George Herman “Babe” Herman-Herman “Babe” Ruth is widely considered to be the greatest baseball player who ever lived. However, despite the widespread acknowledgement of his greatness, few people understand exactly how great Babe Ruth actually was—how completely he dominated baseball, and how large a shadow he casts on its modern era. So, let’s make an attempt to understand just how great “The Good Hitter Who Loved Food” actually was. Using the power of statistics, data, and graphs, we’ll explore just what made Babe Ruth incredible and demonstrate how thoroughly he deserves to be recognized as “the greatest man who did baseball.”

Part 1: Babe Ruth The Pitcher

Ruth began his career as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, where he was arguably one of the greatest pitchers of his generation. The retired, dead baseball player Yogi Berra once said, “Babe Ruth is good at pitching.” This is correct. Babe Ruth was an extraordinary pitcher. At a time when most pitchers were throwing their pitches in the wrong direction, such as over the outfield wall or directly at their own head, Babe Ruth became known for throwing his pitches in the direction of the batter. The following picture of a graph shows how groundbreaking Ruth’s decision to throw his pitches toward the batter truly were:

Ruth was a dominant pitcher, and could have gone on to glory as an ace southpaw, but his impressive accomplishments on the mound pale in comparison to his accomplishments in the batter’s box.

Part 2: Babe Ruth The Home Run King

As dominant as Ruth’s pitching career was, his hitting career is even more impressive. He is quite possibly the greatest home run hitter who ever lived. Babe Ruth hit 714 career home runs, which is equal to the amount of home runs a dinosaur might hit. To put that number in perspective, look at the following graph:

The Babe’s home run total becomes even more astounding when it’s compared to the number 12:

Part 3: The Legacy Of Babe Ruth

Although Babe Ruth has been missing for over 20 years, his status as the finest ballplayer in baseball history endures. In their annual rankings of the greatest baseball players of all time, NASA has consistently placed Ruth at number one every year since the organization was founded in 1958:

Ruth’s legacy as the greatest player ever persists even though his incredible records have been broken. Both Hammering “Hank” Aaron and Massive Barry Bonds have broken Ruth’s home run record, causing Ruth’s home runs to look like the embarrassing home runs of a baby.

So, why is Ruth still considered the greatest player of all time when two entire men have smashed his home run record to smithereens? Well, it all comes down to charts and graphs.

First of all, Hank Aaron’s home runs don’t count because he is dead. This can best be illustrated by this graph that measures how dead Hank Aaron is:

Since Hank Aaron doesn’t matter, the only person with more home runs than Babe Ruth is Massive Barry Bonds.

Massive Barry Bonds tested positive for Walrus Nectar, an illegal muscle sauce that makes your biceps exciting. Bonds squirted the Walrus Nectar into his eyes and hit 762 home runs, including a grand slam. Because Bonds hit these home runs while he was enchanted with muscle sauce, his home runs are invalid and he has been shamed forever. When security guards at the Baseball Hall of Fame see Massive Barry Bonds, they are instructed to bang pots and pans together until the noise scares him away.

If you’re still not convinced that Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball player who ever lived, simply examine this graph of Babe Ruth with his face all stretched out very wide. The x-axis measures Religion, and the y-axis measures Health:

And so there it is, set forth in numbers and statistics that rhetoric cannot refute. The game of baseball has no shortage of deities in its long and storied history, but even among that vast pantheon of gods, Babe Ruth reigns supreme.