Denis Leary said that there were two reasons Bonds could never be the player that Ruth was. For the first nine years of his baseball career, Ruth was a pitcher, and a damn good one to boot.
The other reason was drugs. The Babe never did steriods. He was drunk all the time.
I think that is Ruth's real advantage - nobody else could ever have hit 714 home runs with a constant blood alcohol level over .08. ;)