Career Home Run Leaders: The 500-Homer Club and How It Changed

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 9 min read

All 28 players with 500 career home runs in the historical record, with rates, eras and context. Covers what 500 meant to Hall of Fame voters, how the club grew after 1986, and the players who stopped just short.

Twenty-eight players have hit 500 or more home runs in the major leagues, according to the historical record through the 2025 season. The list begins with Barry Bonds at 762, Hank Aaron at 755 and Babe Ruth at 714, and it ends with Eddie Murray at 504, a gap of 258 home runs between first and last. For most of the twentieth century a player who reached 500 was assumed to belong in the Hall of Fame. In the twenty-first century the number has become harder to read.

The timing of the list explains why. Fourteen of the 28 played their last major-league game in 1989 or earlier. One, Murray, finished in 1997. The other thirteen retired in 2001 or later, and every one of them debuted in 1986 or after. In other words, nearly as many members retired after 2000 as in all the years before 1990, which is a fact worth explaining and not just counting.

This article gives the full list with a rate for each player, walks through the eras, explains what the number meant in each, and looks at the players who stopped short. All statistics are career totals in the historical record, which includes Negro Leagues statistics for 1920 to 1948 as major-league data; no Negro Leagues player reaches 500 in those records, though the surviving statistics are incomplete.

The 28 players, ranked

The table gives each player's total, the span of seasons in the database, and his at-bats per home run, which is the cleanest way to compare sluggers who played different numbers of games. Lower is better. All of the figures come from the historical record.

Cabrera's span is open-ended in the database; 511 is his total through the 2025 season, and he last played in 2023. The at-bats-per-homer column tells a different story from the ranking. The two best rates belong to Mark McGwire (10.6) and Babe Ruth (11.8), and the worst belongs to Murray (22.5), who got to 504 by playing 21 seasons at a steady level, never hitting more than 33 in a year.

What 500 means arithmetically

A home run total is a product of two things: how often a player homers and how long he plays. Five hundred is about 25 a year for 20 seasons, or 30 a year for 17, or 40 a year for 12 and a half. It rewards durability as much as peak.

Look at how differently the 28 got there. Aaron hit 755 without ever reaching 50 in a season: his best was 47, in 1971. Willie Mays's best was 52, in 1965. Murray's best was 33. Compare Ruth, who hit 60 in 1927, or Bonds, who hit 73 in 2001, or McGwire, whose 70 in 1998 came in a career that was only 16 seasons long. Aaron and Rodriguez each had 15 seasons of 30 or more home runs, the most on the list, and Bonds had 14. Murray had five.

The arithmetic also shows why the club is not about a single type of hitter. Some of its members reached 500 by being one of the best hitters in the sport for a decade, like Ruth and Mantle. Others reached it by never leaving the lineup, like Murray, Palmeiro and Cabrera. Neither route is a lesser one, but the first reflects more dominance and the second more consistency.

The first generation: Ruth, Foxx, Ott and Williams

Four of the 28 began their careers by 1939: Ruth, whose debut came in 1914, Foxx in 1925, Ott in 1926, and Williams in 1939. Ruth's 714 home runs stood as the career record until Aaron passed him in 1974. In the 1920s the home run was still a fairly new weapon, and Ruth used it better than anyone, as his rate of one every 11.8 at-bats shows.

The others played in the long shadow of that standard. Foxx hit 534 and Ott 511, 23 apart. Ted Williams hit 521, which understates him: he missed the 1943, 1944 and 1945 seasons to military service in World War II, and most of 1952 and 1953 to the Korean War. His 14.8 at-bats per home run is better than that of Mantle, Mays and Aaron.

In this era, 500 was an enormous barrier. Ruth reached it in 1929, Foxx in 1940 and Ott in 1945, and by the end of the 1950s no one else had.

The 1950s generation: eight sluggers in nine years

The second wave is the most concentrated cluster on the list. Eight of the 28 debuted between 1951 and 1959: Mays and Mantle in 1951, Mathews in 1952, Banks in 1953, Aaron and Killebrew in 1954, Robinson in 1956 and McCovey in 1959. All eight reached 500, and all eight are in the Hall of Fame.

This was a talented generation, and the timing helped. Players of color were entering the majors in larger numbers after 1947, so the pool of hitters was wider than in Ruth's day. The schedule grew to 162 games in the early 1960s, and expansion in 1961 and 1962 added more starting jobs. Beyond that, the causes are matters of debate; it is fair to say only that the list has an unusual density of talent in these years.

The 1960s ended with a corrective. Pitchers dominated the late part of the decade, and 1968, widely called the Year of the Pitcher, was followed by the lowering of the mound in 1969. Reggie Jackson and Mike Schmidt are the next entries on the list.

The long quiet: Jackson, Schmidt and Murray

Between McCovey's debut in 1959 and Bonds's in 1986, only three players on the list debuted: Jackson in 1967, Schmidt in 1972 and Murray in 1977. Jackson (563) and Schmidt (548) were true power hitters. Schmidt had 13 seasons of 30 or more, and Jackson's best year was 47 in 1969. Murray was something different, a consistent first baseman who reached 504 home runs and 3,255 hits and became one of the few players with both 500 and 3,000.

For a generation, then, the 500 club was growing slowly, and each new member was an event. The mark carried a near-automatic meaning: all 14 players who finished their careers before 1990 are in the Hall of Fame, and the writers elected Jackson in 1993 and Schmidt in 1995.

