How Many Double Plays Did Babe Ruth Hit into in His Career?

The question how many double plays did Babe Ruth hit into in his career is a trick question. The official answer is 2. But baseball did not keep track of double plays (DP) until the last year of Babe Ruth's career in 1935 when he played for the Boston Braves.

The National League started tracking DP's in 1933 but the American League where Babe Ruth played for the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees until 1934 did not start tracking DP's until 1939.

So how many double plays did Babe Ruth likely hit into in his career? One can only really guess but by using existing stats it can be an educated guess.

In the last year of his career in 1935 playing in Boston where his career originally began with the Red Sox in 1914 Babe Ruth hit into 2 DP's in 72 at bats for the Braves. So Babe hit into a DP once every 2.78% of the time he batted. Multiplying 2.78% times the number of official at-bats Babe Ruth had in the majors 8,399 we arrive at 233 double plays.

That is the highest DP total one could assume that Babe Ruth might have hit into. The number is almost certainly too high as the Babe was 40 years old in 1935 and badly out of shape by all accounts. In addition Babe Ruth had decent speed stats in his career.

Speed can be measured in baseball players using such stats as stolen bases (SB) and triples. In his career Babe Ruth had 123 SB and 136 triples.

While the SB number is not great it is still a much higher number than almost any player with a high number of career double plays has in a comparable number of games. And Babe Ruth is tied for 71st for the most number of triples in a career.

So how many double plays did Babe Ruth really hit into in his career? My guess and it is just a guess would be somewhere around 200.

For more see Most Double Plays All-Time and Most Double Plays All Time Per At Bat

Sources: http://www.baseball-reference.com/