Going Long! The 50 home run Club - MLB Feature
Home-runs are a very important and at the same time interesting part of baseball. Crowds go crazy whenever a long ball is hit. It also adds to the runs tally for the team and if some or all bases are covered, the usefulness multiplies.
Through the history of the Major League, there have always been players who could go long with a lot more consistency then others. Until 1919, the highest number of home-runs in a single season was 29, held by the legendary Hall of Famer Babe Ruth. All this
however changed in 1920, when Babe hit a record 54 home-runs, shattering his own record of 29 and in the process becoming the first hitter to hit 50 or more long balls in a season.
It’s a rare event that batters are able to hit 50 or more home-runs in a single season. So far, the feat has been achieved only 43 times in MLB during its 137-year-long history. A total of 26 players have this distinction and nine of them have done so on
more than one occasion.
Babe Ruth, who has 714 career home-runs, was the first person to hit 50 plus home-runs in a year four times. Two more names have been added to the list since, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, both of whom hit 50 plus home-runs in four consecutive years. Mark
completed the landmark in 1999 and Sosa two years later in 2001.
Of those who managed the feat, 15 have been right-handers, nine have been left-handers and one has been a switch hitter. Eight of the players on the list are Hall of Fame inductees.
The list also includes legendary players such as Jimmie Foxx, Willie Mayes and Mickey Mantle. Barry Bonds, the current holder of the most career home-runs with 762, achieved the feat in 2001, at the age of 37 and remains the oldest player to do so. He hit
73 long balls, which is to date, the most number of home-runs hit by a batter in a single Major League season. The youngest to achieve the feat is Prince Fielder, who did it in 2007 while representing the Milwaukee Brewers.
Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris are the only duo in the MLB’s history to hit 50 home-runs in the same season representing the same team. They did so in 1961 representing the New York Yankees. Unsurprisingly, the Yankees won the World Series that year.
In recent times, this feat has been achieved a lot more frequently than before. Since 1995, 24 batters have managed to it more than 50 home-runs in a single season. Both in 1998 and in 2001, four different batters joined the club.
Seven current players are members of the club, with Alex Rodriguez being the only one to achieve the feat on more than one occasion. He has done so three times. The last person to join the exclusive club was Jose Bautista for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2010.
Some suggest that the feat has lost some of its gloss as there now are many who have successfully joined the club recently. Some of the achievements have been tainted by murmurs of using performance enhancing drugs and many players have been suspected or
accused for years. Barry Bonds in particular was embroiled in the BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative) Scandal in the early 2000’s.
Although it is now getting more frequent, hitting 50 home-runs in a single season is a great achievement in its own right. Those who have done it are indeed extremely gifted players and deserve to be applauded for their great work.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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