Transfer of Power

Mike Schmidt officially introduced himself to the Major Leagues on September 12, 1972, subbing in for the Phillies’ starting third baseman, Don Money.  Schmidt officially said goodbye to the big leagues on May 28, 1989, starting at third and batting cleanup for Philadelphia.  The 12-time All-Star didn’t go yard in either of these bookends, but in between, across the other 2,402 games he played with the Phillies, he circled the bases thanks to his own swing 548 times.  At the time of his adieu, Schmidt ranked seventh on the all-time list with those 548; he still comes in with the 16th most longballs ever produced and, pertinent to the exploration that follows, claims the most home runs ever for any player who played for only one franchise*.  

Correspondent to that final bit of trivia, Schmidt is also the Phillies’ all-time leader in four-base hits, making him one of 13 single-franchise ballplayers who also claim the distinction as their clubs’ top longball guy.  The full list, ordered by who produced the most round-trippers for their respective franchises.  

548    Phillies – Mike Schmidt 

521    Red Sox – Ted Williams 

475    Cardinals – Stan Musial

475    Pirates – Willie Stargell

449    Astros – Jeff Bagwell

431    Orioles/Browns – Cal Ripken, Jr.

399    Tigers – Al Kaline

397    Angels – Mike Trout

389    Reds – Johnny Bench

369    Rockies – Todd Helton

352    Brewers/Pilots – Ryan Braun

317    Royals – George Brett

284    Nationals/Expos – Ryan Zimmerman

That assemblage corrals 10 Hall of Famers, another one on the way (in Trout) and two others – Zimmerman and Braun – whose names may not be etched onto a plaque in Cooperstown, but have their signatures all over their respective franchise’s career leaderboards. These 13 individuals possess an immense imprint, a statue-worthy prominence when poring through the moments and achievements that gave each of the player’s franchises their color and substance, their gravitas and identity.  

The Mets’ career home run leader – as the numbers are arranged at this moment – astounded and amazed and thrilled and delivered hurrahs and huzzahs across eight seasons, from a Rookie of the Year campaign in 1983 through a seventh straight All-Star year in 1990.  A lanky, lefty-swinging prodigy with a whip-like ability to deposit balls in a flash, Darryl Strawberry cracked 252 round-trippers during his tenure under the Shea Stadium spotlight, going far beyond what anyone else had been able to accumulate while blasting away for the franchise (when Strawberry arrived on the scene as a 21-year-old in ’83, the franchise leader – Dave Kingman – had collected 145; Kong and Straw shared the 1983 season together and Kingman added another nine to his tally, including one in Strawberry’s debut on May 6).  And even though Strawberry left New York and never returned (at least to play for the team in Flushing), his 252 have remained the standard, withstanding challenges by the likes of Howard Johnson (192 home runs for the Mets), Mike Piazza (220) and the franchise’s golden claim to a single-franchise attraction, David Wright (242).  Wright’s final appearance for the only team he ever knew came on September 29, 2018; Strawberry was officially safe. Six months later, a new challenger appeared.  

Like Strawberry before him, Pete Alonso claimed a Rookie of the Year nod while repping the Mets, an honor befitting the man who in his debut season, clocked more home runs than any other rookie before or since.  That record 53 got Alonso more than 20% of the way to matching Strawberry, and even though he’s been unable to replicate that stratospheric takeoff, large-enough chunks of the gap have been consumed each year so that seven years in, Alonso is now just four longballs away from replacing the man who has been the Mets’ king since May 3, 1988, when Strawberry connected on his 155th four-bagger to topple Kingman.  

Alonso has been one of the most prolific out-of-the-gate home run hitters ever seen – his 249 rank as the fifth most ever for any player through his first seven seasons; if he hits five more in 2025, he’ll have the third most ever for a player at this stage, behind only Ralph Kiner and Albert Pujols.   He’s tied with Mike Piazza (and Mark Vientos!) for the second-most longballs for any Met in postseason play and his go-ahead, three-run shot in the ninth inning of the winner-take-all Game 3 of the 2024 Wild Card round will forever share pride of place in Mets lore.  Representing the Mets – as he’s always done – he’s even won a pair of Home Run Derby crowns.  For seven years, Alonso – as Strawberry once was – has been a nationwide home run attraction, a thunderous presence that can draw eyes from all over the map to Citi Field or wherever the Metropolitans happen to be during the spring, summer and fall.  

As of this writing, Alonso has powered a ball beyond the fences only six times since mind-June (he did homer last night).  It hasn’t been easy to climb the last few rungs and meet Strawberry on equal terms, but then again, the trek has proved to be arduous for all contestants for 37 years.  If there’s four more round-trippers in his bat this season, then Pete Alonso will get to place his visage alongside Williams and Stargell and Musial and Bagwell and Ripken and the eight other faces of franchises who arrived in one town and never left and who, after saying goodbye, can still claim more dingers than anyone else for their one-and-only franchise.  Whether or not Alonso’s remaining MLB career will only feature him doing special things for the Mets remains to be seen, of course; if it does, we’ll get to see how high he can climb toward Schmidt and the rest.  For now, we’ll just sit back and follow a lifelong Met pursue one of the team’s icons, one big swing after another.  

*Getting back to the initial paragraph of this piece, here are the top-10 home run tallies for players who represented a single franchise for their entire careers.

548    Mike Schmidt

536    Mickey Mantle (second on the Yankees’ all-time HR leaderboard, behind Babe Ruth)

521    Ted Williams

512    Ernie Banks (second on the Cubs’ all-time HR leaderboard, behind Sammy Sosa)

511    Mel Ott (third on the Giants’ all-time HR leaderboard, behind Willie Mays and Barry Bonds)

493    Lou Gehrig (third on the Yankees’ all-time HR leaderboard, behind Ruth and Mantle)

475    Stan Musial

475    Willie Stargell

468    Chipper Jones (third on the Braves’ all-time HR leaderboard, behind Henry Aaron and Eddie Mathews

452    Carl Yastrzemski (third on the Red Sox all-time HR leaderboard, behind Williams and David Ortiz)

Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.