Jenkinson, Bill 1962–

PERSONAL:

Born 1962.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Willow Grove, PA. Agent—James Fitzgerald Agency, 80 E. 11th St., Ste. 301, New York, NY 10003-6000.

CAREER:

Sports historian. Has served as a consultant for numerous sports organizations, including the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Society for American Baseball Research, the Babe Ruth Museum, and for Major League Baseball and ESPN.

WRITINGS:

The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs: Recrowning Baseball's Greatest Slugger, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Bill Jenkinson is a baseball historian, an expert on the history of long-distance home runs, and an acknowledged scholar on the life and career of famed baseball player Babe Ruth. In The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs: Recrowning Baseball's Greatest Slugger, Jenkinson seeks to reclaim Ruth's reputation from modern players who have surpassed the Bambino's accomplishments in sheer numbers, but whose records were achieved on a playing field much more favorable than that occupied by Ruth. In 2006, for example, controversial batter Barry Bonds surpassed Ruth's record of 714 home runs. Other players, such as Sammy Sosa, Hank Aaron, and Roger Maris, also make a claim to the title of baseball's greatest. To Jenkinson, however, Ruth remains the greatest baseball player of all time. In his book he offers detailed historical information and statistical data to back up his claim. Jenkinson's work "is an authoritative analysis of Ruth's hitting prowess, and it uses statistics to show that Ruth still would have been the game's greatest slugger if he had played today," commented William C. Kashatus in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

"In a fresh perspective on Ruth's position in the pantheon of sport and American heroes, we are spared ‘gee-whiz’ adulation and presented with meticulous research that stands on its own," reported J. Sebastian Sinsi in the Denver Post. For example, Jenkinson notes that Ruth played through much of his career with a nagging knee injury that could easily be remedied by today's medicine. He notes that Ruth powered in 198 home runs of more than 450 feet, compared to Bonds's record of 36. He carefully constructs a graphical pattern of Ruth's hits that, in terms of the book's title, would account for 104 home runs had they been hit in modern ballparks under today's rules, rather than under the more restrictive regulations of 1921. Jenkinson also factors in other elements of Ruth's life and career, taking into account such elements as equipment of the day, medical and rehabilitative treatment available to Ruth, the intense attention paid to Ruth by the press, and more. He also makes much of Ruth's well-demonstrated power as a batter and reveals statistics from a little-known exhibition series of 800 games in which Ruth participated. In modern thinking, modern sports figures are "bigger, faster, stronger, and therefore better," mused Booklist review Wes Lukowsky. In Jenkinson's thorough treatment of Babe Ruth's history, abilities, and accomplishments, however, "we have the carefully researched, imaginatively argued contrary position."