In Major League Baseball (MLB), the 600 home run club is a group of batters who have hit 600 or more regular-season home runs in their careers. There are nine players who are members of the 600 home run club. Four 600 home run club members—Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez—are also members of the 3,000 hit club.
History
On August 21, 1931, two years and 10 days after becoming the charter member of the 500 home run club, Babe Ruth hit his 600th career homer in a game in which his New York Yankees defeated the St. Louis Browns 11–7. It took another 34 years for another member to join the club, so rare a feat was hitting 600 career homers.
On September 22, 1969, Willie Mays of the San Francisco Giants hit his 600th home run in a game against the San Diego Padres, an expansion team in the first year of its existence. Hank Aaron joined the 600 homer club on April 21, 1971, when he hit his 600th career homer off of future fellow Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry in a game in which his Atlanta Braves lost to the San Francisco Giants team that included the only other living 600 homer club member, Willie Mays.
In the 1960s, many felt that Mays would beat Ruth's career record of 714 home runs that had stood unchallenged since 1935, but the "Say Hey Kid" finished with 660 career round-trippers. It was Hammering Hank who broke Ruth's record in 1974.
For the following 31 years, there were only three members of the 600 home run club, all first-ballot Hall of Famers and three of the greatest legends of the game. Then, Willie Mays' godson, Barry Bonds, joined the 600 homer club on August 9, 2002, as a member of the Giants, hitting a homer off of Pittsburgh Pirates’ pitcher Kip Wells.
Bond made it into the club the season after he set the single-season homer record in all organized baseball, when he hit 73 homers in 2001. (Minor Leaguer Joe Bauman had hit 72 in the Class C Longhorn League in 1954.) Ruth's career record of 714 had been surpassed by Aaron, whose ultimate total of 755 remained the career record until Bonds set the current mark of 762 during the 2007 season.
On June 20, 2007, Sammy Sosa became the fifth member of the 600 homer club. A long-time member of the Chicago Cubs, Sosa hit his milestone against his former team while a member of the Texas Rangers in an interleague game. Almost a year later, Ken Griffey Jr. joined the club on June 9, 2008, hitting his 600th home run as a Cincinnati Reds player against the Florida Marlins.
Three years to the day after Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees became the youngest member of the 500 homer club, he became the youngest player to join the 600th homer club when, on August 4, 2010, he went yard during a game against the Toronto Blue Jays at Yankees Stadium. A year later, on August 15, 2011, Jim Thome of the Detroit Tigers hit career homers 599 and 600 against the Minnesota Twins. On June 3, 2017, future 700 homer club member Albert Pujols of the Los Angeles Angels hit his 600th homer, a grandslam off of Ervin Santana of the Twins. Pujols became the ninth, and so-far last member of the 600 homer club.
Hall of Fame
In the past, membership in the 500 home run club let alone the 600 homer club was a guarantee of eventual entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
All three players who became members of the 600 home run club between 1931 and 1971 are members of the Hall of Fame. Of the five players who made the 600 homer club between 2002 and 2011 who are Hall of Fame eligible, three have been enshrined in Cooperstown. Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa have not been elected to the Hall. Bonds is one of only four members in the 700 home run club, all of whose other members are Hall of Famers except for the recently retired Albert Pujols, who hit 703 career home runs and is not eligible until 2027.
Bonds and Sosa made their first appearance on the Hall of Fame ballot in ; Bonds received only 36.2% and Sosa 12.5% of the total votes, with 75% required for induction. Both Bonds and Sosa had ties to performance-enhancing drugs. Eligibility requires that a player has "been retired five seasons" or be deceased for at least six months.Some believe that by not electing Mark McGwire (583 career homers) to the Hall the voters were establishing a "referendum" on how they would treat players from the "Steroid Era".
Other milestones
Babe Ruth (.340) holds the highest batting average among the club members while Sammy Sosa (.273) holds the lowest.
The New York Yankees and the San Francisco Giants are the only franchises to see two players reach the milestone while on their roster: for the Yankees, Ruth and Rodriguez while Mays and Bonds did it for the Giants.