That’s pretty unfair to both the players like Ruth and Maris before him, and to the players after him.
You’re assuming the records Ruth and Maris achieved — or anyone else for that matter — were legit. We don’t know that.
Aside from Ruth, specifically, playing prior to player integration, we don’t know that there weren‘t other factors aiding his efforts. Major League baseball has been a cheaters sport since its inception.
Pitchers doctored baseballs, batters corked bats, used pine tar, amphetamines, etc. This stuff is well known. What’s not known is the full extent of it.
Back in the early days of the sport and really up until and through the 70’s, the media coverage was drastically different. Most teams had one or two beat writers that covered the team. And in many cases, they were close enough to the team and players that they protected them from negative publicity. A lot of things were kept hidden and never came to light.
For the most part, that can’t really happen today. There’s so much more attention and coverage on all pro sports that it’s really hard for things to remain hidden for long. Hence the steroid/HGH and Astros cheating scandals coming to light. Spygate and deflate gate came to light in the NFL.
If this were the 1950’s, it would have been much more possible that none of those things would have been discovered.
Point is, we can’t ever know for sure that any of the ‘old’ records are any more legit than the ones being broken today. In the case of baseball, history suggests that it is been a cheaters sports for well over 100 years. So I’ve always been inclined to be skeptical about all of its records.
I personally don’t care if a cheater breaks another cheaters record.