Which uniform number has hit the most home runs?

October 4, 2013 10:51 AM

A question that came up in discussion with my baseball-loving son: which uniform number has the most career home runs? In other words: which N gives the maximum value of the number of home runs hit by players wearing uniform N (at the time of the home run?) I was hoping one of the tools at baseball-reference would be able to compute this for me, but I didn't find it there. Some contenders are #44 (Hank Aaron, Reggie Jackson), #25 (Bonds as a Giant, Thome, Palmeiro) and #3 (late Ruth, pre-Yankee A. Rodriguez, Foxx, Killebrew)
posted by escabeche to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (6 answers total)

You could manually do this by using the data on the top-20 home run hitters.

Build a table in Excel using the baseball-reference data, then add a column for uniform number, and populate accordingly. Then sumif using the uniform number as the condition.
posted by dfriedman at 11:09 AM on October 4, 2013

Best answer: Here is someone who has already created such a spreadsheet. You would have to decide whether to trust their work, which they explain later in the discussion. Their number: 3.
posted by jessamyn at 11:15 AM on October 4, 2013

Given that uniform numbers tend to be relatively low, I'd bet on 3. There are just going to be more "normal" players hitting home runs as #3 than as #25 or #44.
posted by madcaptenor at 11:26 AM on October 4, 2013

Best answer: To clarify jessamyn's answer, that guy used only the top 25 HR hitters of all time to get to the answer 3. When you expand it to the top 50, the answer (as of 2006) becomes 25. And it is very close.
posted by AgentRocket at 11:26 AM on October 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

I was hoping one of the tools at baseball-reference would be able to compute this for me, but I didn't find it there.

You could email the guy who runs baseball-reference. He's a super-nice guy (and used to work as a mathematician!).
posted by leahwrenn at 11:55 AM on October 4, 2013

Keep in mind that uniform numbers only made their first appearance in 1916, and didn't become universal until the mid-30s. Of course, that mostly overlaps with the dead ball era, but you're going to miss lots of home runs from the likes of Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:28 PM on October 4, 2013