500 homers for a Major League Baseball player. It used to be considered one of the greatest feats in the history of the game. When Babe Ruth became the first MLB player to hit 500 back on August 11, 1929, it was one of the greatest professional accomplishments in baseball history.
After all, the year that Ruth knocked his 500th out of the park, he led the American League with 46 home runs. The No. 6 player on that list, Earl Averill, had 16. It took a dozen years for the second player to reach that exclusive 500 home-run mark when Jimmie Foxx of the Boston Red Sox joined the club. It took another six years before Mel Ott would reach that mark. And another 32 years from Ruth’s 500th for the fourth player, Ted Williams, to reach that mark.
In the first 84 years of baseball history, only four players reached the 500 home-run mark.
Albert Pujols’ fifth-inning home run off of Washington Nationals pitcher Taylor Jordan marked the 500th of his future Hall of Fame career. In doing so, he became the first player since Gary Sheffield in 2009 to reach that mark. Alex Rodriguez, better known as A-Fraud to some, is the only other active player to have reached that milestone.
It is an amazing accomplishment. But just how amazing?
While only four players reached 500 in the first 84 years of baseball, 10 have hit that mark this century alone. That’s 10 in less than 15 years.
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When Babe Ruth led the American League with 54 home runs in 1920, George Sisler of the St. Louis Browns ranked second with 19. Wally Pipp, I am sure you know who he is, ranked seventh in the league with 11 homers. To put that into perspective, Pujols leads the majors with eight home runs less than four weeks into the 2014 season.
Taking it one step further, Ruth’s 11 homers in just 95 games in 1918 tied for the American League lead with Tillie Walker of the Philadelphia Athletics, who played in 114 games that season. Ty Cobb was tied for seventh in that category with three others, tallying a total of three homers.
That was what we now call the dead-ball era.
Hank Aaron led the majors in homers four different times, but never tallied more than 44 in any of those seasons. Willie Mays sat atop the homer list three times with his highest single-season total (52) coming in 1965. Frank Robinson led the majors in home runs back in 1965, but never hit 50-plus in a Hall of Fame career. Mickey Mantle, considered the greatest switch hitter of all-time, once led the majors in homers with 37 back in 1955. Do you consider Pujols better than any of these Hall of Famers?
For his part, Pujols’ accomplishments cannot be taken lightly.
He has posted a career .321 batting average, which ranks him second on the active list behind only Joe Mauer. His 500 homers rank second behind Alex Rodriguez, a full 56 dingers ahead of Adam Dunn. In addition to this, Pujols’ .409 on-base percentage ranks second behind Joey Votto. Overall, the future Hall of Famer ranks in the top-five among active players in six different major statistical categories.
But just how “exclusive” is that 500 home run club right now?
Courtesy of Boston.com: At his current pace, Ortiz will reach 500 at some point in the next two seasons.
Including Rodriguez and Pujols, there are seven active players with 400-plus home runs. Of the other five, only Adam Dunn, David Ortiz and Alfonso Soriano stand a chance to reach the 500-homer mark.
There are eight other active players with 300-plus homers. Of those eight, Miguel Cabrera and Adrian Beltre are the only ones likely to reach 500.
Looking further down the line, 18 players boast between 200-299 homers. While it’s hard to project that far down the line, if Ryan Bruan and Robinson Cano continue at their current pace, they should end up somewhere near 500 when all is said and done.
How many of those players do you consider future Hall of Famers? I have Pujols and Cabrera with Ortiz being a borderline possibility simply due to his role as a DH.
This doesn’t even take into account those who are too far down the road to project. Carlos Gonzalez (health is a concern), Mike Trout, Bryce Harper and Giancarlo Stanton all project to have long careers and have elite power ability.
That’s seven players with a strong opportunity to reach 500 homers within the next decade plus. In no time in the history of this game have we seen so many players with as much as an opportunity to hit that mark.
This is how the 500-homer club breaks down by decade prior to the turn of the century…
| Decade | Players | Total |
| 1920’s | Ruth | 1 |
| 1930’s | N/A | 0 |
| 1940’s | Foxx, Ott | 2 |
| 1950’s | N/A | 0 |
| 1960’s | Williams, Mays, Mantle, E. Matthews, Aaron | 5 |
| 1970’s | Banks, Killebrew, F. Robinson, McCovey | 4 |
| 1980’s | Jackson, Schmidt | 2 |
| 1990’s | E. Murray, McGwire | 2 |
That’s a total of 16 players since Ruth netted his 500th some 85 years ago (1929-1990). Including Pujols, a total of 10 players have hit the 500-homer milestone since the 2001 season with at least five more likely to do so in the next decade.
Clearly these numbers are skewed due to the “Steroid Era,” something that Pujols hasn’t been a party to. If nothing else, that’s his most amazing feat in what has been an amazing career.
Photo: Tommy Gilligan, USA Today