Babe Ruth

On 11 July 1914 the Boston Red Sox beat the Cleveland Naps 4–3 at Fenway Park. The two clubs made eight hits each. Cleveland made four errors, Boston one. Boston scored in the first inning, added two more in the fourth, gave up two in the seventh, then answered with one in the bottom of the seventh to take the lead for good. Cleveland never came to bat in the ninth, which is why the visiting half of that inning is recorded as a dash. The game was a day game, and the Red Sox won it by the margin of a single run.

The player who debuted that day played five games in 1914, with ten at-bats, two hits, and no home runs. In 1915 he played forty-two games and hit four home runs. In 1916, sixty-eight games and three home runs. The at-bat totals for those first four seasons — 1914 through 1917 — sum to 361, which is fewer than he would record in a single season starting in 1918. The thin early years suggest he was not yet playing every day, though the material here does not say what else he was doing.

In 1918 he played ninety-five games and hit eleven home runs. In 1919, 130 games and twenty-nine home runs. In 1920 — his first season with the New York Yankees — he played 142 games and hit fifty-four. That is the shape of the climb: from none in 1914 to fifty-four in 1920.

The highest single-season total is sixty, in 1927. From 1920 through 1931 he hit at least forty-one home runs every year except 1925, when he played ninety-eight games and hit twenty-five. The 1925 season stands out in the table: ninety-eight games where the surrounding years show more than a hundred, and twenty-five home runs where the surrounding years show more than forty. In 1932 he hit forty-one. In 1933, thirty-four. In 1934, twenty-two. In 1935 he played twenty-eight games for the Boston Braves — a return to Boston, but a different club — and hit six. The last game was on 30 May 1935. The career total is 714 home runs across twenty-two seasons.

The batting average for the career is .342. The on-base percentage is .474 — that is, he reached base safely in nearly half his plate appearances, counting hits and walks together. The slugging percentage is .690, which measures total bases per at-bat and reflects the frequency of extra-base hits. The season-by-season table shows the walk totals rising in step with the home runs: in 1920 he walked 150 times, in 1921, 145 times, in 1923, 170 times. Pitchers pitched around him, and the figures record it.

The career lasted twenty-two seasons by two measures: twenty-two distinct seasons in the table, and twenty-two years from debut to final game, 1914 through 1935. The club changed twice: six seasons with the Boston Red Sox, fifteen with the New York Yankees, one with the Boston Braves. The position listed is outfielder. He batted left and threw left. The career totals are 2,504 games, 2,873 hits, 714 home runs, 2,213 runs batted in.