What Baseball Homer Milestones to Look Forward to in 2024?

    I do not have a great grasp on many things, but I like to think that a few things that I do understand involve sports. I cannot definitively prove it, but I am pretty sure that we are a better world where there are good recreational activities and competitions that attract the amusement or devotion of many of us, to include baseball.

    The current conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza Strip, or Yemen and the Congo? Not enough baseball. We and they need these good and healthy pastimes and distractions to put our lives into a better balance. We in the more peaceful parts of the world know that we need such pursuits an pleasures. Not sure how to explain Venezuela as a basket case these last few years...

    So, healthy and productive people need to fixate or at least casually speculate on who is going to accrue significant numbers of home runs in their career in the present year, the hopeful spring, the long summer, and expectant fall of 2024. The Olympics in Paris should be fun this summer, the June Finals of the NBA should be a good time, there will be the Wimbledon games of July and the U.S. Open in September, which provides good entertainment. Some people like golf, others racing.

    Some people are bored by it. Sure, it can be slow. But so are a lot things, and they are still good. Major league baseball pitches, by the way, plus the bat speed of most major leaguers, and many of the runners, are the fastest human feats in the world.

    But these milestones and expectations are about the long haul of history, men who are the best at what they do, and have been working hard at doing a difficult task, a game by some standards, and awfully hard sport by others. 

    2023 saw the end of the home run greats of Miguel Cabrera and Nelson Cruz, two of the all time greats. Albert Pujols hung up the cleats the year before. Their career numbers and ranks:

    Albert Pujols -         703, 4th all time

    Miguel Cabrera -     511, 25th all time

    Nelson Cruz -          464, 37th all time

    Who is still going this year?

    Giancarlo Stanton, age 33, has 402 career homers, is 58th all time

    Mike Trout, age 31, has 368 career homers, 84th all time

    Joey Votto, age 39, has 356 career homers, 91st all time. He may be done, though. Perhaps he called it quits last year.

    Evan Longoria, age 37, 342 career homers, 102nd all time

    Paul Goldschmidt, age 35, 340 career homers, tied for 105th all time (tied with Jack Clark, a Cardinal I saw play in the 1980s)

     There are six more in the 300s, all still in their prime, more or less. Arenado, Freeman, Martinez, Machado, Harper, and Santana. McCutcheon is right behind them. There are a few more in the high 200s, but this is a good sampling of career greats for now.

    Should be an interesting year, barring no nuclear conflicts or other major catastrophes.

    Let's play two! 

    Go Nats.