It's Outta Here!: The Might and Majesty of the Home Run
In 2019 Miguel Sanó was one of five Minnesota Twins players to hit at least 30 home runs
1 THE LONG HISTORY OF THE LONG BALL With home runs flying out of ballparks at a record pace baseball had never seen anything like the 2019 season Baseball's modern era stretching nearly 120 years has seen its highs and lows It has witnessed power surges and power outages But 2019 was special it was the year of the home run From opening day it was clear that 2019 would be a standout season The standing record for team home runs in a season was 267. Four teams overtook that mark in 2019. The Minnesota Twins broke the record on August 31 with a full month to go in the season And the Twins kept slugging They didn't just break the home run record They destroyed it Minnesota went on to set a new record with 307 home runs and they did it in a home ballpark long considered pitcher friendly The New York Yankees were close behind slugging 306 big flies Individual records fell by the wayside as well New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso hit 53 long balls the most ever by a rookie Major League Baseball MLB struggled to explain the remarkable season Had something changed with the materials that made up the balls Were the hitters that much better or had they made changes to their swings that helped them hit long 7
blasts But the biggest question focused on baseball's future In a sport where fans loved the home run did MLB want the long ball trend to continue THE REIGN AND FALL OF THE DEAD BALL Baseball wasn't always centered on hitting the ball over the fence In the early 1900s MLB games were built around a strategy that modern fans call small ball Players didn't swing for the fences They tried to get on base They bunted and focused on making contact with the ball The game was about methodically moving runners from base to base not bringing them all home with one swing of the bat During the dead ball era from 1900 to 1919 the home run was a novelty an afterthought In both 1905 and 1909 not a single MLB player reached double digits in home runs Baseball historians have several theories about why the home run was such a rarity for the first two decades of the century During that time MLB allowed pitchers to throw spitballs Pitchers doctored balls with sticky substances to affect their flight possibly leading to low home run totals The spitball was banned in 1920 and home run totals surged Others point to changes in ballpark sizes pitching strategies or how baseballs were manufactured Probably all of these contributed to the low home run totals Historians agree however about the player who was most responsible for ending the dead ball era It was a young pitcher turned slugger who During the dead ball era many hitters choked up on the bat went on to rewrite baseball's record to help make contact with the ball reducing the power of their swings books It was Babe Ruth 8 IT'S OUTTA HERE
RUTH USHERS IN A NEW AGE Babe Ruth played his first MLB game in 1914 with the Boston Red Sox He spent the first four seasons of his career almost exclusively as a pitcher and he was a good one In 1916 he went 23–12 and led the American League AL with an earned run average ERA of 1.75 He was the hero of the 1918 World Series winning both of his starts and allowing just two runs in 17 innings Ruth could have continued his brilliant career as a starting pitcher But in 1918 he convinced Red Sox manager Ed Barrow to let him play in the field on days Ruth didn't pitch It proved to be a game changing decision Ruth slugged a league leading 11 home runs in 1918. The 1919 season started out the same with Ruth as a pitcher first Babe Ruth throws a pitch for the Red Sox and a hitter second But as he cranked out home runs at a pace the game had never before seen the Red Sox began to use him mainly as a hitter Barrow saw that Ruth could change the game at the plate And that's exactly what Ruth did He hit an almost unthinkable 29 home runs that year shattering the MLB record Ruth's power surge in 1919 marked a shift in how the game was played Home runs were no longer an afterthought Ruth was on a path to become the biggest star the game had ever seen THE LONG HISTORY OF THE LONG BALL 9
