From 1904 through 1960 (AL) and 1961 (NL) the standard major league regular season schedule was 154 games long. Since 1961 (AL) and 1962 (NL) that standard schedule has been 162 games. The difference resulted in a stir (created in part by then-Commissioner Ford Frick) when Roger Maris took more than 154 games to tie and break Babe Ruth’s season home run record in 1961. The so-called Maris “asterisk” story is very old news and I have nothing to add to the tale itself. What I was curious to see, however, purely as a matter of statistical amusement, was what effect a restriction to the first 154 games of each season would have on the career home run numbers of Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds. The answer, which I found even more amusing than I expected, is after the jump.
As most fans of baseball numbers know, Barry Bonds hit seven more career regular season home runs than Hank Aaron, 762 for Bonds to 755 for Aaron, making Bonds the all-time record holder for career regular season homers in the major leagues. But what if we applied a Ford Frickian-style adjustment and looked only at homers hit over the first 154 games of each regular season? After all, Aaron played the first part of his career in the shorter-schedule era.
Most Career Regular Season Homers in Team Games 1 through 154 of Each Season
T1. Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds 734
3. Babe Ruth 712
4. Willie Mays 639
5. Alex Rodriguez 631
Note that Babe Ruth loses a couple of his 714 career homers under this test. Even with the old 154-game standard season, tie games that were subsequently replayed and pennant-resolving playoff games could extend a team’s schedule beyond 154 games. Ruth had two homers (one in 1925, the other in 1932) in the 11 such “season-overtime” games in which he played over the course of his career.
With Aaron and Bonds in an elegantly perfect tie at 734 homers each when using the 154 team games per season limit, simple arithmetic shows that Bonds had 28 homers in games after game 154, while Aaron had 21. But Bonds is not the record-holder for career homers in games 155 or later.
Most Career Regular Season Homers in Team Games 155 and Later of Each Season
1. Harmon Killebrew 34
2. Mark McGwire 32
3. Barry Bonds 28
4. Reggie Jackson 27
5. Willie McCovey 26
It is interesting to see Killebrew on top, especially given that his first 84 career homers came before 1961 when the switch over to the longer schedule occurred. Reggie Jackson’s presence in the top 5 also caught my eye — apparently he was Mr. Late September as well as Mr. October.
Going back to the original application of the “asterisk” idea, how does the single season record now shake out if we limit it to the first 154 games of a season?
Most Homers in a Regular Season, in Team Games 1 Through 154
1. Barry Bonds (2001) 68
T2. Mark McGwire (1998) and Sammy Sosa (1998) 63
4. Sammy Sosa (1999) 61
5. Babe Ruth (1927) 60
For the AL only, the top 5 list looks like this:
Most Homers in a Regular Season, AL, in Team Games 1 Through 154
1. Babe Ruth (1927) 60
2. Babe Ruth (1920) 59
T3. Roger Maris (1961), Jimmie Foxx (1932) and Hank Greenberg (1938) 58
Lastly, what about the single-season record for homers after game 154? Well, at the top there’s Killebrew again.
Most Homers in a Regular Season, Team Games 155 and Later
1. Harmon Killebrew (1962) 8
T2. Chris Davis (2012), Carlos Delgado (2003) and Mark McGwire (1998) 7
T5. eight players tied with 6
Through the first 151 Twins games in 1962, Killebrew had 37 homers, the same number of homers Norm Cash had, and just one more than Rocky Colavito had, through 151 Tigers games that year. But starting with Twins game 152, Killer went on a spectacular home run tear, slugging 11 dingers in the next 11 games to run away with the AL home run title, a title he did not thereafter surrender until 1965.
