OF DROPSY AND THE DEAD BALL:

Ned Williamson, stalwart third baseman of the Chicago White Stockings, his chest like a hogshead barrel, was viewed as a man who possessed insane pop during his 1880s heyday. He was massive for the post-Civil War era, standing just under six-foot-tall and tipping the scales at 210 pounds. In 1883, Harry Stovey, a Philadelphia Athletics first baseman, had clouted 14 home runs, breaking the single-season record set three years prior by Charley Jones of the Boston Red Caps with his 9 round-trippers. But Nasty Ned Williamson exploded through the dinger stratosphere, launching 27 home runs the following season.  

There was some juice to the ball that year, which had been like a sock puppet previously, with three other batsmen clearing the 20-homer threshold. Come 1885, in nearly the exact same amount of at-bats, Williamson's home run total plummeted to 3, but his record would not be going anywhere, standing for 35 years, one season longer than it took someone, in the form of Roger Maris, to best Babe Ruth's 1927 mark of 60 home runs, and two years less than it took Mark McGuire -- allowing that you acknowledge steroid-tainted numbers -- to surpass Maris.  

Williamson didn't get a lot of usage out of his glory -- he succumbed to a combo of dropsy and tuberculosis, aged 36, in 1894. But during the early era of baseball, his was a mark that batsmen chased, a line of statistical dominance that Babe Ruth finally nudged beyond in 1919, cracking 29 home runs in his first year with the New York Yankees. Ruth had been trending towards becoming the eventual record-holder, his days as a pitcher largely behind him, as he focused on the particular brand of magic he whipped up in the batter's box.  

And yet, there was nothing that could have prepared anyone for what Ruth did about a century ago over the course of the 1920 and 1921 seasons, which remain so far ahead of their time that we have to wrestle with the idea that they even happened, while simultaneously trying to comprehend that this athlete informs the core strategies of the game we now watch in 2021. 

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