretzky was the best hockey player who ever lived, period. there is no debate.

Babe Ruth similarly was the greatest Baseball player who ever lived and anyone who thinks otherwise is usually biased towad fielding, or "leveling the field" toward early black players etc.

They are by far the two most dominant athlete of all time, and others like Jordan are not even close, he ushered in a new era of Basketball but hardly dominated the way Ruth and Gretzky did. Chamberlain would be a better comparison in that Sport.

It is hard to say who was more dominant, Socially and "Impact on the game" it was Ruth. Purely stat wise it was Gretzky. The early numbers for Ruths home runs dont translate to Hockey at all, you would need to talk about Runs and not Home Runs if doing that analysis and Ruth didn't outscore entire teams by himself. Home Runs are NOT the same as goals or assists in hockey.

Rhys

[MVSNYC]

"In 1920, Ruth would not only eclipse his mark of 29 homers, he would blow it into outer space. He slugged a miraculous .847, a mark not since approached by anyone. The entire Red Sox team hit only 22 homers, while Ruth hit 54--about 15 percent of the American League home runs--that year. To compare, consider that Barry Bonds' 46 homers in 1993 equaled 2 percent of the National League's home runs. Ken Griffey Jr.'s 45 homers that year for the American League also equaled 2 percent.......In 1921, Ruth hit 59 homers. The second-place finisher in homers was Ken Williams, who hit 24. "He was like an Everest in Kansas," says ABC commentator and columnist George Will. "In just the third year in the league he already held the career record in home runs (137) and went on to break his own record 577 more times." The gap between Ruth and the second-place finisher was even wider than the year before, when Ruth hit 54 homers to George Sisler's 35."

http://www.cigaraficionado.com/webfe...wings_6087/p/1

[T206Collector]

Ask me in 80 years.

It's apples and oranges, but Gretzky was never a goalie. Ruth was a Hall of Fame, World Champion pitcher. It's not even close. There's even a debate about whether Gretzky was the greatest hockey player ever in this thread. There is no debate that Ruth was the greatest baseball player -- 80 years after he retired.

[EvilKing00]

ruth dominated the sport in the same way during his playing days, BUT Gretzky numbers are way more dominant overall and that will last forever.

[EvilKing00]

lets not forget the results of this poll:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=163189