June 09, 2005
A-Rod at 400
Alex Rodriguez reached the 400 home run plateau last night, lacing his second shot of the game in the 8th inning against the Brewers. The New York Times publishes in their side bar the youngest to reach 400. A-Rod beats Griffey by 190 days. Although that's not really fair. Ball players don't play all year, so there can be big gaps through no fault of the player. He's also the first player to reach 400 at seasonal age 29, which is a better comparison.
Notice, too, that Alex is two years ahead of Aaron. Hank needed an unprecedented finish to his career to catch Ruth. A-Rod just needs to stay healthy and have a few more big years before he starts coasting. The five players between Rodriguez and Hammerin' Hank failed to reach the record. It's A-Rod's turn now.
Also note that the three men to reach 700 aren't very high on the list. Aaron, Ruth and Bonds were always great home run hitters, but each attained 700 with a late career surge. In the five years from seasonal age 35 to 39, Ruth hit 192 home runs, Aaron 203 home runs, and Bonds 258! A-Rod can easily hit 200 home runs over the next five years. He then only need to smack another 156 at that point to catch Aaron. How easy it looks, but how difficult it is to achieve.
Posted by David Pinto at
07:35 AM
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So much of it is health. It's such a shame to see how Griffey - by all accounts a great guy - had his inner-circle hall of fame career reduced to the current "he'll get in because of what he accomplished before he got hurt" write-off he typically receives. And Bonds - another guy people later thought a lock to pass at least Ruth - is out with his balky knee...who knows how he'll return? It doesn't take much to derail a guy's chances when it comes to injury...
...how about the guys that missed for wars? Ted Williams has to be the all-time missed-out on counting stats for his heroic contributions to two wars guy. He finished up with 521 dingers, and missed three full seasons in his prime (in '42 he hit 36 homers, in '46 he hit 38, and he spent '43-'45 training to be a fighter pilot, and then spent most of '52 and '53 flying missions in Korea). He should have picked up at least, say, 35 a year from '43-'45 for 105 more, and then he got during his limited playing time in '52 and '53 a total of 14 when he was averaging about 29 a year...so tack on about 150 more to his 521. It's crazy...the guy missed almost 5 years of ball either in his prime...and still he scored 1798 runs, drove in 1839, and drew 2019 walks...
No argument for Williams being the offensive player most affected by the war. However, Bob Feller is right there with him from the pitching side of things. Rapid Robert won 27 games in 1940 and 25 in 1941. Two days after Pearl Harbor he enlisted in the Navy. He returned after the war and won 26 in 1946 and 20 in 1947. He likely would have won another 80 to 90 games in the four years he missed.
Greenberg too-- not so much cumulative time as best years...
Keep in mind that Ruth lost a bunch of HRs to playing for Jack Dunn, some more before they started playing him on his non-pitching days, and some more to the fair-foul rules at the start of his career...
And Aaron presumably lost a few to the color of his skin...
Wow! You're not kidding. Plus, he probably lost at least 1000 K's from his counting stats to the war...he currently stands at 23rd all time with 2581 K's, and likely would have ended up with 3500+ and right in the 6th or 7th spot...I wasn't aware of that!
Aaron lost some to his home park in Milwaukee. He came up at age 20, and in fact integrated the southern minor leagues, so I don't think anyone in the Braves system was holding that against him. Mays did lose time to military service, but I don't think Aaron did.
Kim il-Sung cost Willie Mays the chance to break Ruth's record. His could easily have hit at least 55 HR during the most of 1952 and 1953 that he spent in the Army.
The attendance boost caused by Mays' pursuit of the record might then have generated enough revenue for the Giants that Stoneham might not have had to sell Mays to the Mets.