Aug. 25, 2007 - "Who is the Greatest homerun hitter of all-time? Part 6

“Who is the greatest homerun hitter of all-time?”

I have heard many people ask this question and I’ve also heard lots of different answers. Its understandable that there is some debate. There have been over 15,000+ players in the majors. Most people would answer either Babe Ruth, who had 712 homeruns, Hank Aaron, who had 755 homeruns, or Barry Bonds, who has the record with 758 (subject to change).

To answer this question, I’m not going to look at all 15,000+ players, just the 22 in the 500-homerun club and maybe a few below such as Lou Gehrig and Stan Musial. I’m going to look at who is the greatest homerun hitter of all time –not the most consistent or fast.

Okay, so this time I’m going to look at the Say Hey kid, Willie Mays. Mays was famous for 2 things. His incredible defense and his powerful hitting. Mays played for 23 seasons and had 660 homeruns in 10,881 at-bats. That’s a lot of homeruns, but that’s also a lot of at-bats. He hit over 50 homeruns twice in his career, which was at the time unheard of. Mays has a pretty good argument as the greatest but lets look at that number of at-bats again, 10,881. Now if a lot of great homerun hitters had that many at-bats, they could have a lot more homeruns. Say if Babe Ruth had that many and he hit a homerun in every 10 at-bats, that’s 1088 homeruns. So that number obviously takes away his chance at being the greatest. Never the less, he was a great homerun hitter and maybe the first great African-American homerun hitter. 

K.B. is a reporter and founder of the IABW.

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