Remember me
Forgot your username/password?
 
Print
Home>Articles

Broken: The Home-Run King

By Roel Torres
September 16, 2008

If You Go Missing, I Promise to Find You

There is a forgotten home run king, a link missing in the chain.  Bonds passed Aaron.  And Aaron passed Ruth.  And Ruth passed…  Well, who did he pass?  It can’t start with Ruth.  Someone had to precede him.  Ruth started playing for Boston in 1914, and Major League Baseball had already been in existence for decades by then.  There had to be a record holder already in place.  Before Bonds was born, before Aaron took a swing, before Ruth re-defined the game, there was Cactus Gavy Cravath, a man who led his league in homers six times in seven years, collecting 119 homers by the time he was done.  Cravath retired in 1920 at the age of 39, and his name settled into a comfortable semi-obscurity before the summer of 2004, when Ken Jennings – a record-breaking trivia monster who dominated the television game show Jeopardy! – brought him back into the national headlines.

 

Welcome back, Gavy. 

 

And, Sorry, but you don’t belong.    

 

He didn’t.  That’s the sad part.  After being re-introduced to the American general public in the summer of 2004, Cactus Gavy Cravath discovered that his name did not fit.  There were some people who knew that all along.  But it seemed like an odd, cruel reminder to everyone else, a scant 84 years after the man had stopped playing professional baseball.

 

Bigger than Big, Stronger than Strong

The Home-Run Kings are legends.  They occupy a different level of adulation from even the most celebrated of baseball players.  For example, Jim O’Rourke, Tommy McCarthy, and Bobby Wallace were all elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in the forties, years after their playing careers were over.  But despite their impressive careers, and despite receiving the highest honor in the game, O’Rourke, McCarthy and Wallace are almost invisible afterthoughts in baseball’s public consciousness in contrast to the recognition and attention received by Bonds, Aaron, and Ruth.  There are Hall of Famers.  And then there are All-Time Home-Run Kings.  That second group is a far more selective club.  Far more revered.  These men were towering figures of their time.

 

4. What more can be written about the enigmatic Bonds, an ageless wonder, excessively misanthropic and unfailingly controversial.  Fueled by rage and arcane chemicals, people didn’t want him to break the record.  He represented a tainted legacy, a testament to performance enhancing drugs.  The Human Asterisk, he was the perfect storm of otherworldly talent, blinding arrogance, and cutting-edge science.  He is the reigning king, with 762 homers to his name.  Everyone else who wants to try and stake a claim has to line up behind him.  In the record books, just like in his mind, there is Bonds, then there is everyone else.

 

3. He passed Hank Aaron, the picture of reliability, of steady consistency.  Aaron never hit more than 47 in a year, but he put up magnificent season after magnificent season, patiently roping the years together, stretching them out, transforming himself into the dignified paragon for right-handed power.  Aaron had twenty consecutive seasons with twenty or more homers.  Those add up.  Those count.  That’s a beautiful career.  But again, as with Bonds, there were people who didn’t want him to break the record.  We know this to be true, because he received death threats as he approached Ruth’s mark. 

 

People liked Babe Ruth.  He was a symbol, an icon, an American hero.  People were worried that Ruth would be forgotten.  And, not to put too fine a point on it, The Babe was white.  There was a segment of the population that rooted against Aaron because of the color of his skin.  I think that’s a given.

 

The death threats came.  Disturbed cowards sat in the dark, penning angry notes claiming that they owned guns and that they were willing to trade Aaron’s life for Ruth’s record.  Undeterred, Aaron smashed the record anyways.  How could he not?  He was The Hammer.  And Hammers are built to smash.

 

2. Babe Ruth.  The Bambino.  The Sultan of Swat.  The Greatest Player Ever.  His left arm could win twenty games on the mound.  His big bat could revolutionize American’s pastime.  And his outsized personality could captivate the country’s attention.  Maybe I’m wrong, but I believe there is no human walking the planet today who could compare to Ruth’s cultural impact. 

