Northern California Baseball Blog and Q&A

Paul Gutierrez
Raised in Barstow, Calif., where he played community college baseball for two years, Paul Gutierrez has worked at Sports Illustrated and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, where he covered his alma mater's Runnin' Rebels at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. During a six-year stint at the Los Angeles Times, he co-authored Tommy Davis' "Tales from the Dodgers Dugout." He came to The Bee in October 2005 and is now a Bay Area sports features writer who concentrates on baseball during the spring and summer.

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August 10, 2007

Rock breaks it down

With the dust having settled a bit after Barry Bonds' record-breaking 756th home run on Tuesday night and his 757th the next afternoon, I finally had a chance to catch the latest "Costas Now" show on HBO.

When I saw that comedian Chris Rock, who grew up a Mets fan in New York City, would be on a panel with Hall of Famers Ozzie Smith and Gary Carter as well as with host Bob Costas, I wasn't sure what to expect, other than a few uncomfortable laughs.

Rock actually made some sense in dominating the discussion on Bonds, records and the color line, which was broken in 1947 by Jackie Robinson.

"Ty Cobb's records are bull...," Rock said. "And Babe Ruth's numbers are bull..., because they didn't play against black players. It's like saying I won the New York City Marathon but no Kenyans ran that year.

"Babe Ruth has 714 affirmative action home runs. They are not the real deal."

After the laughter subsided, Costas, a noted historian of the game, asked about the feats of Negro League stars Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige, who, because of the color line, were not allowed to "compete against the entire best pool of talent, either." Paige did play in the bigs later, though.

"But when they played in the barn(storming) games, they beat the best, a little more than half the time." Rock answered. "When they had the chance the play, they actually beat the best."

Rock was not done denigrating Ruth's stats.

"I know I'm hard on Babe Ruth, but if the first 20 black guys that played (major league) baseball (stunk), then I would say Babe Ruth was great," Rock said. "But the first 20 guys were insane (It was like, THESE guys couldn't get in."

Costas countered and said the Bambino might have been "legitimately great no matter who he played against."

"Yeah, but Satchel Paige was striking out people from a wheel chair, man," Rock said to more laughter. "He was like, 74 years old. And he was like the ninth-best guy in the Negro Leagues.

"My God, two years after Satchel Paige died, he led the league in ERA. Two years. Two years! That's how good Satchel Paige was."

I can't remember what either Carter or Smith said because Rock was that dominant a presence, without being offensive.

And really, I think he has a case to question all of those that still hang on to the thought that The Babe is still the greatest to ever play the game.

No doubt his stats and numbers are ridiculous and hard to replicate today. No doubt he revolutionized the game more than anyone at that time and perhaps since.

But in my mind, if you are going to be considered the greatest of all time, you have to be able to be that great in ANY time.

Can you imagine Ruth striding up to the plate today and trying to turn on some of today's wicked pitches?

What would BALCO Barry have done in 1927?

We know what Rock thinks. What do you think?

-Paul Gutierrez

Posted by Bill Bradley, August 10, 2007 09:22 PM

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