Nor did Ruth face the hectic travel schedule Mantle and Maris do today. Teams traveled by train and only as far west as St. Louis. Ruth never played a night game in Minnesota, rushed to the airport, caught a plane to Los Angeles and played another game the following night, as Mantle and Maris have. It is for such reasons that comparisons between players of different generations are senseless. The game changes.
Rules vary, permitting one thing one year, preventing it the next.
The bats get lighter, the gloves bigger, the fences move in and out. Babe Ruth's record will be broken, if not this year, then next. He needs no legislation to be remembered and honored, and this is the most unfortunate and unforgivable aspect of Ford Frick's decision. Frick's attempt to protect the record, undoubtedly well-intentioned, is an insult to the man who set it. Ruth was always a man to accept a challenge.