Home Run Records by MLB Teams During a Single Season

Table of Content

• National League
• Aaron Judge's record 62nd home run ball sells for $1.5M at auction after seller turned down $3M offer
• Most Seasons Leading the League in Home Runs Hit
• Get the MLB RSS feed
• Who hit more home runs than Barry Bonds?
• MLB home run record: List of most career home runs, all-time HR leaderboard as Albert Pujols hits No. 700
• CONSECUTIVE HOME RUN RECORDS

Baseball Almanac is pleased to present a record book full of baseball milestones for home runs hit during a single season — including most, most by positions, most at home and most on the road. The ball was caught by 35-year-old Cory Youmans, who reportedly declined an offer of $3 million to purchase the piece of baseball history outright before placing the item up for auction with Goldin. The most expensive price ever paid for a baseball is the $3 million that Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball of the 1998 season sold for in '99.

By 1897, the final year of his big league career, he had the career record with 138. He never more than 17 in a season during his 18-year career and reached double digits just six times. McGwire and Sammy Sosa both chased the single-season record in 1998. For 36 years, Roger Maris' record of 61 home runs in a season had gone untouched, but McGwire and Sosa went back and forth in their pursuit of baseball history.

National League

Home run records set by the teams over a season including most, most on the road, most at home, and several other variations. Presented below in alphabetical order are home run records set by the teams during a season of play. On August 28, 2008, instant replay review became available in MLB for reviewing calls in accordance with the above proposal. It was first utilized on September 3, 2008, in a game between the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field.

Nothing stirs the imagination of baseball fans like a good old home run record. A player is considered inactive if he has announced his retirement or has not played for a full season. Judge’s 61 home runs is a ridiculously impressive mark.

Aaron Judge's record 62nd home run ball sells for $1.5M at auction after seller turned down $3M offer

The man who purchased the McGwire ball, Todd McFarlane, also purchased Barry Bonds' 73rd home run ball from the 2001 season, which set the MLB all-time single-season record, for $517,500 in '03. Aaron Judge's 62nd home run may have left its mark in the history books, but at auction the ball he set the mark with reportedly didn't land in record territory. Bill Mueller is the only player to hit a grand slam from each side of the plate. In the tables below, players and teams denoted in boldface are still actively contributing to the record noted, while denotes a player's rookie season. About two weeks later, on September 19, also at Tropicana Field, a boundary call was overturned for the first time.

Hitters were discouraged from trying to hit home runs, with the conventional wisdom being that if they tried to do so they would simply fly out. This was a serious concern in the 19th century, because in baseball's early days a ball caught after one bounce was still an out. The emphasis was on place-hitting and what is now called "manufacturing runs" or "small ball". On April 23, 1999, Fernando Tatís made history by hitting two grand slams in one inning, both against Chan Ho Park of the Los Angeles Dodgers. With this feat, Tatís also set a Major League record with 8 RBI in one inning. A grand slam occurs when the bases are "loaded" and the batter hits a home run.

Most Seasons Leading the League in Home Runs Hit

And Aaron showed grace and humility when he congratulated Bonds for beating his mark, though it was clear to everyone that it was tainted. Youmans did have a good reason for holding onto the ball. Someone was willing to pay that much for Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball from the 1998 MLB season.

In both occurrences, his homer was the second of the four. An example of an unexpected bounce occurred during the 2007 Major League Baseball All-Star Game at AT&T Park in San Francisco on July 10, 2007. Ichiro Suzuki of the American League team hit a fly ball that caromed off the right-center field wall in the opposite direction from where National League right fielder Ken Griffey Jr. was expecting it to go. By the time the ball was relayed, Ichiro had already crossed the plate standing up. This was the first inside-the-park home run in All-Star Game history, and led to Suzuki being named the game's Most Valuable Player. Listed are all Major League Baseball players with 223 or more home runs hit during official regular-season games (i.e., excluding playoffs or exhibition games).

Of course, this also comes with a virtual asterisk as people believe he used PEDs. One might have a few questions about that mark, so let's get down and dirty with the all-time leaderboards. Mark McGwire held the record before bonds, with 70 in 1998.

