Club 600: Babe Ruth casts the longest shadow
SAN FRANCISCO – Hank Aaron has the all-time record, but not the satisfaction that he was the most glorified home-run hitter of all time. If Barry Bonds breaks Aaron’s record, he can also forget about ever assuming that label.
It’s impossible to compete with a ghost.
Babe Ruth was considered no less of a legend the day Aaron surpassed his hallowed mark of 714 home runs in 1974. If anything, his legend has grown, and isn’t that supposed to be the case with a mythological character?
Ruth is still the greatest home-run hitter in history, given how his numbers were so superior to any other player of his time. In some seasons, he outhomered entire teams.
Aaron wasn’t even considered the greatest of his era. He played in a time featuring old-fashioned strength and newfound elegance, and the long ball was a thing of beauty. But he was just one guy in a celebrated crowd of future Hall of Famers and players who reached the 500-homer club between 1965 and 1971: Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Harmon Killebrew, Ernie Banks and his teammate, Eddie Mathews.
To pick one above the other, the name mentioned most is Mays.
Even Aaron recognized that.
For example: When Mays hit his 600th home run, on Sept. 22, 1969, it was a pinch-hit, two-run shot in the seventh inning that proved the difference in a 4-2 victory over San Diego.
Conversely, when Aaron got his 600th, on April 27, 1971, it was against the Giants, and Mays’ 10th-inning single beat the Braves 6-5. It was Mays’ fourth hit of the game.
“I had to wonder if I would ever get out of that man’s shadow,” Aaron wrote in his 1991 autobiography, “I Had a Hammer.”
In terms of all-time homers, Aaron did step aside from the crowd when he passed Mays in July 1973 and Ruth in April 1974.
But in a lot of ways, he’s still in Mays’ shadow. And, of course, Ruth’s.
Now along comes Bonds, completely in the dark, thanks to the shadows of all three of the first three players to reach 600. How’s he supposed to compete with that?
He just doesn’t. He knows it, too.
Bonds never said much about wanting to pass Ruth’s 714, let alone Aaron’s 755. He just wanted to match Mays’ 660. The day he arrived for spring training in 2000, he told reporters that chasing his godfather would be a “good motivating factor to continue playing baseball.” Besides, he added, it seemed possible to play six more years and average 36 homers. At the time, he trailed Mays by 215.
That year, Bonds hit 49, a personal best.
Then last year, he hit 73.
Now he’s 62 from Mays.
“It’s a great honor to have four players in the 600 club and two of them be Giants,” Mays said. “I talked to Barry about having two Giants with 600 home runs, which is a great thing for baseball. Sometimes he says he doesn’t want to pass me. He has made that statement. But we’ve settled that.”
Ruth hit his 600th homer in 1931, and 38 years passed before someone else got there – Mays in ’69 off Mike Corkins. Only two years passed before someone else did it – Aaron in ’71 off Gaylord Perry.
Thirty-one years later, it’s Bonds’ turn.
“It was important to me, but I felt I was going further,” Mays said about the 600 milestone, adding a bigger accomplishment was breaking Mel Ott’s Giants record of 511. “I had some more years to go. My thinking was more than I had 600 home runs. I had to get more.”
He got 60 more. Aaron got 155 more.
“I knew Hank was going to pass me,” Mays said. It happened in June 1972. “He was three years younger than I was. It was just a matter of time.”
David Vincent, a noted home-run historian of the Society for American Baseball Research, isn’t prepared to rank Bonds with Aaron, Ruth and Mays. In fact, he ranks Ruth and Mark McGwire as history’s top pure sluggers, if only because of the frequency in which they homered – Ruth every 11.8 at-bats, McGwire every 10.6 at-bats.
“Aaron has the most home runs, but I don’t consider him the greatest home run hitter,” Vincent said. “Career totals don’t mean that much to me. That’s just amassing more years. Aaron averaged one home run every 16 at-bats. That’s very good, but it’s behind a lot of hitters, including (Jose) Canseco and (Dave) Kingman.
As for Bonds, “He was the best player of the ’90s, and you don’t have to go further than that. Top five? Might be, but let him finish his career first.”
The 500 Club:
1. Hank Aaron 755
2. Babe Ruth 714
3. Willie Mays 660
4. Barry Bonds 600
5. Frank Robinson 586
6. Mark McGwire 583
7. Harmon Killebrew 573
8. Reggie Jackson 563
9. Mike Schmidt 548
10. Mickey Mantle 536
11. Jimmie Foxx 534
12. Willie McCovey 521
Ted Williams 521
14. Ernie Banks 512
Eddie Matthews 512
16. Mel Ott 511
17. Eddie Murray 504
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.)