 

1. And at the start of the line was Cactus Gavy Cravath.  Who was a very good player.  Just not good enough.

 

The Hard Eight

Gavy Cravath put in a helluva stretch in the eight years from 1912 to 1919.  He led the league in homers in 1913.  He led the league in homers in 1914.  He led the league in homers in 1915.  He led the league in homers in 1917.  He led the league in homers in 1918.  And he led the league in homers in 1919.  There were a couple of years where he didn’t lead the league.  In 1912, he was third.  And in 1916, he was third again.  In that eight year period, he led the league in homers six times, and finished third twice.  To help illustrate his dominance, when he won the home run championship in 1915, he hit 24.  That was as many as twelve Major League franchises hit collectively as a team.  When you start to outhomer the majority of the professional teams in existence, you’re doing okay for yourself.  

 

In his January, 2000 article “Before the Babe” for The Baseball Research Journal, Bill Swank wrote “The Babe hit his 120th home run off Jim Bagby of Cleveland on June 20, 1921, to break Gavy's career record.”  And in the SABR Baseball Biography Project, Swank mentions “Cravath's career home-run record of 119, however, was quickly shattered by Babe Ruth in 1921, and it stood as the NL record only until 1923, when it was surpassed by Cy Williams.”

 

While Bill Swank has a particular interest in Gavy Cravath (as a member of the Pacific Coast League Historical Society, and  the Gavy Cravath Hall of Fame Commission Escondido) it was really Ken Jennings who brought the name back to national attention in a surprising manner in the summer of 2004.

 

Remember to Phrase your Response in the Form of a Question

You remember Ken Jennings, right?  Jennings was a master of trivia.  He was a contestant on the game show Jeopardy! who looked unbeatable.  Day after day, week after week, question after question, and show after show, Jennings brushed aside all challengers who crossed his path.  He won a staggering 74 shows in a row, which was more that ten times longer than the previous winning streak of seven, set by former Jeopardy! champ, Tom Walsh.

 

In a June 27, 2004, when the Washington Post interviewed Walsh about how he felt to have Jennings eclipse his old streak, he told them:

 

“I feel like 'Cactus Gavvy' Cravath. Do you know who that is? Right. Nobody does. He's the guy who had the home run record before Babe Ruth came along.”

 

Gavy Cravath led the NL is homers six time in seven years.  He once hit as many homers as 12 of the 16 teams in the league.  He was the career home run leader.  Appropriately enough, it took a trivia champ to point out that Cravath was the answer to a trivia question.  Which is wonderful. 

 

Except...  that the answer to the trivia question was wrong.

 

Tom Walsh compared himself to the career home run leader before Babe Ruth.  He came up with Cravath’s name.  But he should have said “Roger Connor.”  Because it was Connor who was the rightful former All-Time Home-Run King.

 

Set the Record Straight

When he retired from the game after the 1920 season, Gavy Cravath finished with 119 career homers.  And, after he retired from the game 1897, former New York Giant Roger Connor had 138 homers to his name.  Which is nineteen more than Gavy Cravath.  And which came 23 years earlier.  Roger Connor is the man who held the all-time home run record before Babe Ruth passed it.  No matter what Tom Walsh tells you.

 

In the New Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James wrote:

 

“Connor hit more career home runs that anyone before Babe Ruth.  However, although season records were circulated, no career records were maintained at the time, and no one knew until the 1960s, that Connor had held the record, which was variously attributed to…  Gavy Cravath.” (p. 440)

 

No one knew until the 1960s.  Sometimes it seems like people don’t know in the 2000s either.

 

I Once was Lost, But Now am Found

There are only four men on this chain.  Bonds.  Aaron.  Ruth.  And Roger Connor.  Each one of them did what nobody else before them could.  Each one of them held down the game’s ultimate title.  All-Time Home-run King.  Only one of them is not a baseball legend celebrated with wonder and regard.  One of them was the wrong man at the wrong time.

 

Trivia – by definition, by its very nature – is insignificant, unimportant, negligible.  But when you are the answer to a trivia question, even if the information is unimportant to the world at large or in the general scheme of things, it still means that you are remembered.

 

Roger Connor was the Home-Run King.  The first one. The one who set the bar, the one who blazed the trail before Ruth.  He deserves credit for his accomplishments.  He deserves to be remembered correctly.  In the end, we all do. 

 

 

If you have any thoughts you want to share, I would love to hear from you.  I can be contacted at roeltorres@post.harvard.edu.  Thank you.

