Ruth didn’t get the 3000 hits to go with the homers. Williams would have been the best hitter if he hadn’t lost years serving his country. There is a nice exhibit at Cooperstown showing his batting average by pitch location. No surprise that a fat pitch over the heart of the plate was over .500.
Do not mention Barry Bonds as a great hitter. We will never know how good a hitter he really was. I would put Pete Rose in the HOF before Bonds. The sad thing is Bonds could have made it to Cooperstown without the “help.” My theory as to why Barry did the juice is because of the legacy of his dad, Bobby Bonds. Bobby was considered to have been an underachiever; every year he was expected to post .330/30HR/100RBI numbers but he never met those numbers. Maybe Bobby was an underachiever, maybe the expectations were unrealistic and unfair. But Barry grew up hearing those things about his dad. He was determined that nobody was going to say the same things about him.
I have been conflicted about Pete Rose for a long time. Bonds broke the rules to “help” his game, but Rose did not. In fact, unlike the Black Sox, I’m not aware of any allegation that Rose tried to throw a game to make money. It’s really sad because he is one of the very best to play a very hard game.