Is Derek Jeter the greatest baseball player of all time?

That's not a problem with the film, that's a problem with the projection speed. Silent films were projected at all sorts of different speeds. As a general matter, though, they were filmed at speeds slower than the current standard rate of 24 frames per second, so that when films from the 1920s are shown through modern projection equipment, they look speeded up.

Ruth was never a great speedster on the bases, but he did steal 17 bases in 1921 and again in 1923, and he famously was thrown out attempting to steal for the final out of the 1926 World Series. One gets the sense that Ruth thought he was a lot faster than he actually was.

Ah, yes, I should have known that. Makes sense.

Thanks for that link too. I never knew that game 4 of that series was the game where that story of Babe Ruth promising the sick, hospitalized kid a home run and then delivering comes from. In fact, he hit three of them that day.

From the wikipedia article:

The 1926 World Series produced one of the most famous anecdotes in baseball history, involving Babe Ruth and Johnny Sylvester. Sylvester was an 11-year-old boy from Essex Fells, New Jersey, who was supposedly hospitalized after falling off a horse. Sylvester asked his father to get him a baseball autographed by Babe Ruth. Prior to the start of the World Series, the boy's parents sent urgent telegrams to the Yankees in St. Louis, asking for an autographed ball. Soon, the family received an airmail package with two balls, one autographed by the entire St. Louis Cardinals team and the other with signatures from a number of Yankees players and a personal message from Ruth saying, "I'll knock a homer for you on Wednesday".

After Ruth hit three home runs in Game 4 on Wednesday, October 6, newspapers reported that Sylvester's condition had miraculously improved. After the World Series had ended, Ruth made a highly publicized visit to Sylvester's home, in which the boy said to Ruth, "I'm sorry the Yanks lost the series". In the spring of 1927, Sylvester's uncle visited Ruth and thanked him for saving the boy's life. Ruth asked how the boy was doing and asked the uncle to give the boy his regards. After the man left, Ruth, who was seated next to a group of baseball writers, said, "Now who the hell is Johnny Sylvester?"

Gotta go with the Babe. Gotta. Even my father, a Yankee hater from birth, admitted that the Babe was the best.

The greatest player I ever saw in person? Willie Mays. Schlepped out to Shea Stadium in Queens, of all places, just to see Mays play. It was worth the shlep. Great hitter. Great fielder. Great runner. Say, hey.

Jeter is a very good player. Maybe great. But not the greatest. Sorry kicky.

The "sick kid asking the Babe to hit a homer" is the stuff of cinematic legend. In The Babe Ruth Story, with William Bendix as the Babe, the movie mixes up the homer he hit for the little sick boy (which happened in St. Louis in the 1926 series) with his famous "called shot" homer (which happened -- or didn't happen -- in Chicago in the 1932 series). But The Pride of the Yankees, the story of Lou Gehrig, makes an even bigger hash of the whole episode: Ruth (played by Babe Ruth himself) promises to hit a home run for "Billy," who is laid up in a St. Louis hospital. Gehrig, played by Gary Cooper, then promises Billy that he'll hit two home runs for the sick boy, which he then proceeds to do. The only problem is that Gehrig not only didn't hit two homers for a sick little boy in the 1926 World Series, he didn't hit any home runs in that series. Also left unexplained is why a little boy in St. Louis would be asking Yankee players to hit home runs against the Cardinals. Maybe he was a Browns fan.

jeter is probably the greatest hitting shortstop of all time.
he recently collected his record-setting 7th 200 hit season...

Could you imagine how much better he'd be if he was on roids. Assuming, of course, that he's not.

People used to pay admission just to see Satchel Paige's fast ball.

Blind people went to listen to it.