Ken Griffey, Jr. 593 6 My personal hope to surpass the Bondster. Gotta love his character. He has been hurt a lot, but could he be as sweet an old hitter as he was a youngster?
Harmon Killebrew 573 9 My Idaho guy. I love big farmer types like this. Anymore, they become linebackers, lineman or hay bailers. Or occasionally a world class wrestler. (That is Rulon Gardner from Wyoming, mighty close to Idaho.) Harmon was a O SM. (Original Stormin' Mormon)
Rafael Palmeiro 569 10 He gets a nod for the difficulty with which Haray Caray had pronouncing his name corectly with the Cubs, and then backwards? See Galarraga.
Jim Thome 507 22 Old school. All heart. Fun to watch.
Eddie Murray 504 23 He was a switch hitter. And mostly DH still awesome.
Lou Gehrig 493 24 Anybody with a disease named after them is cool. Great history related to him and the glorified Yanks. That is pure Americana. Like Mantle, DiMaggio, etc...
Fred McGriff 493 This guy was big and tall and powerful. He looked like a class act.
Vladimir Guerrero 365 65 Love him. Swings at anything and hits a lot of it. Expos forever. More talent in one pinky than Canseco's bicep.
Jeff Kent 365 A member of my church who has a swearting problem. Have to admire his honesty except for his "washing the pick up truck" accident (by his motorcycle). Getting it done later in life, and famously confronted Barry Bonds while simultaneously helping his career numbers.
The ones in bold all played last year and most are still swinging for the fences.
My favorites have to be Ken Griffey, Jr., Dale Murphy, Vlad Guerrero, Andre Dawson and Jeff Kent. Not exactly in that order. And the Big Hurt. and Matt Williams, and Harmon Killebrew. And maybe McGriff and a few others. Jim Thome. Bags. Yaz. Yeah!
I was a huge Dale Murphy fan as a kid. It's because of him I am an Atlanta Brave fan today. Well that and the fact that when we got cable T.V. as a kid I always saw their games on TBS and the Cubs/W.Sox on WGN but never was a fan of either of those teams.
I think befor it's all said and done A-Rod will be the one to surpass Bonds which is fine with me.
Good to see Willie Stargell get the shout out on here. If he hadn't played the first 8 1/2 years of his career in Forbes Field, he probably would have about 520+ homeruns. Pops was the consumate leader, and was absolutley clutch.
Dale Murphy's son is batting with the Braves right now. He is a big kid, apparently wider than his father because he is signed with BYU as a lineman, but also seems to have skills on the diamond.
Love Dale. He served as a Mission President in Boston, which is high respect in our faith.
Griffey Jr has the sweetest HR swing ever in my opinion...effortless. And I know he's not on your list but I used to like Darryl Strawberry too. He was exciting to watch (like a Reggie Jackson type) either, HR or strikeout....it was drama every at bat.
Bonds was the best I ever saw. But yeah he did play in an era influenced by exercise science.
You can say Hank was the best.
Then again, Mays lost two years to the Korean War. He also played in the toughest park to hit homers in. Give Mays the same number of opportunities Hank got, and Mays would have beaten Aaron's record with ease.
McGwire tried to hit homers every time. To me, he was a one trick pony. At least guys like Bonds, Manny, etc., simply tried to hit the ball hard, and not just out of the park.
A-Rod is the modern day Aaron. He'll hold the record one day if he continues to be consistently good for a long time.
Griffey was a great player. If he didn't break down he'd be close to setting a new record.
I agree, Stawberry was a fun player to watch all the way back to the Mets. I really like it when he teamed up with my favorite player Tim Raines, Sr...Yankees. I liked the Yanks four about 5 years.
Good talk on the history of the game, Trainonthe ball. Yes, maybe Mays was the best.
Dale Murphy has another son, Shawn, that was drafted in the fourth round by the Miami Dolphins. He's expected to compete for a starting right guard position.
The reason Clemente is never mentioned among the great HR hitters is because he played in cavernous Forbes Field for much of his career.
My favorite HR hitter I saw in person was Reggie Jackson. I saw him in 1983 when he was with the Angels. In that game, he didn't hit a home run, but he did hit a pair of doubles.
I loved all the old school hitters for the same reason many do. They came from a time when we really needed baseball, and the players played for the love of the game first, then the money.
Ed, accoeding to many people and Sports stats, I have had the record for most home runs in 1 season - 125, most ever recorded hit in a carrer - 823, 3 time home run champ in Europe. That event was jheld at SHAPE ( SUPREME HEADQUARTERS ALLIED POWERS EUROPE). Mons Beligium is the city where this was.
I took this chance to remember and brag of the glory days. Maybe I can get my videos put on DVD format or somewhere else on the computer one day. It was my life for ten years, travelling every weekend to some city, or base, post, or country from Germany. I didn't mean to parade in your post. With not much to look forward to lately, looking back gave me a smile. Some of you know why.
I like (am obsessed with) the big US sports of football, basketball and baseball. And I love how they expand globally. I am fascinated by World Cup soccer, Olympics and certain tennis matches.
Oh, yeah, and I will talk your ear off when it comes to religion, politics, right, wrong, demography, history and truth.
Blog on and blog it.
Uh, also I have a Foxsports blog called papaclinch'si t and that was the original, and this was created as a mistake and then a parallel world for more spiritual topics on occasion. More BYU here, more IU over there...
Make sense? I love both schools with an odd type of crazed loyalty... Hard to explain. Thus the blogging.
Keeps me out of trouble, maybe?