The term is attributed to Hall of Fame relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley, so named because after the run is scored, the losing team has to "walk off" the field. On July 25, 1956, Roberto Clemente became the only MLB player to have ever scored a walk-off inside-the-park grand slam in a 9–8 Pittsburgh Pirates win over the Chicago Cubs, at Forbes Field. In modern times a home run is most often scored when the ball is hit over the outfield wall between the foul poles before it touches the ground , and without being caught or deflected back onto the field by a fielder. A batted ball is also a home run if it touches either a foul pole or its attached screen before touching the ground, as the foul poles are by definition in fair territory. The ball from New York Yankees star Aaron Judge's American League record-setting 62nd home run of the 2022 season sold for $1.5 million with a buyer's premium on Saturday night. According to ESPN, the ball is the second most expensive baseball ever to be sold at auction.

Players in bold face are active as of the 2022 Major League Baseball season , with the number in parenthesis designating the number of home runs they have hit during the 2022 season. The last change in the cutoff for the top 300 occurred on September 11, 2022, when Eugenio Suarez hit his 223rd career home run, displacing Jason Bay and Don Mattingly. On October 31, 2009, in the fourth inning of Game 3 of the World Series, Alex Rodriguez hit a long fly ball that hit a camera protruding over the wall and into the field of play in deep right field.

A home run cycle has never occurred in MLB, which has only had 18 instances of a player hitting four home runs in a game. The other was accomplished by Chandler Redmond of the Springfield Cardinals, of the Texas League in a game against the Amarillo Sod Poodles on August 10, 2022. The record for consecutive home runs by a batter under any circumstances is four. Of the sixteen players who have hit four in one game, six have hit them consecutively. Twenty-eight other batters have hit four consecutive across two games.

A few other records are kept on separate pages, they are listed below. An offshoot of hitting for the cycle, a "home run cycle" is when a player hits a solo home run, two-run home run, three-run home run, and grand slam all in one game. This is an extremely rare feat, as it requires the batter not only to hit four home runs in the game, but also to hit the home runs with a specific number of runners already on base. This is largely dependent on circumstances outside of the player's control, such as teammates' ability to get on base, and the order in which the player comes to bat in any particular inning.

Simple back-to-back home runs are a relatively frequent occurrence. If a pitcher gives up a homer, he might have his concentration broken and might alter his normal approach in an attempt to "make up for it" by striking out the next batter with some fastballs. Sometimes the next batter will be expecting that and will capitalize on it. A notable back-to-back home run of that type in World Series play involved "Babe Ruth's called shot" in 1932, which was accompanied by various Ruthian theatrics, yet the pitcher, Charlie Root, was allowed to stay in the game. He delivered just one more pitch, which Lou Gehrig drilled out of the park for a back-to-back shot, after which Root was removed from the game. A walk-off home run is a home run hit by the home team in the bottom of the ninth inning, any extra inning, or other scheduled final inning, which gives the home team the lead and thereby ends the game.

Most career walk-off home runs

Major League Baseball's longest verifiable home run distance is about 575 feet , by Babe Ruth, to straightaway center field at Tiger Stadium (then called Navin Field and before the double-deck), which landed nearly across the intersection of Trumbull and Cherry. The home run's place in baseball changed dramatically when the live-ball era began after World War I. First, the materials and manufacturing processes improved significantly, making the now-mass-produced, cork-centered ball somewhat more lively. Batters such as Babe Ruth and Rogers Hornsby took full advantage of rules changes that were instituted during the 1920s, particularly prohibition of the spitball, and the requirement that balls be replaced when worn or dirty. These changes resulted in the baseball being easier to see and hit, and easier to hit out of the park. Meanwhile, as the game's popularity boomed, more outfield seating was built, shrinking the size of the outfield and increasing the chances of a long fly ball resulting in a home run. The teams with the sluggers, typified by the New York Yankees, became the championship teams, and other teams had to change their focus from the "inside game" to the "power game" in order to keep up.

They happened to be Nos. 699 and 700 in his illustrious career. Only three players had previously gotten to the threshold of 700 career home runs in Major League Baseball history. In the sport of baseball, a home run is a hit in which the batter scores by circling all the bases and reaching home plate in one play, without the benefit of a fielding error. This can be accomplished either by hitting the ball out of play while it is still in fair territory , or by an inside-the-park home run. In postseason play, the most home runs hit by a player for a career is Manny Ramirez, who hit 29.