The Top 5 HR Hitters Without a Ring

Possibly one of the most common misconceptions about the list of all-time home-run leaders is that they are all World Series winners. Surely if someone were to hit at least 500 home runs, they would have played on at least one championship team in their career, right? However, out of the twenty-five players that hit at least 500 home runs in their career, ten never won a World Series, including the controversial home-run king himself, Barry Bonds of the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants.

Bonds has numbers that are impressive (though sullied by allegations of steroid use during his time with the Giants) even without a championship ring to boost his stats. He played with the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1986-1992 and the San Francisco Giants from 1993-2007. He racked up 762 home runs, 2,935 hits, 1,996 RBI, 514 stolen bases and a .298 career batting average. No one has more home runs in a career or in a season (73), and Bonds is also the leader in career walks (2,558) and intentional walks (688). He has played for fourteen All-Star teams and won seven MVP awards, but being known for a sour attitude towards his fans and the aforementioned investigations of steroid use and perjury in a federal case, many believe that Bonds will never be seen in the Hall of Fame. It is also debated whether his career numbers should have an asterisk due to his alleged steroid use.

Next on the list is Ken Griffey, Jr., a member of the Mariners, Reds and White Sox between 1989 and 2010. The winner of the 1997 AL MVP while a member of the Mariners, Griffey's career included 630 home runs, 2,781 hits and 1,836 RBI. Griffey is seen as one of the greatest natural home run hitters of all time, relying on raw talent and athleticism to reach his numbers and avoiding the temptation of steroid use. The Pennsylvania native played for thirteen All-Star games as well as winning the Gold Glove every year between 1990 and 1999, all spent with the Mariners. Griffey waved goodbye on May 31 of the 2010 season, seen by many as a surefire first ballot Hall of Famer.

The number three spot is held by Sammy Sosa, whose career has also been marred by steroid use, a surly attitude towards the fans at the end of his time with the Cubs, and an infamous moment in 2003 where he was found to be using a corked bat. If moving past these controversies, one sees a career lasting from 1989 to 2007 and amassing 609 home runs, 2,408 hits and 1,667 RBI, though a not overly impressive .271 average. Sosa was the 1998 NL MVP while a member of the Cubs, and played for seven All-Star teams. Sosa's 1998 season grabbed the country by storm, as he and then-Cardinals player Mark McGwire chased Roger Maris' single-season home-run mark of 61. McGwire finished the season with 70 home runs, while Sosa notched 66.

Jim Thome is number four on the list, and is the only player still active. He has been in the league since 1991, debuting with the Cleveland Indians before playing with the Phillies, White Sox, Dodgers and Twins, with which he is currently signed. 589 home runs, 2,216 hits and 1,624 RBI have helped Thome to five All-Star teams, three seasons leading the AL in walks (1997, 1999 and 2002) and leading the NL in home runs (47) in 2003 as a member of the Phillies. He is also tied for first in career walk-off home runs (12) with Jimmie Foxx, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial and Frank Robinson. Thome was one of three players to reach 500 career home runs in the 2007 season, joining Frank Thomas and Alex Rodriguez. Impressively, Thome's 400^th homerun had come only three seasons earlier, showing that Thome is not only a powerful hitter, but a consistent one as well.

The fifth-best ring-less home run hitter of all time is a far less contemporary player, Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew. Killebrew played from 1954 to 1975 with the Washington Senators, Minnesota Twins and Kansas City Royals. While his career batting average of .256 is nothing to put a man into the Hall of Fame, Killebrew played for thirteen All-Star teams, won the 1969 AL MVP award (while a member of the Minnesota Twins) and had his #3 jersey retired by the Twins after amassing 573 career home runs, 2,086 hits and 1,584 RBI. He averaged a home run every fourteen at-bats, and when making his debut on June 23, 1954, Killebrew was the youngest major leaguer at the time, at seventeen years old. The game was a mere six days before his eighteenth birthday. He was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984 with 83% of the vote.

Supercalifragilisticexpiali-Brosius

Scott Brosius:

1991-97, Oakland Athletics

1998-01, New York Yankees

World Series MVP. Gold Glove. All-Star. 3-time World Champion. Member of 4 AL Pennant teams. Scott Brosius has earned himself a resume worth bragging about, despite snagging nearly all of his acclaim in a single season, 1998.

Much of Brosius's career has been one of "almosts." He grew up in Milwaukie, Oregon, almost the same spelling as the much-larger Wisconsin city. His last season in the league, spent with the 2001 New York Yankees, was the year they almost beat the Arizona Diamondbacks in the World Series and almost had the first World Series four-peat since achieving the feat in 1936-39. His 1998 season was almost his second 20-home run season, but he finished one short, at 19.

