Mark McGwire possesses the MLB record for home runs per at bat with a career ratio of 10.61 at bats per home run and Babe Ruth is second, with 11.76 at bats per home run.
I seem to remember Bill James writing about whether you were better off, scientifically speaking, intentionally walking Babe Ruth every at-bat rather than pitching to him. I think he concluded that managers were better off pitching to him.
But I wonder if Ruth was on a cellar-dwelling team if that would still have been the case.
Yeah, but McGwire juiced up on steroids. Ruth juiced up on beer and hot dogs. Big difference :-).
Ruth also had an impressive on base percentage.