The Evolution of Major League Baseball Home Run Records

In my lifetime I have witnessed the big changes that have taken place on the all-time home run list in Major League Baseball. When I was born in 1957, Babe Ruth sat alone at the top of this mountain at 714 home runs, with Jimmie Foxx a distant second at 534, followed by Ted Williams with 521. Mel Ott's 511 gave him the fourth place on the all-time home run list, with Lou Gehrig's 493 rounding out the top five. This meant that at the time of my birth fifty years ago, there were only four baseball players that had broken the 500 home run barrier, and just one that had managed to go beyond that. In comparison, today there are 22 men with at least 500 home runs and 3 more knocking on the door.

Ruth is now number three on the career home run roster, having been passed first by Hank Aaron and then by Barry Bonds, who is number one with 762 as of this writing. The intent of this article is not to debate the facts in regards to Bonds and others that have been accused and suspected of adding to their legacies with performance enhancing drugs; it is to show how the baseball landscape has changed so dramatically since the "good old days." Fifty years ago, if you had told someone that Ruth's career and single season home run marks would not stand, you would have been labeled some sort of baseball heretic, but such is the case in 2007. Indeed, it would only be four years until Roger Maris would hit 61 homers in 1961 to take that standard from Ruth, who when he hit number 60 in 1927 was reported to have said, "Let's see some other son of a bitch do that!"

There have been quite a few sons of bitches at work it would seem since then, as Ruth's single season total of 60 homers is now good enough for just eighth place all time. Maris, amid much turmoil and concern that he had hit his 61 with the advantage of eight added contests due to the expansion of baseball and its schedule, is number seven, with Sammy Sosa at spots six, five, and three, having belted 63 homers in 1999, 64 in 2000, and 66 in 1998. Mark McGwire's 65 in 1999 and 70 in 1998 have him in fourth and second overall respectively, while Bonds hammered 73 in 2001 to send Maris and Ruth plummeting out of the top six even.

When I was a child, fifty home runs in a single season was just about an unassailable benchmark, as it had been achieved just sixteen times, by sluggers such as Ruth, Maris, Hank Greenberg, Foxx, Johnny Mize, Hack Wilson, Willie Mays, and Ralph Kiner. The list that once numbered 16 hitters now has swelled to 36. The first player to get to 50 homers in a single campaign after I was old enough to follow the sport was Cincinnati's George Foster in 1977, who clobbered 52 in a wondrous feat. After that, it took 13 seasons until 50 was breached again, this time by Detroit's Cecil Fielder in 1990; the Cubs' Andre Dawson fell one short in his National League MVP season of 1987. However, after 1995, players were tripping over each other to hit at least 50, with guys like the Oriole lead-off man Brady Anderson and the Diamondbacks Luis Gonzalez accomplishing this endeavor.

Eddie Matthews of the Braves and the Cubbies' Ernie Banks eventually inched by the 500 homer plateau, both finishing their illustrious careers with 512. It would be 1966 until Willie Mays and Hank Aaron surpassed Foxx and Williams for their positions on the all-time list, with long ball artists like Harmon Killebrew and Frank Robinson also moving up the charts, along with Mickey Mantle and Willie McCovey. When McCovey hung his spikes up in 1980, the career home run list read as follows- Aaron at 755, Ruth at 714, Mays at 660, Frank Robinson at 586, Harmon Killebrew at 573, Mickey Mantle at 536, Jimmie Foxx at 534, and Williw at 521, tied with Ted Williams. During the Eighties, Reggie Jackson with 563 and Mike Schmidt with 548 mixed up the order a bit. After that, the home run hitters like McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, Ken Griffey, Jr, Alex Rodriguez, Eddie Murray, and Frank Thomas came along and carved out their niche on this inventory of home runs. Jim Thome of the White Sox is now just a pair short of 500 as I type this, with Boston's Manny Ramirez needing 10 and Detroit's Gary Sheffield 21 short of the magic number that at one time meant an automatic ticket to Cooperstown. Carlos Delgado, Andrew Jones, and Vladimir Guerrero all have realistic shots at 500, and after that it would seem that the Cardinals' Albert Pujols will be approaching the gold standard.