Of course, we can't compete with Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, whose dual 50+ homer totals in 2024 have made them the thirteenth instance of two or more players to hit 50+ HRs in the same season in all of MLB history.
BUT there's a better lede for this story, and we're not going to bury it any longer. In the midst of Ohtani's historic 50-50 season, there is actually another "50-50" that was achieved when the Dodgers' $700 million man put the slug on the hapless Marlins a few nights ago.
What the heck are we talking about? Well, it turns out that when Ohtani hit #50, he became the fiftieth player to hit 50 or more homers in a season. (As you likely know, he's now up to 53--though he still trails Judge for the MLB lead.)
And that calls for a Time-Grid™ chart, now, doesn't it?
Let's take a look at when those fifty 50+ HR seasons have occurred...
That was Babe Ruth all by himself in the 1920s, with Hack Wilson in 1930, Jimmie Foxx in 1932, and the first duo (Foxx and Hank Greenberg) in 1938.
Nine years later, Johnny Mize and Ralph Kiner became duo #2, followed by Kiner again in 1949.
Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle did it in back-to-back seasons (1955 and 1956), then Mantle and Roger Maris teamed up to set a new "duo HR record" in 1961 (with 115 between them). Willie joined Mickey and Kiner and Foxx in the "double 50" club in 1965.
Then, a twelve-year gap until George Foster joins in 1977, and a thirteen-year gap until Cecil Fielder does it in 1990. (That's right, the 80s are the only decade in the live ball era in which no one hit 50+ HR in a season.)
But things changed a bit in 1995, when Albert Belle kicked off the biggest five-year total of 50+ HR seasons to date (11 from 1995 to 1999). The unlikely duo of Brady Anderson and Mark McGwire cracked the half-century HR barrier in '96 (with McGwire doing it with the least number of PAs in season--just 548), followed in '97 with McGwire (58) and Ken Griffey, Jr. (56, the first of two back-to-back 56-HR seasons).
THEN...1998. Four hitters with 50+ in a year, two over sixty (McGwire with 70, Sammy Sosa with 66), with Griffey and Greg Vaughn cracking the 50 barrier. 1999--a rerun of the great homer races, McGwire becoming the first man to have four consecutive 50+ HR seasons; Sosa would match him in 2001).
Sammy would go it alone in 2000, but in 2001 three new sluggers would join him: Barry Bonds, with 73; Luis Gonzalez, with 57, and Alex Rodriguez (52, the first of three 50+ seasons he'd achieve). 1998-2002 would produce thirteen 50+ HR seasons, the highest five-year total in baseball history. A-Rod and Jim Thome were the duo in 2002 to set that record...
Andruw Jones would join the club in 2005, with the lowest BA, OBP, SLG, OPS, and OPS+ of anyone with 50+ homers in a season. (Jose Bautista would get under Andruw's .263 BA five years later, but not is OPS.) Ryan Howard and David Ortiz hit 58 and 54 respectively in 2006; A-Rod would be joined by Prince Fielder in 2007; Prince is the youngest hitter to slug 50+ HRs in a season (age 23), and the only son to follow his father (Cecil) onto the list.
Chris Davis hit 53 in 2013 and then rapidly turned into a pumpkin; Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton would headline the first big "launch angle season" (2017) with 52 and 59 HRs respectively. Pete Alonso was the only 50+ HR hitter in a bigger year for taters (2019).
Judge reasserted himself with a vengeance in 2022, setting a new AL record for HRs (62). A magical season in Atlanta got Matt Olson across the 50-HR barrier in '23, and that brings us back to Judge and Ohtani, the toasts of the coasts and a duo that we want to see collide in the World Series in spite of ourselves.
Judge now has three 50+ HR seasons, trailing Ruth, McGwire and Sosa (who all have four). Will he keep up the pace in the next several years and make the record his own? Stay tuned...
