The statistical record suggests that it did. How else to explain why Hank was walked way more often in September of the year he was trying to break my record than in earlier months:
Over all, Greenberg walked in 15.9 percent of his plate appearances through the end of August 1938. In September, that rate jumped to 20.4 percent. His walk rate was 14.5 percent in 1937 and 15 percent in 1939.
Some random blogger doesn't buy the argument, but whatever.
Only I, the Babe, have access to the actual people involved in that home run chase. Over the last day, I have attempted to track down all the pitchers who faced him in that last month to ask them if they walked Hank because (a) he was Jewish, (b) they simply feared allowing a home run to a hot slugger, or (c) they loved and respected me so much that they couldn't bear to watch my record broken only 9 years after I had set the baseball world on fire with my glorious and amazing 60 home run season.
I wasn't able to find all of them. In fact, I was only able to find three: Jim Walkup, Jack Knott, and Pete Appleton. No, I had never heard of them either, but my intern, Tony, looked on the internet and found them. Anyhoo, I tracked them down asked them the above question, and each and every one of them chose answer (c).
Case closed.
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