THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Friday, July 06, 2007

The real MLB HR record

A few years ago, I noted that Gordie Howe had 1071 North American Major League Professional Hockey goals.  That’s NHL, WHA, regular season and post-season. 

I was always irked that the WHA was treated as some sort of minor league, and even more, that the post-season is always discarded when it comes to career totals.  When you have a superstar like Scott Niedermayer, contemplating retirement at age 33, who has already played 183 post-season games (17% of his regular season totals), those games count.  And, if you are going to change their weight, change them UP to 2x or 3x or 5x and not DOWN to 0x!

Anyway, shortly after that, it was brought to the attention of Wayne Gretzky, and an article was written in The Hockey News.  Wayne, who had the official regular-season NHL record from a few years earlier, ended his career with 1072 goals.  Talk about a squeaker!

Babe Ruth has 729 HR, including his 15 post-season HR.  They count, right?  I mean, would you rather count them as ZERO? 

Hank Aaron goes from 755 to the real 761.

Bonds?  Goodbye to 751.  He has 9 post-season HR.  Say hello to Bonds at 760 MLB homeruns.  Bonds needs ONE HR to tie the MLB record, and two to break it.

Note: I really don’t care what the official position of MLB, Elias or anyone else is.

(If you want to take this opportunity to discuss your take on PED, take it outside.  This isn’t the place.)