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50 Home Runs in a Season Just Isn't What It Used To Be

Fifty home runs in a season has been the single season home run milestone since Babe Ruth ushered in the lively ball era by clubbing 54 homers in 1920 and 59 in 1921. The record Ruth set in 1920 nearly doubled his record of 29 set the year before. Only one other big league team hit more than 54 homers in 1920: the Phillies, with 64.

After Ruth did it two more times in the 1920s, hitting 50 became a somewhat rare feat with the passing of each decade. It began to appear that no one would ever come close to the Babe's feat of slugging 50 or more, four times. Jimmie Foxx in the '30s, Ralph Kiner in the '40s, and Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle in the '50s and '60s all had two 50-homer seasons. In the 1950s, a player hitting 50 in a season happened only twice: Mays and Mantle. Mays, Mantle and Roger Maris were the only men to accomplish the feat in the '60s. In the 1970s only one player slugged 50 in a season: George Foster, who hit 52 in 1977. In the 1980s, not a single slugger hit 50 homers in a season.

But in the just-completed 1990s, which started with Cecil Fielder hitting 51 homers, there were 12 occurrences of six different sluggers, plus Brady Anderson, hitting 50 home runs in a season. Mark McGwire did it four times himself; Ken Griffey Jr. and Sammy Sosa did it twice and Albert Belle almost did it twice, hitting 50 in 1995 and 49 in 1998. It has become such a common occurrence that in the year 2000, the game presents an array of players who are capable of hitting 50 homers in a season that is astounding to behold: McGwire, Sosa, Griffey, Belle and Vaughn have already accomplished the feat. There's also Juan Gonzalez, Manny Ramirez, Larry Walker, Barry Bonds and Rafael Palmeiro who've come close. Alex Rodriguez, Chipper Jones, Carlos Delgado, Jose Canseco, Mike Piazza and Jeff Bagwell comprise a nice back-up list of potential 50-plus guys. It is an array of potential 50-homer hitters that is truly unprecedented.

Mark McGwire will be going for his fifth consecutive 50-homer season. He and Sammy Sosa will be going for their third consecutive 60-homer seasons! Three straight 60-homer seasons! Is there anyone who ever thought that was possible?

Here are some of the more interesting facts about the feat of hitting 50 home runs in a single season:

There have been 30 occurrences of a player belting 50 or more home runs in one season.
The mark of 50 or more homers in a season has been reached by 17 sluggers, for 12 franchises.
Thirteen times a National Leaguer hit 50 or more.
Sixteen times an American Leaguer hit 50 or more.
Once, Mark McGwire, for Oakland and St. Louis, hit 50 or more while splitting time between both leagues in the same season.
The New York Yankees had the most 50-homer seasons in the A.L. with seven: Ruth (4), Mantle (2), Maris.
The Chicago Cubs with four and the New York-San Francisco Giants with three, are the only N.L. franchises with more than two 50-homer seasons. Chicago Cubs: Sosa (3), Wilson: N.Y.-S.F. Giants: Mays (2), Mize.
Nineteen seasons of 50 or more were recorded by right-handed batters: McGwire (4), Sosa (3), Foxx (2), Greenberg, Wilson, Kiner (2), Mays (2), Foster, Fielder, Belle, Vaughn
Ten were recorded by left-handed batters: Ruth (4), Maris, Griffey, Jr. (2), Mize, Anderson
Two were recorded by a switch-hitter: Mantle.
Babe Ruth and Mark McGwire are the all time leaders with four seasons of 50 or more. Ralph Kiner, Jimmie Foxx, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Ken Griffey, Jr. and Sammy Sosa all had two.
Mark McGwire is the only man to hit 50 or more in four straight seasons (1996, '97, '98, '99)
Babe Ruth twice hit 50 or more in two straight seasons (1920, '21; 1927, '28); Ken Griffey, Jr. and Sammy Sosa also had consecutive seasons of 50 or more (1997,'98).
Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire are the only men to hit 60 or more. Sosa and McGwire hit over 60 in the same season twice (1998, '99), with McGwire hitting the once-unthinkable total of 70!
Roger Maris (1961), Babe Ruth (1921, 1927, 1928), Mickey Mantle (1956), Albert Belle (1995) and Greg Vaughn (1998) are the only men with 50 or more in a season to appear in the World Series the same year that they hit 50.
Roger Maris (1961), Mickey Mantle (1956), Jimmie Foxx (1932, 1938), Willie Mays (1965), Ken Griffey, Jr. (1997), Sammy Sosa (1998) and George Foster (1977) are the only players to win the MVP award in their 50-homer season.
Mickey Mantle is the only man to hit 50 or more homers while winning the Triple Crown (1956).
Mickey Mantle and Jimmie Foxx are the only men to hit 50 or more homers in one season who ever won the Triple Crown.
Mickey Mantle and Jimmie Foxx are the only men to hit 50 or more homers while winning the batting title in the same season.
Mantle, Foxx, Willie Mays, Johnny Mize and Babe Ruth are the only men to hit 50 or more to ever win a batting title.
Babe Ruth (1921), Hack Wilson (1930) and Jimmie Foxx (1932) are the only men to have 200 or more hits and 50 or more homers in the same season.
Babe Ruth (54) and Ken Griffey, Jr. (56) hit the same number of homers twice.
Ralph Kiner and Johnny Mize are the only men to tie for the home run title with 50 or more (51 in 1947).
Of all the men to hit 50 or more in one season, only Mickey Mantle played his entire career with one club.
Ken Griffey Jr. is the only active player with 50 or more homers in a season to spend his entire career with one club.
Jimmie Foxx (A's & Red Sox) and Mark McGwire (A's & Cardinals) are the only men to hit 50 or more for two clubs.
Mark McGwire is the only man to hit 50 or more in both leagues.
Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Mantle, Mark McGwire and Willie Mays are the only men to hit 50 or more in a season and 500 or more in their careers.
1998 is the only season in which four men hit 50 or more: Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey, Jr., Greg Vaughn.
Two men hit 50 or more in the same season on six occasions: 1938, Greenberg (58) and Foxx (50); 1947, Mize and Kiner (51); 1961, Maris (61) and Mantle (54); 1996, McGwire (52), Anderson (50); 1997, McGwire(58) and Griffey (56); 1999, McGwire (65) and Sosa (63).
1998 is the only season that 50 or more homers was hit by players from both leagues.
In 1998 and '99 Sammy Sosa joined Jimmie Foxx (1938), Mickey Mantle (1961), Brady Anderson (1996), Mark McGwire (1997) and Greg Vaughn (1998) as the only men to hit 50 or more in a season and not win a home run title.
Sosa, Anderson and Vaughn are the only men to hit 50 or more who have never won a home run title.
Albert Belle is the only man to hit 50 or more homers and 50 or more doubles in the same season.
Greg Vaughn is the only man to hit 50 and be traded before the next season.
Roger Maris, Hack Wilson and Brady Anderson are the only men to hit 50 or more without having one other season of at least 40.
Hack Wilson had the most dramatic decrease in his homer total in the year following his 50-homer season: 43.
Of the twenty-nine occurrences of 50 or more homers in a season, four came in the '20s (Babe Ruth); four in the '30s; three in the '40s; two in the '50s; three in the '60s; one in the '70s; none in the '80s; and an astonishing 12 in the '90s.
Of all the men who hit 50 or more home runs that are eligible for the Hall of Fame (Mays, Mantle, Ruth, Kiner, Mize, Wilson, Greenberg, Foxx, Foster, Maris), only George Foster and Roger Maris were not enshrined.