When Babe Ruth was inducted into the Hall of Fame during the inaugural Induction Day ceremony in 1939, he ranked No. 1 all-time in many traditional offensive statistics such as home runs, RBI and walks. But more than three quarters of a century later, how do he and the other nine players who were alive and present for the Hall of Fame's dedication in 1939 stack up using modern sabermetric measures of player evaluation?
The 10 living Hall of Fame players – plus manager Connie Mack – who gathered in the village of Cooperstown, New York, for the debut of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum on June 12, 1939, were some of the greatest players who ever lived.
Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner and Walter Johnson were part of the inaugural Hall of Fame class in 1936. Cy Young, Tris Speaker and Napoleon Lajoie were elected in 1937; Grover Cleveland Alexander was added in 1938; and Eddie Collins and George Sisler joined the club in 1939, the year the Hall of Fame opened its doors. They were all present for the induction ceremony and dedication of the museum in Cooperstown.
Using the traditional statistics in vogue in their time, it's easy to see why they were selected. Ty Cobb's career batting average of .366 was and remains the highest in baseball history. Babe Ruth's 714 home runs stood as the major league record for decades afterward. Cy Young's 511 victories is a mark that will likely never be surpassed.
Today, many baseball fans prefer to use more sophisticated statistics such as OPS+ or Wins Above Replacement (WAR) – which take into account not only batting, base running, and fielding skill but also the specific effects of a player's environment such as his home ballpark and the league-wide scoring rate – to evaluate a player's greatness.
But it doesn't matter which stats you choose, sabermetric or traditional, the 10 living Hall of Fame players inducted in 1939 are still among the best the game has ever seen. Using the WAR leaderboard at Baseball-Reference.com, let's take a look at the numbers.
Babe Ruth, 182.5 career WAR, No. 1 all-time: Seventy-five years after the Sultan of Swat was inducted into the Hall of Fame, Ruth remains the gold standard by which all other ballplayers are measured. His 155.2 offensive WAR, which is the best of all-time, more than offset his average skills in the outfield and on the bases. But he also compiled more than 20 WAR as a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox. He's the most dominant all-around player in baseball history by any statistical measure.
Walter Johnson, 164.5 WAR, No. 2 all-time: There are many who believe the Big Train was the greatest pitcher who ever lived, and sabermetric analysis gives Johnson a mighty strong case. His 16.0 WAR in 1913 and 14.6 WAR in 1912 are the highest single-season totals recorded by any player in the 20th century.
Cy Young, 163.8 career WAR, No. 3 all-time: Young's statistics – 511 wins, 316 losses, 815 starts, 749 complete games, 7,356 innings pitched, 29,565 batters faced – look so unfathomable to fans in the 21st century that it's easy to overlook just how great he was on the mound. He led the league in shutouts seven times, posted an ERA under 2.00 six times and no one had better control; he led the league in walks per nine innings in 14 different seasons.