500 home run club

In Major League Baseball (MLB), the **500 home run club** is a term given to the group of batters who have hit 500 or more regular-season home runs in their careers. On August 11, 1929, Babe Ruth became the first member of the club. Ruth ended his career with 714 home runs.  This record stood from 1935 until Hank Aaron broke it in 1974. Aaron's ending career total, 755, stayed the record until Barry Bonds set the current mark of 762 during the 2007 season. The most recent player to reach 500 home runs is Miguel Cabrera, who hit his 500th home run on August 22, 2021. Twenty-eight players are members of the 500 home run club. Since Cabrera's retirement at the end of the 2023 season, there have been no active club members.

Of these 28 players, 15 were right-handed batters, 11 were left-handed, and 2 were switch hitters (meaning they could bat from either side of the plate). Two franchises have had four players reach 500 home runs while on the roster. The San Francisco Giants are represented by Mel Ott while the team was in New York, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and most recently Bonds. The Boston Red Sox are represented by Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Manny Ramirez, and David Ortiz. Seven 500 home run club members—Aaron, Mays, Eddie Murray, Rafael Palmeiro, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, and Cabrera—are also members of the 3,000 hit club. Gary Sheffield's 500th home run was his first career home run with the New York Mets, the first time that a player's 500th home run was also his first with his franchise. Alex Rodriguez, at 32 years and 8 days, was the youngest player to hit 500.  Ted Williams, at 41 years and 291 days, was the oldest.

Until fairly recent times, becoming a member of the 500 home run club was sometimes described as a guarantee of entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Some believe the milestone has become less meaningful in recent years, and several members have not been enshrined in the Hall. Seven eligible club members—Bonds, Rodriguez, Mark McGwire, Palmeiro, Ramirez, Sheffield, and Sammy Sosa—have not been elected to the Hall. Bonds is one of only four members in the 700 home run club and Rodriguez and Sosa are members of the 600-homer club, all of whose other members are Hall of Famers except for the recently retired Pujols, who hit 703 career home runs and is not eligible until the 2027 balloting for the Hall's 2028 induction class.

Eligibility requires that a player has "been retired five seasons" or be dead for at least six months. Some believe the milestone has become less important with the large number of new members; 10 players joined the club from 1999 to 2009. Also, several of these recent members have had ties to performance-enhancing drugs. Some believe that by not electing McGwire to the Hall, the voters were starting a "guideline" on how they would treat players from the "Steroid Era". Since then, Bonds and Sosa have also failed to earn election. More recently, Palmeiro became the first club member to be dropped from the Hall of Fame ballot, failing to earn enough votes (5% of votes cast) in the 2014 election to stay on the ballot.

## Key

|**Player**|Name of the player||
| --- | --- | --- |
|**HR**|Career home runs||
|**Date**|Date of the player's 500th home run||
|**Team**|The batter's team for his 500th home run||
|**Seasons**|The seasons this player played in the major leagues||
|style="background:#ffb;"|†|Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame|
|style="background:#cfecec;"|*|Denotes player who is still active|

## Members

- _Statistics up to date as of the end of the 2023 season, the last in which any club member was active_

|Player|HR|Date|Team|Seasons|class="unsortable" style="width:2%;"|Ref(s)|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
||762||San Francisco Giants|1986–2007|||
|<sup>†</sup>|755||Atlanta Braves|1954–1976|||
|<sup>†</sup>|714||New York Yankees|1914–1935|||
||703||Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim|2001–2022|||
||696||New York Yankees|1994–2013, 2015–2016|||||
|<sup>†</sup>|660||San Francisco Giants|1951–1973|||
||630||Cincinnati Reds|1989–2010|||
||612||Chicago White Sox|1991–2012|||
||609||Chicago Cubs|1989–2005, 2007|||
|<sup>†</sup>|586||Baltimore Orioles|1956–1976|||
||583||St. Louis Cardinals|1986–2001|||
|<sup>†</sup>|573||Minnesota Twins|1954–1975|||
||569||Texas Rangers|1986–2005|||
|<sup>†</sup>|563||California Angels|1967–1987|||
||555||Boston Red Sox|1993–2011|||
|<sup>†</sup>|548||Philadelphia Phillies|1972–1989|||
||541||Boston Red Sox|1997–2016|||
|<sup>†</sup>|536||New York Yankees|1951–1968|||
|<sup>†</sup>|534||Boston Red Sox|1925–1942, 1944–1945|||
|<sup>†</sup>|521||Boston Red Sox|1939–1942, 1946–1960|||
|<sup>†</sup>|521||San Francisco Giants|1959–1980|||
|<sup>†</sup>|521||Toronto Blue Jays|1990–2008|||
|<sup>†</sup>|512||Chicago Cubs|1953–1971|||
|<sup>†</sup>|512||Houston Astros|1952–1968|||
|<sup>†</sup>|511||New York Giants|1926–1947|||
||511||Detroit Tigers|2002–2023|||
||509||New York Mets|1988–2009|||
|<sup>†</sup>|504||Baltimore Orioles|1977–1997|||

The only active player within 50 home runs of 500 is Giancarlo Stanton, who ended the 2025 season with 453 homers.

## Footnotes

- Although MLB.com's 500 Home Run Club page lists Mathews at 511 home runs, his listings on both MLB.com and Baseball-Reference show 512.

## References

- General
- Specific