The Single Season Home Run Kings

After Babe Ruth erased Buck Freeman's record in 1919, the new mark stood for 34 years before Maris bettered it, defying as he did an incredulous sporting public. And just as fans' anger grew old and Maris was grudgingly credited--or discredited--with an unrepeatable hot streak, along came Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, two goliaths who in 1998 and the years just after proved fans wrong again. But when in 2001, only three years after McGwire seemed to put the record beyond reach, Barry Bonds topped him by three. This time fans were staunch in their disbelief, and while many celebrated Bonds' achievement, others questioned its significance. This revised edition of Bill McNeil's Ruth, Maris, McGwire, and Sosa ("libraries especially will want this"--Library Journal) reviews the careers of each home run titan, with special attention to the record-breaking seasons. The cultural and social changes that may have affected both the players' season totals and fan reception are also considered.

Who was the greatest home run hitter of all time? Babe Ruth? Henry Aaron? Willie Mays? Mickey Mantle? How about Negro Leaguers such as Josh Gibson or Norman Turkey Stearnes? Or minor league sluggers such as Joe Bauman who hit 72 four-baggers in 1954? And where does Sadaharu Oh and his 868 homers in the Japanese Central League fit in? Using statistical comparisons and accounting for the variances between players of different eras and levels of competition, this work provides the answer to the question of the greatest home run hitter of all time. The minors, Japanese, Negro and major leagues--both the deadball and lively ball eras--are fully analyzed. The home run hitting careers of the candidates in each league are first compared against other top sluggers in their own league, accounting for such differences as level of competition, size of ballparks, altitude in which the player played most of his games, night baseball and major league expansion. Players from different leagues are then compared to find the one player who stands out as the greatest home run hitter in the game's history. And the answer might surprise you.

Presents a biography of the St. Louis Cardinal slugger who broke Roger Maris' single-season home run record in 1998.

Tom Clavin and Danny Peary chronicle the life and career of baseball’s “natural home run king” in the first definitive biography of Roger Maris—including a brand-new chapter to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his record breaking season. Roger Maris may be the greatest ballplayer no one really knows. In 1961, the soft-spoken man from the frozen plains of North Dakota enjoyed one of the most amazing seasons in baseball history, when he outslugged his teammate Mickey Mantle to become the game’s natural home-run king. It was Mantle himself who said, "Roger was as good a man and as good a ballplayer as there ever was." Yet Maris was vilified by fans and the press and has never received his due from biographers—until now. Tom Clavin and Danny Peary trace the dramatic arc of Maris’s life, from his boyhood in Fargo through his early pro career in the Cleveland Indians farm program, to his World Series championship years in New York and beyond. At the center is the exciting story of the 1961 season and the ordeal Maris endured as an outsider in Yankee pinstripes, unloved by fans who compared him unfavorably to their heroes Ruth and Mantle, relentlessly attacked by an aggressive press corps who found him cold and inaccessible, and treated miserably by the organization. After the tremendous challenge of breaking Ruth’s record was behind him, Maris ultimately regained his love of baseball as a member of the world champion St. Louis Cardinals. And over time, he gained redemption in the eyes of the Yankee faithful. With research drawn from more than 130 interviews with Maris’s teammates, opponents, family, and friends, as well as 16 pages of photos, some of which have never before been seen, this timely and poignant biography sheds light on an iconic figure from baseball’s golden era—and establishes the importance of his role in the game’s history.

This book is about the 600 Home Run Club, an exclusive club of major league baseball players that reached 600 lifetime regular season home runs. Included in the book are HR leader-Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ken Griffey, Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, and last years - new member-Jim Thome. The book discusses each player's career and accomplishments. Also, included are statistics of some players' fathers-Bobby Bonds and Ken Griffey, Sr. Also, Tommy Aaron's, Hank's brother - career stats are also, included. I also, showed a special player - Roger Connor, who was the baseball's home run king before Babe Ruth became a national icon. He played in the late 1880's. There is also a section on comparing the player's career statistics and a special formula for determining each player's true run scoring index, or indicator.

The magical 1998 baseball season made celebrities of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa as they chased the legendary single season major league home run record. Fittingly, their success also refocused the spotlight on the men they were chasing (and eventually overtook): Yankee sluggers Babe Ruth and Roger Maris. This work reviews the life and careers of these four record-breaking longballers, with special emphasis placed on each of their record-breaking seasons. Appropriate mention is made of the record challengers such as Mantle and Foxx in order that the analyses may be seen in context. The four combatants are also studied side by side, comparing the various cultural and social conditions and changes in the game that may have affected each player's home run totals. Numerous unique and interesting facts and statistics are included: e.g., Ruth set the single-season home run record not once but four times and held the record longer than Maris did (despite the common misconception); Sosa held the record for 45 minutes after hitting number 66; Ruth outhomered every other team in 1927, but in 1998 Big Mac didn't come close to outslugging even one team.

"The best baseball book I’ve read in years." — Sam Walker • "An exhilarating story of innovation." — Ben Reiter • "Swing Kings feels like a spiritual successor to Moneyball." — Baseball Prospectus From the Wall Street Journal’s national baseball writer, the captivating story of the home run boom, following a group of players who rose from obscurity to stardom and the rogue swing coaches who helped them usher the game into a new age. We are in a historic era for the home run. The 2019 season saw the most homers ever, obliterating a record set just two years before. It is a shift that has transformed the way the game is played, contributing to more strikeouts, longer games, and what feels like the logical conclusion of the analytics era. In Swing Kings, Wall Street Journal national baseball writer Jared Diamond reveals that the secret behind this unprecedented shift isn’t steroids or the stitching of the baseballs, it’s the most elemental explanation of all: the swing. In this lively narrative romp, he tracks a group of baseball’s biggest stars—including Aaron Judge, J.D. Martinez, and Justin Turner—who remade their swings under the tutelage of a band of renegade coaches, and remade the game in the process. These coaches, many of them baseball washouts who have reinvented themselves as swing gurus, for years were one of the game’s best-kept secrets. Among their ranks are a swimming pool contractor, the owner of a billiards hall, and an ex-hippie whose swing insights draw from surfing and the technique of Japanese samurai. Now, as Diamond artfully charts, this motley cast has moved from the baseball margins to its center of power. They are changing the way hitting is taught to players of all ages, and major league clubs are scrambling for their services, hiring them in record numbers as coaches and consultants. And Diamond himself, whose baseball career ended in high school, enlists the tutelage of each swing coach he profiles, with an aim toward starring in the annual Boston-New York media game at Yankee Stadium. Swing Kings is both a rollicking history of baseball’s recent past and a deeply reported, character-driven account of a battle between opponents as old as time: old and new, change and stasis, the establishment and those who break from it. Jared Diamond has written a masterful chronicle of America’s pastime at the crossroads.

Known today as “the Babe Ruth of the 1880s,” Hall of Famer Roger Connor was the greatest of the nineteenth-century home run hitters, his career total (138) having stood as the major league record for nearly 24 years—until it was broken by Ruth himself. When he retired in 1897, he was also tops in triples (233), second in walks and total bases, third in hits, and fourth in doubles. But Connor did more than swing from his heels. He was an expert bunter who averaged more than twenty stolen bases a year (some credit him with inventing the “pop-up” slide) and led the league four times in fielding. Called “The Gentleman of the Diamond,” the slugger was never ejected from a game in seventeen major league seasons. This biography sheds new light on the life and five-decade baseball career of one of the games most admired and beloved players.