 
 

COMMENTS (26 Comments, most recent shown first)

RoelTorres
Hi Clay,

Unfortunately, I can't be of any help on your question. My instinct suggests the second one with the harder last syllable, but I don't really know.
9:41 PM Oct 14th
 
clayyearsley
Fun article.

This has always bothered me: How do you pronounce Cravath? Is it CRAVath or craVATH?
6:39 PM Sep 20th
 
RoelTorres
Hi timconnelly,

Ah, Dan Brouthers (pronounced "Broothers") welcome to the conversation. You were a transitional home-run king, but take your bows nonetheless. Well deserved.

In terms of Ruth being ahead of Gehrig and Hornsby, he had more than twice (2.29x) as many homers as they did. As a comparison, for someone to hit 2.29x more homers than Bonds, the player would need to accumulate 1,748 homers.

Geeze. That's a lot of homers. If a player hit 73 homers a year, it would take him 24 years to reach that mark.

My money's on Michael Cuddyer.
10:25 PM Sep 18th
 
timconnelly
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/HR_progress.shtml

Here's a link that has the progression of the all time home run record. Roel is correct that Roger Connor passed Harry Stovey but missed that Stovey passed Dan Brouthers who passed...Harry Stovey!

One other thing I had to mention: at the end of the 1933 season, Babe Ruth held the record with 686. Lou Gehrig and Rogers Hornsby were tied for second with 299.
9:52 PM Sep 18th
 
RoelTorres
Hi Tim,

Those seem to be reasonable explanations for some distinctions. (Of course, I do question The Baseball Encyclopedia's ultimate authority to draw the distinctions. But that's fine. Everyone can find ways to define the game.)

Again, I will point out that the inclusion of minority players strikes me as a major change in the nature of the game -- probably more so than the DH. But if we limit the discussion to rules changes, I see your point.

Thanks for providing a context for the discussion. I appreciate it as always.
8:51 PM Sep 18th
 
timconnelly
Roel

"Modern" baseball actually began in 1901 according to the standard that was used until the Baseball Encyclopedia of 1969. 1901 was the year the American League declared itself a major league. It was also the year the NL used the foul strike rule for the first time by which a foul ball counted as a strike.

A new century, two 8-team leagues that became the standard for the next 60 years and the final major rule change to grace the game until the DH (you could also add the banning of trick pitches in 1920) were perhaps the reason 1901 was used.
8:34 PM Sep 18th
 
RoelTorres
Hi evan,

Cobb sounds like a complex and fascinating man, full of issues and problems that we can only guess at. It's interesting to me, because many athlete biographies are designed to make the subject seem larger than life, but clearly nobody took the time to censor Cobb's viewpoints to help exaggerate his level of decency. Is some ways, it's more interesting to see people in their true light, with all their human failings. It's a better read that way.

I can only imagine what it must feel like to be widely considered the greatest player of all time, only to be dismissed and shoved aside when the somebody better comes along. That must be tough. Still, one hopes to be able to handle it better than Cobb did.

Thanks, evan.
11:42 AM Sep 18th
 
evanecurb
Roel:

Your reference to Ruth as white and the racist hostility that was directed toward Aaron is correct as originally written. No clarification needed. Of course Ruth was white. My reference to Cobb's autobiography is just a little tidbit I wanted to pass on. Up until Ruth came along, Cobb was an almost unanimous choice as Greatest Player Ever, and up into the sixties, you could still find books or articles of the "Who was better?" variety that compared him to Ruth. I think he was a very angry, bitter man. I read his autobiography when I was 12 years old, but I still remember the tone of it: rationalizations about why he was better than so and so, how this fight or that spiking incident were not really his fault or the other guy provoked him. When he got around to filling in his all time roster, he chose Eddie Collins over Hornsby because "Hornsby couldn't go back on short flies over his head" and that was also (as I recall it but it's been so long ago I could be wrong) the section where he tried to dismiss Ruth. He was extremely complimentary of Tris Speaker, Eddie Collins, and Harry Heilmann, all of whom were teammates (Speaker and Collins with the A's in '27 and '28). Aaron was unbelievable. I loved to watch him hit when I was a kid. He was a great player and a great role model. He was the Cal Ripken of his day in the sense that he was a superstar who rarely missed a game, was workmanlike in his approach, was considered to be a great teammate, and was a great role model. He was unlike Ripken in that he was a much more consistent performer and a much better hitter.
10:16 AM Sep 18th
 
