Pitching Wins Championships

There's an old saying in baseball, "Pitching wins championships." I've believed this to be true, but only because I've assumed it to be true. As I thought about this for the last week, I did some research on the top home run hitters in baseball history and stumbled across an amazing thing. It appears from what I found that pitching really does win championships.

I looked at the stats of the top 12 home run hitters of all time. One of those stats is how many rings each player has. Wow. Here's the list, ranking them in order of home runs, and including the number of seasons played and championships won:

Place	Player	HR	Seasons	Rings
1	Barry Bonds	762	22	0
2	Henry Aaron	755	23	1
3	Babe Ruth	714	22
4	Alex Rodriguez	687	21	1
5	Willie Mays	660	22	1
6	Ken Griffey Jr.	630	22	0
7	Jim Thome	612	22	0
8	Sammy Sosa	609	18	0
9	Frank Robinson	586	21	2
10	Mark McGwire	583	16	1
11	Harmon Killebrew	573	22	0
12	Rafael Palmeiro	569	20	0
Total		7740	251	6

You have quickly noticed that Babe Ruth's ring total is missing from the above chart. I will leave Ruth until last because it serves to prove my point. So, 11 of the top 12 home run hitters of all time have played 229 seasons, hit 7016 home runs, but won only 6 rings between them? Six of these players never won a single ring! Lotsa zeros up there. This is nearly unbelievable.

Now for Ruth. Ruth is the greatest sports star in American history. His 714 is the most recognized stat and record in sports history. He revolutionized baseball, saving it from the damaging Black Sox World Series gambling scandal of 1919. The very next year he hit an all-time record 29 home runs. Then he hit 54 and 59 in successive seasons. He played for the team recognized as the greatest in history, the 1927 Yankees. Ruth won "only" four rings with the Yankees, in 1923, 1927, 1928 and 1932. As much as this - Ruth winning four rings as a slugger with the "Murderer's Row" Yankees - goes counter to my point, something even more eye opening goes to prove it...

In his first five full seasons in the majors, Babe Ruth won three rings AS A PITCHER with the Boston Red Sox, in 1915, 1916 and 1918. Ruth's transition from Boston to New York and from pitcher to hitter only gave him a marginal increase in rings, from three in five seasons to four in sixteen additional seasons. This, my friends, is just one of the reasons why pitching wins championships. Or is it?