Babe Ruth was the first great home run hitter in baseball history. His batting talent and vivacious personality attracted huge crowds wherever he played. He made baseball more exciting by establishing home runs as a common part of the game. Ruth set many major league records, including 2,056 career walks and 72 games in which he hit two or more home runs. He had a .342 lifetime batting average and 714 career home runs. George Herman Ruth (1895-1948) was born in Baltimore.
After playing baseball in the minor leagues, Ruth started his major league career as a left-handed pitcher with the Boston Red Sox in 1914. In 158 games for Boston, he compiled a pitching record of 89 wins and 46 losses, including two 20-win seasons-23 victories in 1916 and 24 victories in 1917. On January 2, 1920, a little more than a year after Babe Ruth had pitched two victories in the Red Sox World Series victory over Chicago, he became violently ill. Most suspected that Ruth, known for his partying excesses, simply had a major league hangover from his New Year's celebrations. The truth was, Ruth had ingested several bad frankfurters while entertaining youngsters the day before, and his symptoms were misdiagnosed as being life-threatening.
The Red Sox management, already strapped for cash, thus sold its ailing player to the Yankees the next day for $125,000 and a $300,000 loan to the owner of the Red Sox. Ruth eventually added five more wins as a hurler for the New York Yankees and ended his pitching career with a 2.28 earned run average. Ruth also had three wins against no losses in World Series competition, including one stretch of 29 23 consecutive scoreless innings. At the time, Ruth was one of the best left-handed pitchers in the American league.
Although Ruth had an absolute advantage in pitching, he had even greater talent at the plate. Simply put, Ruth's comparative advantage was in hitting. As a pitcher, Ruth had to rest his arm between appearances and thus could not bat in every game. To ensure his daily presence in the lineup, Ruth gave up pitching to play exclusively in the outfield. In his 15 years with the Yankees, Ruth dominated professional baseball. He teamed with Lou Gehrig to form what became the greatest one-two hitting punch in baseball.
Ruth was the heart of the 1927 Yankees, a team regarded by some baseball experts as the best in baseball history. That year, Ruth set a record of 60 home runs. At that time, a season had 154 games compared to 162 games today. He attracted so many fans that Yankee
Stadium, which opened in 1923, was nicknamed "The House That Ruth Built." The Yankees released Ruth after the 1934 season, and he ended his playing career in 1935 with the Boston Braves. In Ruth's final game, he hit three home runs. The advantages to having Ruth switch from pitching to batting were enormous. Not only did the Yankees win four World Series during Ruth's tenure, but they also became baseball's most renowned franchise. Ruth was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, in 1936.

What do you think? How did Babe Ruth’s baseball career relate to the principle of comparative advantage?