Most Homers In a Season By a Hall of Famer:
60, by Babe Ruth (1927)
59, by Babe Ruth (1921)
58, by Hank Greenberg (1938) and Jimmie Foxx (1932)
56, by Hack Wilson (1930)
54, by Mickey Mantle (1961), Ralph Kiner (1949) and Babe Ruth (1920 and 1928)
52, by Willie Mays (1965) and Mickey Mantle (1956)
Those top two Ruth seasons are eighth and ninth on the full most-homers-in-a-season list. Bonds, Maris, two McGwire seasons and three Sosa seasons are ahead of the Babe.
Most Homers In a Season By A Hall of Famer, Since Division Play Began 45 Seasons Ago:
49, by Harmon Killebrew (1969) and Andre Dawson (1987)
48, by Mike Schmidt (1980) and Willie Stargell (1971)
47, by Hank Aaron (1971) and Reggie Jackson (1969)
46, by Jim Rice (1978) 46
45, by Johnny Bench (1970), Willie McCovey (1969) and Mike Schmidt (1979) 45
Those last three seasons listed, the 45-homer seasons by Bench, McCovey and Schmidt — when you go to find them in the full list of most-homers-in-a-season all-time, you’ll find them among the twenty seasons that are tied for 117th place.
Very interesting birtelcom. Griffey should alter those lists in two years.
The thing with Ruth that always makes me scratch my head is that in 21′ as you stated he hit 59 round trippers, more then doubling the offensive output of his teammate and runner up to the HR crown, Bob Meusel. Then in 27′ when he hit his 60 four baggers the runner up was also a teammate but finished only 13 Homers shy of Ruth total of 60, and again in third place was another teammate Tony Lazzeri with (18) to go with Ruth (60) and Gehrig’s (47). This was the tradition of the 1920’s and early 1930’s, Ruth would lead the league and the runner up would finish with nearly half of what Ruth hit. I know there is not much media from the 20’s and 30’s covering Ruth, or at least nothing much I have seen. Besides hitting HR’s at a ridiculous rate, compared to his peers, running into the stands to assault a heckling fan, Calling his famed shot, and Drinking and womanizing, What do we actually know about the Babe? Was he really this far ahead of everyone else or was it just intimidation, or what was it that made him so incomparably to anyone else that has ever played this game. Even during our life time, Bonds was not the only man hitting the ball into orbit, even Hammerin Hanks time Willie and Mickey kept pace with him. So what gives?
John Z: To learn about Ruth google “Babe Ruth is Supernormal”. And Ruth was not the only player to run into the stands to assault a heckling fan, among others Ty Cobb and Christy Mathewson did it.
What a great find/read Richard. My only question is when they compare Ruth to others and say he is above average to the ordinary man, this does not take into account how he would average say against his peers. I would argue that most players that make it to the major league level would be above average in sight sound and reaction. A story at the think factory reads that Pujols was given a similar test and his results were similar to those of Ruth, and while Pujols is nice and a future Hall of Famer I am not sure if i would put Pujols in the same class as Ruth?
Ruth took advantage of the new, clean balls and ignored the philosophy of the time that emphasized contact over power (and the strikeouts that come with it).
The early history of a thing tends to have outliers like Ruth as a natural part of things because competition is not as balanced as it will be in the future and strategies are not optimized.
Wilt Chamberlain’s single-game and single-season scoring records, Cy Young’s wins and innings totals.
When it comes to the dominance of franchises in team sport an important factor are the differences between the ‘early’ era and the modern era as it relates to roster management: the Yankees and the Celtics had dominant periods in their respective sports before their governing bodies adopted policies meant to prevent a team from dominating the talent pool.
Ruth’s time as a pitcher notwithstanding in some alternate universe where you get to have the great talents in the history of professional baseball all playing at the same time I might take Mays over Ruth.
Ruth’s superiority over his peers in hitting homers is almost unbelievable. I can only think of one other player in any sport who was as ridiculously dominant as Ruth, and that’s Don Bradman in cricket. Bradman’s career test batting average of 99.94 is arguably the greatest sporting record of all time: the second place figure is 66.25 (among retired players it’s 60.97, look at the ‘Ave’ column in the following link).
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/282910.html
Are there any other examples of one player being heads and shoulders and heads again above anyone else to have played their sport?
In hockey….Wayne Gretzky skated circles around everyone else. He has 2857 career points, a comfortable 970 ahead of #2 Mark Messier. You really can’t explain it, unless you’d seen him, then it becomes clear.