RoelTorres
Jongro,

Thanks for coming to evan's defense. It's always heartwarming when the Bill James Online readers are looking out for each other.
7:21 AM Sep 18th
 
RoelTorres
Ryan,

That's a good way to put it. In the end, it seems like Ruth, Aaron, and Bonds are the only home-run kings people have the memory capacity to hold on to. Connor (pre-1900) and Cravath (post-1900) just don't seem to have the required staying power to enter popular discussion, despite their qualifications. Thanks for the comment.
7:20 AM Sep 18th
 
RoelTorres
Hi evan,

That's an interesting (and typically disturbing) point you make about Cobb. I should point out that in my article, I don't actually take any pains to figure out Ruth's racial background. The only reason I bother to introduce the point is to outline the nature and reasoning behind the death threats levied against Aaron. The threats were racial in nature, and occurred because some people wanted a "white man" to hold the home run record. Whether Ruth had a mixed race background is a little beyond the scope of my reserach.

Thanks for your posts. Sorry that you got shafted in your trivia competition.
7:17 AM Sep 18th
 
RoelTorres
Evan,

I became aware of the issue because the massive Jeopardy winning streak of Ken Jennings prompted the Washington Post interview. The Post is a paper of national recognition, and the quote Tom Walsh gave was catchy. It was weird because it helped bring some attention to a player who deserved recognition (Gravath) but managed to marginalize another player deserving of recognition (Connor).

Incorrect trivia questions are a little frustrating. But it gets worse when Jeopardy! champs are doing it in national interviews!
7:12 AM Sep 18th
 
Jongro
Evan, Ernie Banks was indeed No. 14, not 44, and a No. 14 flag flies in Wrigley's left field in his honor. You wuz robbed.
11:42 PM Sep 17th
 
RyanTorres
Seems kind of funny that the article is about who you should not remember more Gavy Cravath or Roger Connor?
"Did you not know about this guy? Well THIS is the guy you REALLY should have not known about." Still, an interesting article, especially for us trivia buffs.
11:17 PM Sep 17th
 
evanecurb
Roel: You mention that Ruth was white, which we all assume to be true. In his autobiography, Ty Cobb, who was extremely jealous of the Babe's popularity (he also had nothing nice to say about Hornsby), claimed that Ruth was of racially mixed origin. He claimed there was something about Ruth's facial features (I honestly can't remember what specifically) that showed that he was part black. Cobb being who he was, the comment was intended as a insult. I doubt there was any truth to it, but I always thought that if it had been true and well known, it would have helped cut down on the harassment of Aaron.
10:43 PM Sep 17th
 
evanecurb
I was completely unaware of this controversy. I had heard the same trivia question back in the early seventies, and the answer was Roger Connor. I was not aware that Gavy Cravath was ever given credit for the record. I guess it depends on what trivia questions you hear and whether or not the questioner has the right answer. I remember (digression, but at least related to baseball if not to Conner, Ruth, or Cravath) when the first All Sports version of Trivial Pursuit came out in the mid 1980s. I was playing with friends one night, and they were always trying to find a baseball question to which I did not know the answer, which didn't happen very often. At a critical point in the game, I missed a baseball question because the answer on the card was wrong. I was livid. I still remember the question and the answer: "Name the 4 players in MLB history who wore number 44 who also hit 44 HRs in a season." I reeled off McCovey, Aaron, and Reggie in short order, but the fourth one stumped me. The answer on the card was Ernie Banks, who wore number 14 (at least that's my recollection). I never received justice for this, as none of my friends who were present had any idea. So, I understand the frustration that goes with an incorrect answer being posed as correct, even for a trivial matter.
10:30 PM Sep 17th
 
RoelTorres
Hi Tom,

Yeah, I should really consider exactly what I mean when I made that statement about Ruth. (Of course, I am relieved to see that I began my statement with "Maybe I'm wrong, but..." which is a nice qualifier to protect myself from any misguided remarks and to indicate my lack of absolute certainty.)

In the end, it's sort of hard to quantify global impact. I could say "Ruth was bigger than Jordan or Ali or Pele" and you could say "he was not" and we wouldn't be any further along in the discussion. It would probably have been safest for me to have said something along the lines of "Ruth had a massive cultural impact." That's a less controversial, more acceptable choice of words. Given a second chance, I probably would have written it that way.