However, even with all the "almosts," his accomplishments cannot be ignored. He hit above .300 twice, in 1996 with the Oakland Athletics and in 1998, with the Yankees. Despite never playing a full 162-game season, Brosius finished with 1,001 hits and 531 RBI, along with 141 home runs. Brosius was also one of just a handful of players to hit a home run in his first major league game, August 7, 1991.

Upon retiring from the MLB in 2002, Brosius became an assistant coach at his alma mater Linfield College, serving under his own coach Scott Carnahan. When Carnahan became the school's Athletic Director in 2007, Brosius was promoted to head coach, a position he currently holds, having amassed a coaching record of 100-38, two Northwest Conference titles and a third-place finish at the 2010 NCAA Division III tournament.

His legacy is one of unfortunately quick-to-fade postseason success, and a Chris Berman-coined nickname, Scott Supercalifragilisticexpiali-Brosius. He never again achieved his staggering 1998 playoff numbers, where he hit .382 (18-47) with four home runs, fifteen RBI and a .406 on-base percentage over thirteen games. His two home runs in Game Three of the 1998 World Series are often seen as the final piece of momentum for the Yankees as they swept the San Diego Padres in four games.

Brosius is certainly not the most well-known Yankee, but his accomplishments cannot be ignored and should not be forgotten.

Scott Brosius' Coaching Bio

Baseball Almanac Recap of the 1998 World Series

Baseball Reference stats

An Arachnophobic Juggling Haddock: Remembering Glenallen Hill

Here's a question for you: name your top five World Series-winning power hitters of the last twenty years. Your list would probably look something like this: Albert Pujols, Manny Ramirez, Mark McGwire, Chipper Jones and Jim Edmonds. A name worth considering, however, is Glenallen Hill.

I know. You're wondering who he is. You're wondering how a guy who played for eight teams in thirteen years can possibly be seen as the greatest in anything. Well, truthfully, it's not his numbers that will get him in my book, though a .271 career batting average, 186 home runs, 586 runs batted in, and championship ring (earned with the Yankees after a 2000 trade from the Cubs) are certainly respectable.

It may seem counterintuitive that a guy nicknamed the Juggler and referred to as "akin to watching a gaffed haddock surface for air" in regards to his defensive struggles in the outfield would be able to attract attention from major league teams, especially those that were eventually championship-bound. The retort is found in his career numbers which while not legendary, were still impressive. His .271 average is 8 points higher than that of Mark McGwire and his 2000 season included 27 home runs, 58 RBI and a .297 average despite only playing 104 games. In 13 seasons of play, if extrapolated out to playing a full 162-game season each year, he averaged 26 home runs and 82 RBI/year. To compare, with the same 162-game extrapolation over 17 seasons, Jim Edmonds has averaged 32 home runs and 97 RBI, with a .284 average. While such theoretical statistics do not factor in the possibility of injury, benching or other unforeseen causes for lack of play, the numbers are nothing to sneeze at.

Really, what made Glenallen Hill a fan favorite and certainly one of my favorite players was how staggering his power was, and how eccentric of a player he ended up being. In May 2000, while playing for the Cubs, Hill jacked a moonshot across the street and onto the roof of a five-story residential building topped by bleachers for fans to sit and take in the game from outside the stadium. To date, Hill is the only player to park a ball onto the roof of that building. Whether the location of his home run was intentional or purely by chance remains a mystery, but his power does not. Hill was also the first National League player to serve as a designated hitter in regular season play in June of 1997 against the Texas Rangers, while playing with the San Francisco Giants.

To date, Glenallen Hill might also be the only major leaguer to end up on the 15-day disabled list after a nightmare, though I'll admit, arachnophobic nightmares do sound pretty horrifying. While a member of the Toronto Blue Jays, Hill had a nightmare about being chased by spiders that was so terrifying, he fell out of bed, smashed through a glass table and fell down a flight of stairs...all while asleep. As if the Juggler wasn't enough of a jab, Hill has now also earned the nickname of, you guessed it, Spider-Man.

He'll never end up in the Hall of Fame, and unless you avidly watched some pretty bad 90s baseball, you've probably never heard of him. But those of us who remember the Juggler will never forget his antics, or the raw power and talent he possessed and continues to impart on players as the first-base coach for the Colorado Rockies.

Glenallen Hill's WikiPedia page

Glenallen Hill's Baseball Reference page

HitTracker article about Hill's Rooftop Home Run