The surge: 13 debuts from 1986 to 2003

What changed was not one thing. From 1986 on, 13 members of the club debuted: Bonds, McGwire and Palmeiro in 1986, Sheffield in 1988, Griffey and Sosa in 1989, Thomas in 1990, Thome in 1991, Ramirez in 1993, Rodriguez in 1994, Ortiz in 1997, Pujols in 2001 and Cabrera in 2003. The era produced some of the biggest single seasons in the database: McGwire's 70 and Sosa's 66 in 1998, Bonds's 73 in 2001, and Rodriguez's 57 in 2002.

Several things overlapped: hitter-friendly ballparks, stronger training, expansion in 1993 and 1998 that spread the pitching thinner, and, as later became clear, the use of performance-enhancing drugs by some players. The site's article on the home run surge of the late 1990s and 2000s goes through the numbers. This article's concern is the Hall of Fame consequence.

What is documented: McGwire later acknowledged using steroids; Rafael Palmeiro served a suspension in 2005 after a positive test; Manny Ramirez was suspended in 2009 and retired in 2011 while facing a second suspension; Alex Rodriguez was suspended for the entire 2014 season. Barry Bonds has denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs. The baseball writers have not elected Bonds, McGwire, Sosa or Palmeiro. Rodriguez has been on the ballot since 2022 and had not been elected as of 2025. By contrast, Ken Griffey received 99.3 percent of the vote in 2016, the highest share to that point, and David Ortiz, Jim Thome and Frank Thomas were elected on their first ballots. For current status, check the Hall's own site at baseballhall.org.

The home run record: Ruth, Aaron, Bonds

The career record has changed hands only twice since Ruth. His 714 stood from the end of his career in 1935 until Aaron passed it in 1974, a gap of nearly four decades. Aaron finished with 755, and the record stood until Bonds passed him in 2007, ending with 762. That 2007 season was his last in the majors.

The single-season record has its own history, told in the article on Ruth, Maris, McGwire, Sosa and Bonds. Career totals and single-season totals measure different skills: Aaron never hit 50 in a season but is second on the career list, while Bonds holds both the career record and the single-season record.

Three kinds of 500-homer hitter

Reading the rate column, the 28 fall into rough groups. The first is the rate hitters, who homered more often than once in 14.5 at-bats: McGwire (10.6), Ruth (11.8), Bonds (12.9), Thome (13.8), Killebrew (14.2) and Sosa (14.5). McGwire reached 500 in just 6,187 career at-bats, the fewest of the 28.

The second group is the all-around stars, between about 14.8 and 17.5 at-bats per home run, which covers Williams, Ramirez, Mantle, Rodriguez, Schmidt, Foxx, Griffey, Thomas, McCovey, Ortiz, Pujols, Aaron, Mays, Mathews, Robinson and Jackson. Many of these players also collected high hit totals, so their home runs came on top of a broad offensive game.

The third group is the longevity group, at 18 or more at-bats per home run: Palmeiro, Banks, Ott, Sheffield, Cabrera and Murray. They are not lesser hitters. Murray, Palmeiro and Cabrera also reached 3,000 hits. But their 500 came from staying in the lineup season after season.

The near misses

The cutoff at 500 is a round number, and the players just below it show how arbitrary it can be. Fred McGriff and Lou Gehrig each finished with 493. Gehrig's career ended in 1939 when he left the lineup with the illness that now bears his name. Adrian Beltre hit 477, Willie Stargell and Stan Musial 475 each, Carlos Delgado 473, Chipper Jones 468, Dave Winfield 465, Nelson Cruz 464, and Adam Dunn and Jose Canseco 462 each. Carl Yastrzemski finished with 452.

Among active players at the end of 2025, Giancarlo Stanton had 453 home runs in the database. The totals for active players change every season, so check the site's league leaders for current numbers. This article does not predict who will reach 500 next.

Several of those near-miss players are in the Hall of Fame without 500: Gehrig, Musial, Stargell, Winfield and Yastrzemski among them. It is a reminder that 500 was always a shorthand and not a requirement.

How 500 compares with other club milestones

The 3,000-hit club is a comparable list. The historical record shows 33 players with 3,000 hits, compared with 28 with 500 home runs. Only a few players are in both: Aaron, Mays, Rodriguez, Murray, Palmeiro, Pujols and Cabrera among them, by the totals in the table above. Pitchers have their own markers, the 300-win club and the 3,000-strikeout club.

Milestones like these measure longevity as much as greatness. The 300-win club is probably closed because of how pitchers are used now, while the 500-homer club has kept adding members.

Common questions

Who has the most career home runs? Barry Bonds, with 762, ahead of Hank Aaron's 755 and Babe Ruth's 714.

How many players have hit 500 home runs? Twenty-eight, in the historical record through the 2025 season.

Who hit 500 home runs fastest, by at-bats? Mark McGwire, with one every 10.6 at-bats, followed by Ruth at 11.8 and Bonds at 12.9.

Is every member of the 500-homer club in the Hall of Fame? No. The 14 who retired before 1990 all are, and so are several later players, but others have not been elected, and some had not reached the ballot as of 2025.

Did anyone hit 500 without ever hitting 40 in a season? Eddie Murray: his best single-season total was 33.

Where to go next

For the single-season side of the story, read the home run record from Ruth to Bonds, and for the two other great career clubs, the 3,000-hit club and the 300-win club. How October changed around these sluggers is in the history of the playoff format. Current leaders are on the site's leaders page.