Baseball has seen lots of changes, which have triggered many debates such as you touch on.
People say Babe Ruth never played a night game, and seldom faced multiple relief pitchers, or 9th inning closers, because in his day, starting pitchers finished the game.
Some have said that Babe didn’t face the best pitchers of his era, because black ballplayers weren’t allowed in the majors then.
Some have talked about how Babe didn’t have to deal with the rigors of coast to coast travel, crossing multiple time zones, and the stresses that puts on players.
But then others say, as you point out, pitching is diluted nowadays with so many expansion teams, so in Babe’s era of only 16 major league teams, every pitcher he faced was top notch compared to today’s.
Then again, Yankee Stadium had a short right field foul line and right center power alley, which helped Babe’s totals.
Boston’s Fenway Park was just the opposite in right field, with deeper right and right center, making it harder for Ted Williams to hit home runs. Then again, Ted lost several years to World War 2 and Korea, so who knows how many he would have it if he could have played those years.
Willie Mays lost almost two years to military service as a young man.
It all depends on which criteria people want to talk about, as they compare players from different eras, and talk of the significance of all time records or single season records.
It makes for lively debate which never quite get resolved.
Ted Williams lost like four years to two wars. Easily would have had 600 homers. It is what it is, and it ain’t what it ain’t.
“People say Babe Ruth ...”
Before Ruth came along the home run record in a season was something like 28. He broke that several times in his career, finally getting to 69. Nobody has come close to doubling his best season’s home run record.
This isn’t to take anything away from Aaron and others who beat his records, but Ruth dominated the game while he was active.
Mays, Williams, Musial, Robinson, Berra and many other baseball players of the 30’s and 40’s served in the military, esp. during WW2.
How many baseball players today (American citizens or want-to-be’s) have been in the service and how many have been in combat? Just asking.