All data from Baseball Reference and Stathead searches.
Ruth had the most HRs from 1920-24 with 235. Cy Williams had the next highest in the AL/NL with 124. So Ruth's differential was 111. This was the highest I found for the #1 and #2 guys for any 5 year period in baseball history.
The highest by anyone not named Ruth is 76 by Ralph Kiner from 1947-51. Then the next highest by anyone not named Ruth or Kiner was 53 by Sammy Sosa from 1998-2002. So Kiner's best mark is well above the best mark of the next guy on the list, Sosa (20 higher).
|
Player |
HR |
From |
To |
Diff |
2nd |
|
Babe Ruth |
235 |
1920 |
1924 |
111 |
CyWilliams |
|
Babe Ruth |
232 |
1924 |
1928 |
110 |
Hornsby |
|
Babe Ruth |
219 |
1923 |
1927 |
93 |
CyWilliams |
|
Babe Ruth |
232 |
1925 |
1929 |
87 |
Gehrig |
|
Babe Ruth |
256 |
1926 |
1930 |
79 |
HWilson |
|
Ralph Kiner |
234 |
1947 |
1951 |
76 |
TWilliams |
|
Babe Ruth |
206 |
1921 |
1925 |
62 |
Hornsby |
|
Babe Ruth |
194 |
1922 |
1926 |
60 |
Hornsby |
|
Babe Ruth |
255 |
1927 |
1931 |
59 |
Gehrig |
|
Ralph Kiner |
215 |
1949 |
1953 |
57 |
Hodges |
|
Ralph Kiner |
220 |
1948 |
1952 |
55 |
Sauer |
|
Babe Ruth |
236 |
1928 |
1932 |
53 |
Gehrig |
|
Sammy Sosa |
292 |
1998 |
2002 |
53 |
Bonds |
|
Ralph Kiner |
215 |
1946 |
1950 |
49 |
TWilliams |
|
Mark McGwire |
284 |
1995 |
1999 |
43 |
Sosa |
Update Feb. 3:
Kiner hit 141 of his 234 HRs from 1947-51 at home (60.3%). He was right handed and his HR% at home in these years was 10.38% (141HRs/1359ABs).
All other RHBs in Forbes Field had a HR% of 2.88% (I found all the HRs by Pirate RHB at Forbes and all the HRs allowed to RHBs by Pirate pitchers at Forbes using the Stathead Batting Event Finder and Pitching Event Finder Functions). I subtracted out Kiner's stats to get all other RHB stats.
Kiner's HR% at Forbes was 3.6 times higher than it was for other all RHBs.
For all games from 1947-51 (both home and road), Kiner had a HR% of 8.52%. The rest of the NL (and that means Kiner's stats are removed) had a HR% of 2.17%.
Kiner's HR% for all games from 1947-51 was 3.9 times higher than it was for other all batters. Maybe Forbes helped Kiner. But if it did it seems like his ratio compared to other RHBs there would be higher, not lower, than his overall ratio compared to all batters during this period.
Another interesting thing is that both Johnny Mize (who was 4th in this period) and Ralph Kiner hit 51 HRs in 1947 and 40 in 1948. Mize only hit 54 HRs over the next three years in 1148 PAs (so he was less than a full-time player). He was 36-37-38 years old then while Kiner was 26-27-28.
Stan Musial was 3rd with 154 but Kiner only edged him 93-86 in road games. Ron Selter of SABR published an article in the 2003 Baseball Research Journal called Sportsman’s Park’s Right-Field Pavilion and Screen.
A very tall screen was in place in RF every year except 1955. Selter says that without it Musial could have hit 676 career HRs. That means he would have been much closer to Kiner from 1947-51. I want to thank my friend and fellow SABR member Monte Cely for pointing this issue out to me.
