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The 500-homer men, as of June 20, 2007, are:
Aaron 756
The ones with a star in front of their names are the ones who are no
longer living.
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The 500 Home Run Club by David Fleitz While doing research on Hall of Fame third baseman Eddie Mathews (for an upcoming book about the 1968 Tigers), I ran across a newspaper article that I simply must share with you. The article is titled, “There’s a Dark Side to Hitting 500 Home Runs.” Why is there a dark side to hitting 500 home runs, you ask? Well, author Mark Camps comes right out and tells us. “To put it bluntly,” says Camps, “history tells us that players who hit 500 home runs in the major leagues have not enjoyed a long life, at least with respect to the national average.” In 2001, there were 16 players in the 500-homer club. Eleven of them were still alive at the time, and five had passed away. Those five were Babe Ruth (who died at 53 of throat cancer), Jimmie Foxx (59, choked to death at dinner), Eddie Mathews (69, pneumonia), Mel Ott (49, car accident), and Mickey Mantle (63, lung cancer). “The average age at death for the five is 58,” says Camps, ominously. “If we include Lou Gehrig, who just missed hitting 500 (he finished with 493), the average age drops to 54. Gehrig was 37 when he succumbed to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.” So, players who hit 500 homers don’t live very long. Maybe A-Rod should get to 499, then retire immediately. “These are the facts,” said Camps. “You can draw your own conclusions.” Of course, this argument only holds water if we conveniently leave out Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and the other nine 500-homer hitters who were still alive. Ted Williams, who was still living when the article was written, was 82 at the time, and several others were past 70 or close to it. If each one of them suddenly keeled over tomorrow, the average age at death would shoot up like a rocket. My conclusion is that the author should take a statistics class. Stats professors would be tearing their hair out about now, since the author made a generalization about a population (500 home run hitters) by using a sample size of five. The statistical margin of error would have to be insanely high, making the resulting information useless. Anyway, I think Frank Thomas, Jim Thome, A-Rod, and the other players approaching the 500-homer mark can rest easy. Statistically speaking, there’s no “dark side” to hitting lots of homers. On the contrary, home run hitters get paid more than singles hitters, and big stars get more than bench-warmers. Hitting 500 homers, as far as I can tell, is all good. |