Would the Legendary Babe Ruth Still Be a Star if He Played Today?

[glchen]

I don't know if Ruth would be a star today, to be frank, or really anyone from the prewar era. For me, I don't think it would be the issue of international or African Americans playing the game. Ruth did go on barnstorming tours and to Japan, so I think he did play against those types of players and did equally well during that era. So even if Ruth's era had international and African American players, I think Ruth would do just as well or close to it. To add to this, I don't think you saw the star players whose careers crossed eras such as integration or adding more international players, their stats didn't just drop through the floor. Players like Ted Williams or Stan Musial did just fine adjusting as more players were added to the league and were still huge stars.

However, today's game has a lot more different types of pitches and you have specialty pitchers who pitch to just lefties, etc. Ruth may have had the talent to hit the fastball or curve in any era. However, he may not have had the talent to hit the slider or change-up or all of the different types of pitches in the modern era. Even with the modern training regimen, you still need the talent to hit those types of pitches and in different areas of the strike zone, and once pitchers of today's era know that you can't hit a certain type of pitch, they'll just keep throwing it at you all of the time.