This is the sixteenth in a series of examinations of baseball-related legends and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of all the previous baseball legends.

This installment is a re-format edition, so these legends have already been posted on this site, just not in this format.

Let’s begin!

BASEBALL LEGEND: Due to a scorer’s error, Tris Speaker went unrecognized for an RBI record for seventy-nine years!

STATUS: True

Babe Ruth’s record for career runs batted in stood for 42 years.

Hank Aaron’s record for career runs batted has stood for 34 years (and counting – and since the closest active player is over 500 runs batted in away and is 39 years old, I think Aaron will have the record for the foreseeable future)

Hack Wilson’s single-season runs batted in record has stood for 79 years (and counting).

Tris Speaker’s American League record for most consecutive games with a run batted in (that he set in 1928) has stood for…TWO years (and counting)?!?!?

You see, the statistic for runs batted in (awarded every time a batter’s hit resulted in another player on his team scoring a run) was not even an official statistic until 1920.

Well into the 1920s, all statistics in baseball were kept track off via hand-written ledger sheets. Over in the National League, such sheets were checked with regularity. No such attention to detail was present in the American League.

Since the runs batted in statistic was so new, it was also the most mis-attributed statistic that there was.

So going into the 2007 season, the official record for most consecutive games with a run batted in the American League was thirteen, a record shared by Tavis Wright of the Chicago White Sox (done in 1941) and Mike Sweeney of the Kansas City Royals (done in 1999) (The National League and Major League record was, and still is, the Chicago Cubs’ Oscar Grimes, who did so in seventeen straight games in 1922).

However, in 2007, upon doing some research into possible statistical errors, Trent McCotter discovered that for the May 26, 1928, Speaker was credited with a home run but no runs batted in. The home run was verified and therefore, so was the run batted in.

With that run batted in verified, Speaker suddenly had an American League record FOURTEEN games in a row with a run batted in!

And he only had to wait seventy-nine years (thirty-nine of them posthumously) to get the credit.

Thanks to Trent McCotter for both doing the great investigative research but for also being a great source!

BASEBALL LEGEND: Tris Speaker predicted that the New York Yankees were making a mistake by turning Babe Ruth into a full-time outfielder instead of a pitcher.

STATUS: True that he did say it, mostly False in the way it’s been applied in the years since

“Ruth made a great mistake when he gave up pitching. Working once a week he might have lasted a long time and become a great star.” – Tris Speaker (1921)

So many famous quotes over the years have turned out to be bogus that I was quite wary of the preceding quote being true, and yet, it is, Speaker said it in 1921 when the future Hall of Famer was the Player/Manager of the Cleveland Indians.

HOWEVER (there’s always a however, isn’t there?), I take issue with the way that the phrase has been treated over the years.

First of all, Speaker was not a fan of Ruth’s. The two had been teammates for a number of years in Boston where Speaker’s best friend on the team, Smoky Joe Wood, disliked Ruth immensely.

By osmosis, Speaker was also cold to the Babe, who, on the contrary, was always effusive with his praise of Speaker whenever asked about hiim.

In any event, the quote, while remarkable, was relayed by Speaker in 1921.

Ruth was already on the Yankees for a full season by 1921. Even if we allow that Speaker perhaps gave the quote BEFORE the beginning of the 1921 season, Ruth still had the 1920 full season’s statistics.

And in 1920, Babe Ruth hit .376 (fourth in the league – Speaker was second) with 54 home runs and 137 runs batted in.

To put those home runs into perspective, Ruth’s 54 home runs were four more than the next three home run leaders in the American League COMBINED (George Sisler’s 19, Tilly Walker’s 17 and Happy Felsch’s 14).

Speaker’s quote has long been associated with missed PREDICTIONS, but as you can see, Speaker already saw what Ruth could do with the bat. He knew Ruth was a dominant force as a hitter, he just thought that he was an even better pitcher. And Ruth WAS 89-46 with a 2.19 Earned Run Average for the Boston Red Sox, all before he was 25 years old, so it’s not insane to think at the time that he could have been more valuable as a pitcher (totally wrong, but not insane).

In either event, if you examine his statement further, Speaker says Ruth could have become a great star.

Obviously, there wasn’t a bigger star in the galaxy than Ruth after 1920 (and he would become even bigger as time went on), so Speaker’s comments were both incorrect and also false on the face of them.

So really, instead of looking at them as an actual prediction meant to be taken seriously (and then mocked years later as a foolish serious prediction), we should instead view them as how they were likely intended – as dismissive comments from a guy who didn’t like the Babe.

BASEBALL LEGEND: A baseball pitcher missed almost a month due to his fingers getting caught in a rocking chair while he was sleeping.

STATUS: True

Freddie Fitzsimmons was a successful pitcher for the New York Giants for many years (winning a World Series in 1933 with the team) before being traded to the rival Brooklyn Dodgers late in his career (and having a career resurgence with the Dodgers).

Fitzsimmons won 217 games in his career, and he likely would have won more had he not had a freak accident during 1927.

Fitzsimmons’ rookie season in 1926 (he played a little in 1925) was a strong debut, as he went 14-10 as a 24 year old.

However, after a strong start to 1927 (with Fitzsimmons winning three games the first month), Fitzsimmons actually fell asleep while in a rocking chair. The chair rolled over his fingers went he slept, crushing three fingers on his pitching hand.

He missed about a month, and returned to have a fine season, although the Giants lost the division by two games that season. Had they had Fitzsimmons available for all of May, perhaps things would have been different.

Gotta watch out for those rocking chairs, man, they’re deadly!

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

Tags: Babe Ruth, Boston Red Sox, Brooklyn Dodgers, Cleveland Indians, Freddie Fitzsimmons, Hack Wilson, Hank Aaron, Happy Felsch, Mike Sweeney, New York Giants, New York Yankees, Oscar Grimes, Smoky Joe Wood, Tavis Wright, Tilly Walker, Trent McCotter, Tris Speaker