In their prime who was the greatest hitter Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio or Hank Aaron?

• I go with Babe Ruth since he never struck out over a 100 times in a season and was a .342 hitter with amazing power.

• Answer:

  You have to take many things into account... First Ill say that when it comes to Power, Babe Ruth was no doubt the best Power hitter to ever live. Ruth hit 714 HRs, Aaron hit 755 HR's but you gotta think about 3 things. Babe Ruth played in about 5 less seasons that Aaron did. In the days of Babe Ruth, the amount of games per season were about 40 games less than what there were in Aaron's time. Also, in Ruths time, the outfield walls were 50-60 farther than the outfield walls were in Aarons time. When Yankee Stadium first opened, Center Field was 459 Feet and it stay at that distance throughout Ruths career. When it comes to overall hitting, it is hard to choose. Here is the number of games played followed by At Bats for them all... Aaron - 3298...12,364 Cobb - 3035...11,429 Ruth - 2503...8,399 Williams - 2292...7,706 DiMaggio - 1736...6,821 When it comes to Batting Average, Cobb leads them all by far with a .367 BA. Williams and Ruth are close, .344 BA and .342 BA respectively. Next is DiMaggio at .325 and then there is a big drop off to Aaron at .305. Although Aaron had the most HR's overall, Ruth was the best HR hitter based on HR per AB. Ruth hit a HR 1 every 11.7 AB Williams - 1 every 14.7 AB Aaron - 1 every 16.3 AB DiMaggio - 1 every 18.8 AB Cobb - 1 every 97.6 AB When it comes to Run scoring, Ruth leads that catagory Ruth scored a Run 1 every 1.15 games. DiMaggio - 1 every 1.24 games Williams - 1 every 1.27 games Cobb - 1 every 1.35 games Aaron - 1 every 1.51 games When it comes to Hits per AB Cobb had 1 hit every 2.72 AB Williams - 1 every 2.90 AB Ruth - 1 every 2.92 AB DiMaggio - 1 every 3.08 AB Aaron - 1 every 3.27 AB DiMaggio leads barely in RBI with 1 RBI every 1.12 games Ruth - 1 every 1.13 games Williams - 1 every 1.24 games Aaron - 1 every 1.43 games Cobb - 1 every 1.56 games When it comes to BB's (Walks), Williams leads Williams had 1 walk every 3.81 AB Ruth - 1 every 4.07 AB DiMaggio - 1 every 8.63 AB Aaron - 1 every 8.81 AB Cobb - 1 every 9.15 AB Ruth leads by a fairly large margin in Slugging with a .690% Williams - .634% DiMaggio - .579% Aaron - .555% Cobb - .513% Williams leads in On Base Percentage with .482% Ruth - .469% Cobb - .424% DiMaggio - .398% Aaron - .374% Of the 8 Major Stat Catagories listed, here is the break down... Ruth - 1st place (3) Williams - !st place (2) Cobb - 1st place (2) DiMaggio - 1st place (1) Aaron - 1st place (0) Since Ruth was basically the same as DiMaggio in the RBI catagory, you can, if you want, call Ruth as a tie for 1st place. The break down would then look like so... Ruth - 1st place (4) (1 tie) Williams - !st place (2) Cobb - 1st place (2) DiMaggio - 1st place (1) (1 tie) Aaron - 1st place (0) So if you go according to statistics, Babe Ruth would be the overall best player/hitter to ever play the game. People say that Williams missed some 'prime' years because of Wars, well he did but when it comes to the numbers, the numbers are numbers. Numbers dont care how much or little some one played, they just show how good someone played and how good some one is. So stat wise - Babe Ruth is the best over player/hitter in MLB history (thats not even taking into account his pitching statistics), and my personal oppinion happens to agree.