Thanks as always.
2:47 PM Sep 17th
 
RoelTorres
Hi THBR,

Thanks for the kind words. Glad you enjoyed the article. I appreciate the support.

It's interesting to me that some changes in the game are considered organic, while others are seen as critical cut-off points. For example, they don't separate the home run record into "pre-Jackie Robinson" and "post-Jackie Robinson" despite the fact that MLB didn't let minorities compete before 1947. Any records set before the color barrier fell are still considered valid. But any records set before the World Series was established are considered hollow. It's strange where people choose to put up dividing lines sometimes.

Thanks again for the support.

So for a lot of folks, pre-1900 baseball isn't brought into consideration. But
2:41 PM Sep 17th
 
tangotiger
"Maybe I’m wrong, but I believe there is no human walking the planet today who could compare to Ruth’s cultural impact."

I presume you mean among athletes. Among Americans, I would say either Michael Jordan or Ali. And Ali himself said it was Pele. When you say "planet" and "baseball" in the answer, the questioner is probably showing American bias. But athletes pale when compared to artists or performers.
2:09 PM Sep 17th
 
THBR
Roel -- Great GREAT article! Thanks for even bringing up the discussion. And how about Stu Sutcliffe? (:8-{D#>

I think the reason most people start with 1901 is a) both 'modern' leagues were established by then; b) the World Series. There were "world series" contests before then, but a "final decider" between two "equal" leagues seems to mark the beginning of modernity for most fans, I would guess.

And the establishment of standards: aren't pitching records pre-1893 always ignored? I mean, look at Matt Kilroy!
12:32 PM Sep 17th
 
RoelTorres
Hi Chisox,

I think Harry Stovey preceded Roger Connor. Stovey finished with 122 career homers, which Connor passed by 16.

My understanding is that the start of Stovey's career coincided with the beginning of organized Major League Baseball, so there was no one to precede him (Stovey played from 1880-1893.)


10:58 AM Sep 17th
 
chisox
Who had it before Connor?
10:13 AM Sep 17th
 
RoelTorres
EDIT: That sentence in the opening paragraph should read:

...people should specify: "We're talking about POST-1900 baseball here." Not pre-1900.


11:51 PM Sep 16th
 
RoelTorres
Hi Jongro and Matt,

Occam's razor suggests that both of you have hit upon the most likely explanation for the discrepancy. I agree with you both. But in those instances, people should specify: "We're talking about pre-1900 baseball here."

(Of course, I am curious as to why a home run hit in 1900 is worth more than a home run hit a year earlier. It seems very arbitrary to me, but that's a story for another day.)

I am in favor of both Roger Connor AND Gavy Cravath receiving recognition. Instead, it seems like neither of them really gets included in the Home-Run King discussion. I mean, it's such a short list. Surely people have room to add one or two more names into the popular discussion. It's almost like talking about the Beatles and saying: "There was John, Paul, and George." You know, Ringo also counts. (And it never hurts to mention Pete Best or George Martin.)

Thanks, guys.
10:02 PM Sep 16th
 
MattDiFilippo
Cravath held the single-season and career 20th-century home run records before they were eclipsed by Ruth. It's possible that when people say he was the home run king before Ruth, that's what they mean.

You'll often hear that Rogers Hornsby holds the single-season record for batting average, or that Jack Chesbro has the single-season record for wins (You'll remember Bill ranted about this in the first Historical Abstract). Both of those records are "modern records" or "records since 1901." Convenience has caused us to dropped the qualifier.
9:42 PM Sep 16th
 
Jongro
Seems like a case of 19th-century record vs. "modern baseball." When I was a young 'un, every fan knew that the single-season record for stolen bases was 96 by Ty Cobb. The more fanatical knew that Sliding Billy Hamilton had more, but that was pre-1900. The modern record was the one that counted.

Those who credit Cravath as the pre-Ruth home run king, seem to be doing the same thing, knowingly or not.
9:00 PM Sep 16th
 
 
©2024 Be Jolly, Inc. All Rights Reserved.|Powered by Sports Info Solutions|Terms & Conditions|Privacy Policy