A lot of great sporting feats are hard to quantify. Boxing or horse racing, for example. 1973 vs. 2013. Secretariat could possibly lose in today’s racing game.
You could have finished off the list with Mays & Kiner at 51 and Foxx at 50.
Add in Maris’s 61* in 61 too, of course.
As a kid I knew that whole list. They weren’t all Hall of Famers then. Willie and Mickey were still playing but we knew of course that they would get in. Kiner, Wilson and Maris were a different story. None of them had a long career. Kiner and Maris hadn’t hit much for average.
But they were on THE list. At the top in Maris’s case. Twice for Kiner. And Wilson also had that RBI thing going for him. That made them all serious candidates for the Hall of Fame. And eventually, rightly or wrongly, Wilson and then Kiner got it.
I remember when George Foster came along and added his name to it as well. A lot of people took that as a sign that the world had gone to hell in a hand basket. Others, for a while at least, said no; he’s a product of the mighty Big Red Machine. He hits .300, he drives in a lot of runs and he followed it up with a 40 homer, 120 RBI season. He’s the real thing.
Then came a 30 home run season, then 25. Next was 22 and then, in his first year in The Big Apple, 13.
Turns out the world had gone to hell in a hand basket.
You omitted Mize at 51, an unfortunately revealing slip that is indicative of what has happened to the Big Cat’s reputation over time. As I’ve said here a couple of times before, Mize is probably the most under-appreciated of the great players of the pre-expansion era.
Hartvig, I knew that list, too, and cherished it. George Foster was God in 1977.
This is interesting.
Jim Rice: 47.3 WAR, 18.4 WAA, 82 HallofStats, 41.7 JAWS, 128 OPS+
G Foster: 44.0 WAR, 18.3 WAA, 83 HallofStats, 40.4 JAWS, 126 OPS+
D Murphy: 46.2 WAR, 16.3 WAA, 85 HallofStats, 43.6 JAWS, 121 OPS+
One of my favorite Babe Ruth stats is this: In 323 2/3 IP in 1916, he did not allow a homer, but did hit 3. And in his four years as strictly a pitcher, 1914-1917, he outhomered the hitters he faced 9-6. That’s in 407 PA vs. 3,519. All deadball era, all as a pitcher.
Every now and then I think he was overrated as a pitcher. Then I look at his record again. Through his age 22 season, he was a lefty with a 67-34 record, a 2.07 ERA (131 ERA+) and 16 SHO. Oh, and a World Series CG and .299/.355/.474 at the plate.
He was a monster of a player before he ever became a position player — but he did it as a college-age kid.
Since 1901, only a handfui of seasons with a pitcher hitting as many or more home runs than he allowed (min. 162 IP).
1934 – Wes Ferrell 4/4
1922 – Babe Adams 1/1
1921 – Sam Jones 2/1
1920 – Bill Sherdel 1/1
1919 – Walter Johnson 1/0, Dick Rudolph 1/0
1918 – Claude Hendrix 3/2, Walter Johnson 1/0, Dave Davenport 1/0
The all born-after-1955, eligible-but-not-in-the-Hall-of-Fame team (Hall Rating in parenthesis):
C: Mike Piazza (145)
1B: Jeff Bagwell (162)
2B: Lou Whitaker (142)
SS: Alan Trammell (141)
3B: Robin Ventura (101)
LF: Barry Bonds (359)
CF: Kenny Lofton (130)
RF: Larry Walker (149)
DH: Edgar Martinez (133)
P: Roger Clemens (290), Curt Schilling (170), Mike Mussina (161), Kevin Brown (137)
The all born-after-1955, Hall-of-Fame team (Hall Rating in parenthesis):
C: None- Gary Carter was born in 1954
1B: Frank Thomas (138)
2B: Ryne Sandberg (128)
SS: Cal Ripken (185)
3B: Wade Boggs (183)
LF: Rickey Henderson (228)
CF: Robin Yount (142)
RF: Tony Gwynn (126)
DH: Paul Molitor (139)
P: Greg Maddux (217), Tom Glavine (147). Eckersley, Sutter, Gossage, and Blyleven were born between 1951 and 1954.
Guys on the outside have a higher mean (171 to 163) and median (145 to 144.5) Hall Rating. The most qualified player at catcher, first base, second base, left field, right field, and any spot in a pitching rotation is outside the Hall. If we count Yount at shortstop, where he played more often than center, the same is true in center field and the Hall of Famers only “win” shortstop third base, and designated hitter.