Graph of lifetime home run leaders

Cool graph. Let me know if this link doesn’t work

https://twitter.com/betweenthenums/stat ... 59680?s=21

That is very cool, thanks for posting.

Interesting.....

when Ruth popped to the top so quickly........

how quickly Mays & Aaron jumped into the top few........

when the list sat static through most of the 1970s......

Very interesting. Did anyone else notice how quickly Honus Wagner came from nowhere to flirt with the top?
Not in top 10 in 1906. Then 1907 he shows up. 1908 he is in the middle. Floats around and by 1912 he is second with 73. I never really thought of him as a power hitter before.

Ruth's rise is stunning. By 1930 he was double anyone else. No wonder he was so popular.

1966 Mays was second. I saw a special this week where they said at one time in the early 60s it was Mays, not Aaron they thought would make the run at Ruth. But Mays faded and Aaron just kept going.

Imagine if Aaron was around today with a contract up going in to his age 33 season. We would get to sit and listen to the sabermetric crowd tell us how he is too old to give him that 10 year contract he is asking for. LOL.

Thanks very much for sharing this. It would be cool to see a similar one for stolen bases.

Interesting.....

when Ruth popped to the top so quickly........

how quickly Mays & Aaron jumped into the top few........

when the list sat static through most of the 1970s......

So much has been written about Ruth and much of that centered on the most repeated story lines and pseudo myths. A great book is The Selling of the Babe by Glenn Stout who took the time to research as much as he could about Frazee and Ruth's early years as he transitioned from pitcher to player.

Ruth's raw and unorthodox hitting style from a very young age was tolerated because he was such a good LH pitcher and partially because of his quirky personality. Anyone else would have been ridiculed and benched. Swinging as hard as he could from his heels was worse than frowned upon. Ruth's reasons for hitting like that were immature at best. What it turned into and how the baseball world reacted inconceivable.

Ruth always felt he was a pitcher's pitcher and as refined and polished on the mound as the best in the game. When he started splitting time in the field between starts, his immaturity and selfishness undermined what he could have achieved as a spot starter. But, he could still throw great games nearly whenever he wanted to into 1919.

He threw two complete game victories on the last day of the regular season against the Red Sox when both teams were out of it in 1930 and 1933. It is difficult to find quality first-hand recollection of either game and it is certain that many starters did not play and maybe only Ruth took the game seriously. But, it is noteworthy to me that he threw complete games and was not relieved even though he got knocked around. I am also sure whoever was hitting for the Red Sox wanted to put the bat on the ball against the great Ruth even if the game was less than meaningless.

A final, small tidbit.... Ruth hit 29 HRs in 1919 for the Red Sox as a part time OF / 1B and spot starter. Then 54 HRs in his first season for the Yankees in 1920; his seventh season in the Majors. Ruth hit 50 HRs twice (59 in 1921) before he ever hit 30 or 40 HRs.

Thanks, this is awesome, I've shared it with many people.

One interesting observation I heard (from a non-baseball fan) was that the period where is was Ruth/Gehrig atop the graph, it resembled the Steph Curry/Clay Thompson Warriors, as if they discovered an statistical exploit before the rest of the league caught on.

It would be cool to see a similar one for stolen bases.

Steals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL9YJQllfW8&feature=emb_rel_end

Hits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZgSR80onfs

I love the perspective and context the style provides. Brilliant data visualization that communicates in many ways simultaneously.

Cool how Brock and hendrson came up after decades of no changes.