.
Going to disagree on the HR stat. In 1927 one other player (Gehrig) hit more than 30. This year, 20 others did. Babe's 60 was more impressive because he lapped almost the entire field; he was that much better than anyone else.
We tend to compare old history and say, those guys couldn't compete against the players of today. If you brought them into today and trained them the same and gave them the same equipment, of course they could. They analyzed Bobby Jones golf swing on tape and estimated his swing speed at 113 mph, on par with today's pros. He was hitting barely dimpled balls with hickory shafts but if you gave him modern equipment and trained him the same he'd likely be a top pro.
Judge's next closest competitor was what, Schwarber with 46? Not exactly close here. But yes, I totally agree that Babe changed the way the game is played and is rightly considered an icon, arguably the biggest star the sport has ever had to this day. But he was facing the same pitcher 4 or 5 times a game, who had pitch counts that today would seem absolutely insane. And of course, that's also ignoring the huge elephant in the room that is integration. The game different, but even then I would argue that Baseball in Babe's time is far closer to today's product, compared to the changes made to football.
And sure, you can say "if they were trained the same they could be just as good", or "if TV and the internet were around it would have been as big" or whatever, but....they didn't and they weren't. We aren't talking about "natural talent", we're talking about actual performance, actual importance, actual numbers. And really, in the
Basically, what is more relevant to today's college football?
These guys strapping on some leather helmets to beat Carnegie Melon in front of 45,000 people when certain groups were excluded from the game, or
these guys playing a pretty much identical game to today and beating Wisconsin in front of 100,000 people and millions more watching at home? I think you would be incredibly hard pressed to say the former.
I don't think you've taken into account how big college football was in the 30s, prior to the NFL becoming a big thing. It was much bigger than the NFL until around the 1950s or early 60s. There may not have been TV, but many of the games had good attendance (during the Depression) and radio coverage was huge. People clung to every word in newspapers written by the likes of Grantland Rice. Ohio State and Michigan were getting 65-70,000 fans back then for some of their games. The US population was about 40% of what it is today. 45,000 went to the Sugar Bowl on New Years Day 1939 (that's 112,000 in today's terms). That's pretty significant.
Now, there's no comparing the athletes then to today's athletes. Kendre Miller would rush for 300 yards by about halftime with this O-Line against a 1938 defensive squad. Kendre would be bigger and stronger than just about every defensive player of that era, not to mention a whole lot faster.
I understand, but I don't think judging it "on a curve" (for lack of a better term) like you do here with the Sugar Bowl attendance. College football was a regional sport certainly beneath Baseball, and probably beneath boxing as well. It wasn't near as big, or as culturally relevant, as it is today.
Also, no, Ohio State and Michigan were not drawing those numbers outside of the games against each other (not unlike today's Harvard & Yale attendances, where they draw meager crowds outside of their own rivalry game against each other. Here's some attendance figures from 1935, the year we claim a national title. They aren't close to comparable to today's games.
1935 Michigan:
1935 Ohio State:
There's
some big games, sure, but on the whole you see attendance that would get them compared to us or Cincinnati. I suppose you could blame the Depression for that, but going back to the 20's doesn't really change it either.
1926 Michigan:
It is not respectful to the past players and coaches to dismiss them in this fashion. Comparing long ago athletes to current athletes is a fool’s game. Of course players get bigger and faster and the game gets more sophisticated over time. But the only fair way to grade a 1938 football team is by comparing them with their contemporaries.
I don't consider "really really good for the time, not as relevant to today's product as other more recent games" to be all that disrespectful. If you disagree, that's fine.