Eighty-three years ago today, Dixie Dean scored his famous sixtieth goal. Across the Atlantic baseball’s Babe Ruth also hit sixty. These two stars met twice, once in person and once in the record books.

Before their talent rushed them into a sporting phone booth they were simply George Herman Ruth, Jr. and William Ralph Dean. They stepped out as supermen – “Babe” and “Dixie” and hit us with a swarm of achievements: 714 home runs (Babe), 37 true hat-tricks (Dixie), a headed goal from the half way line (Dixie), a ball in Detroit hit with such feral ferocity that it left the stadium (Babe), both men even clambered into crowds to deal with hecklers.

Together they have the makings of a musical super group and it’s amazing to think they met, two Desperate Dans who instead of guzzling cow pies feverishly gnawed away at sporting records.

September 30, 1927, New York Yankees 4-2 Washington Senators

Babe’s 60th home run.

In 1927 Babe, the Sultan of Swat, thwacked sixty home runs to beat his own record. Ruth, leader of a bloodthirsty line-up of Yankees hitters dubbed the “Murderer’s Row”, hit his 60th on September 30, in the Yankees’ penultimate game. Ruth was triumphant, roaring, “Sixty, count ‘em, sixty! Let’s see some son-of-a-bitch match that!”

As it turns out, it took less than a year.

May 5th 1928, Everton 3-3 Arsenal.

Dixie’s 60th goal.

In 1928 Dean was at the business end of his greatest season. In his final game he was a hat-trick away from breaking George Camsell’s record of 59. Harry Cooke, Everton’s mystical nicotine addled trainer, helped Dixie recover from a muscle injury before the showdown with Arsenal. Out of the plumes of cigarette smoke came a reinvigorated Dean who scored twice before half time and “just butted the ball in” to reach heights that haven’t since been scaled in football.

Babe meets Dixie

In 1934 Babe came to England and met Dixie on a visit to White Hart Lane, seldom have two chronic record beaters been so close. As Dixie shook the Bambino’s hand they began to chew the sporting cud. A 1977 interview with journalist John Roberts allows us to be flies on the dressing room wall. .

“Gee, you’ll get some cash today,” Ruth told Dixie.

When Dixie told Ruth that he got paid just £8 a week, Ruth looked back with wide eyed and slack jawed disbelief.

“Jesus Christ,” spluttered the Bambino. “I’d demand two thirds of this gate!”

Ruth ,who earned almost 20% of Yankee payroll compared to Dean’s 3 percent later declared:

“What a racket! What’s the chances of me buying into one of those football clubs?”

Two greats, who in the space of a year broke records by reaching sixty…

431 appearances, 377 goals

“There was an atmosphere wherever Dixie went; there was excitement. I’ve seen around 2,000 people following him around in places like Switzerland, Germany and France. He was bigger and better than life.” – Joe Mercer

The Babe Ruth of football, Dean cost Everton £3,000 from Tranmere Rovers in 1925 and became the greatest goalscorer in English history, recording 377 goals. Dixie was Deane’s nickname – but he disliked it – just as Edson hated Pele. Being in goal and seeing Dean bearing down on you must have been like looking down the barrel of a gun. Armed with a header almost as powerful as his shot, one number percolates through from his glorious Everton career – his 60 goals in one season, a record that will never be touched. Dean himself describes his “lust” for goals and he was a relentless matchmaker, introducing ball to net with astonishing regularity; rumours also swirl around the solid statistics and add to the legend of the man. Did he really score from the half-way line with his head? The more you look into this remarkable player, the more you begin to believe. Pre-war footballers are often fobbed off as a Jurassic breed – but Dean was a T-Rex, and his goalscoring feats are impossible to ignore

 249 appearances, 78 goals.

  “No one was greater than their club, but you came pretty close.” – Tribute sent to Goodison after Ball’s death.

‘I was running back to the centre-circle after I scored the second goal against Liverpool and pure elation welled up inside me. I remember thinking: “I just love this place, I want this place forever.”‘

Alan Ball, August 1966

Ball, who chased his surname perpetually, like a Jack Russel chasing its tail – was a true Everton legend. The zest from this orange haired dynamo was extraordinary, and it was borne out of an utter hatred for losing. Remarkably he may have hit his peak in the summer of ’66; a 21 year old squeaky ginger drill-sergeant with the world at his feet.

“Run you bastard, run!” screamed Ball – the youngest man in the team – upon spotting an exhausted Nobby Stiles flagging in the World Cup final. Two weeks after England lifted the Jules Rimet, Harry Catterick – Everton’s shallow-dwelling mastermind – made Ball an Everton player as Britain’s first six-figure signing. Ball himself was tireless, a blur of orange and blue, moving his white-hot boots in perpetual motion.

Ball led his Everton to their 1970 league win; they finished on 66 points – a heady nine clear of Leeds United – very impressive for a time when two points were given for a win. Catterick’s sale of Ball was controversial, but Everton had him in his pomp. He left Goodison in body but not spirit, he was to remain an Evertonian for the rest of his life.

 578 appearances

 “It was my first signing, and my best, in his prime, Neville was the best keeper in the world.” – Howard Kendall

The bulky Nev of later years (although as a former hod-carrier, he was always a big man) repelled wave after wave from Manchester United in the 1995 FA Cup Final and the earlier, supremely elastic ‘keeper of the mid 1980s was the world’s best. Such was Everton’s domestic supremacy in 1985 that they gobbled up 60 per cent of all votes for the writers’ footballer of the year, with a deserving Nev eventually winning the award. Southall is the best Everton ‘keeper of all time, and won two Championship medals, two FA Cups and a Cup Winners’ Cup, made a staggering 578 appearances for Everton (easily a Blue record), and has won more games than any other Toffee. After winning his second FA Cup, this porcine footballing perfectionist will be remembered for leaving to be with his wife and kids rather than join the celebrations.

 97 appearances, 70 goals

 “Technically, surely the greatest number nine of all time” – Joe Mercer

  A teen sensation, Tommy would be higher up this list if the war hadn’t halted his career and deprived him of six seasons of football. Underneath the centre parting and lashings of Brylcreem, lay an instinctive goalscorer. So prolific was Lawton that it seemed as if he had dipped his feet in gunpowder; including war fixtures, Lawton scored a ridiculous 222 goals in 209 first team games. Tommy refused to be bowed by the pressure of filling Dixie’s boots, and is only bettered by Dean as Everton’s greatest striker.

 271 appearances, 87 goals

 “I left Everton Football Club in 1968. But I can honestly say that Everton has never left me.”

Alex Young was the beatific poster boy for the School of Science. Bought for £42,000 from Hearts, Young bewitched all with his skill and it soon became fluorescently obvious to Evertonians that they had someone truly special. “The Golden Vision” with his vicar’s collar and blonde locks was an elegant, gracile forward who – for a slight man – had wonderful heading ability. So acute was his reading of the game that he could deliver exquisite passes without even checking where his teammates were. Young scored 89 goals in 275 appearances; his 22 strikes helped win the league for Everton in 1963 and he was in the FA Cup winning team of 1966. There was something almost ethereal about Young, who somehow throttled the life out of games with the lightest of touches, and he is probably the most beloved of all Everton legends.

 472 appearances, 2 goals

 In American sport-speak, Ratcliffe is the “most winningest” Everton captain ever and he won two league championships, an FA Cup, and the European Cup Winners’ Cup for the Blues. The Welshman initially played in a variety of roles, and it wasn’t until he was moved to centre half that he really excelled. Ratcliffe was blessed with pace and an exquisite reading of the game, and above all he was a born leader, becoming captain at 23 and the youngest man to receive the FA Cup since Bobby Moore. His name comfortably sits amongst the best British defenders of all time and he’ll forever be remembered for his tackle on Kogl in the blood-curdling Bayern Munich game at Goodison which crunched like credit, and still echoes around Goodison to this day.

 530 appearances, 2 goals

 “One Evertonian is worth twenty Liverpudlians”

 Everton’s consummate defender and captain, Labone was firmly ensconced in the England set up of the 60s; however, ‘the Last of the Corinthians’ turned down a place in Alf Ramsey’s 1966 World Cup squad to marry his wife. Both a modest and loyal servant, Labone’s relationship with Everton was monogamous, and light years away from the modern crazed transfer carousel where players put multiple club badges to their lips.

 495 appearances

  Shunted down the list only because Southall is one of the best goalkeepers in history, Sagar is an Everton behemoth. Amazingly, Ted was just 11 months short of spending a quarter of a century on the Toffees’ books as a ‘keeper and unsurprisingly he holds the record of the longest time playing for one club in league football. The enormously athletic Sagar played 499 times for Everton – winning two division One Championships, an FA Cup, and a Charity Shield in the process. Although he was capped by England only four times, he remains a legendary Blue.

 175 appearances, 5 goals

  This noble Welsh centre half was bought for £3,000 from Wrexham, and – alongside Tommy Lawton and Joe Mercer – was a key part of Everton’s resurgence, culminating in the 1939 League Championship. The Everton team of the time had youth and dynamism and Jones was a classy and technically-advanced defender. Dixie Dean once described Jones as “the best all-round player I’ve ever seen”. Stalked by Roma in the 1940′s, Jones instead stayed at Goodison after a £15,000 move collapsed. Known as the “Prince of Wales”, the unflappable Jones played 175 times for Everton.