All Time Home Runs

Sadaharu Oh has the all time record of 868 HR.

If I'm not mistaken, Kioyhara of the Giants is the active leader.

Jeez, was the first poster born yesterday? Everybody who knows anything about baseball knows that the all-time HR leader in the world (not just Japanese baseball) is Oh. That's common knowledge.

I suppose the next question will be: who holds the world record for consecutive games played?

I do not agree that Mr. Oh is the all-time all-world home run leader. Putting aside the arguments on the differance in compitition during his playing time, the smaller Japanese fields, you have to also consider that Josh Gibson hit 975 home runs in the Negro Leagues.

- you have to also consider that Josh Gibson hit 975 home runs in the Negro Leagues.

I'd like to know where the poster got this total. To my knowledge, it is unknown how many homers Gibson hit, although it was was a lot and could very well have surpassed Oh's total. Gibson's HOF plaque says that he hit "almost 800" home runs. Other sources put him over 900. I've never seen an exact number before now. The only thing is certain: The man could hit.

His career was also cut short by a brain tumor. Gibson was only 36 when he died.

Oh performed well against MLB competition, posting a .413 OBP and .524 SLG, with 25 homers in 338 ABs. Not shabby at all.

I thought Josh Gibson hit 800. The total of 975 probably comes from an estimated number of home runs he hit in all Negro League games and barnstorming exhibitions. Then also, Satchel Paige is known to have won 2,000 games. Nevertheless Josh Gibson and Satch were great players, no doubt about it.

If you count Oh's total home runs, including the Open-sen, Nippon Series, US-Japan baseball, all-star games, etc., etc., he probably hit close to 975 or even 1,000 anyway!

The official sources according to baseball historian, John Holway, say Gibson has 224 HRs. For more, check his bio [Baseball-Reference Bullpen Article] over at Baseball-Reference, which sheds more light on to Gibson's disputed home run total.

Actually, the aLL time Home Run King is Josh Gibson (Negroe Leagues) with 962.

No, the actual all time Home Run King is Sadaharu Oh. There have been numerous claims for Josh Gibson and numerous figures bandied around. I note on this thread one correspondent quotes 975 and you quote 962, which very much suggests that there is some lack of clarity. You may believe that Gibson hit more home runs, but then you do need to go and establish some proof for your contention.

Research does not indicate that his figures match the total you claim (JBrokes lists a reference which discusses his totals).

It seems this debate has gone on for a long time now.

Let's put some light on this situation.

First off, Gibson's Hall of Fame plaque, which lists him with more than 800 HRs, is wrong and isn't the stat you should source.

Second off, these sources that list Gibson at 800+ include games against amateur and semi-pro teams, which count as much as someone's home runs in the playoffs. Also, much of the confusion comes from including his Winter League stats in his overall total, which also don't count.

This is an old thread, but since I stumbled across it I'm sure others will too, so figured I'd add my two cents since I know more than probably 99.9999% of even serious baseball fans when it comes to overall professional baseball league records.

Oh is certainly well-known to many baseball fans, but not all fans, and as time goes by less fans are familar with him since he hasn't played in a long time and did not play in the top leagues in the world. This is obviously not the case in Japan where he's rightly regarded as a national icon, but his place in overall baseball history outside of Japan is more as a trivia question.

He never played in MLB, but instead played in one of the many lower professional baseball leagues that exist around the world and throughout world history, both in the United States and abroad. All-time and season-records are in many cases unknown for these professional leagues, which is why referring to something as a "world record" is meaningless. There is no such thing. Something can't be a world record unless all records are known, a standard for the records is established and accepted by all the participating bodies, and there is a connection between the professional leagues. There is no such thing here. Oh holds the professional Japanese league HR record. That's it. He should be proud of it, but we shouldn't demean him, or the many other great players in other professinal leagues, especailly the higher leagues, by attempting to elevate him to the top of some non-existant list.

For example. Pete Rose holds the MLB hit record with 4256, yet his overall professional baseball hit total is actually 4769 to Cobb's 4372 (majors, post-season and minors), yet this illustrates the problem. We don't really know how many hits Cobb had in the professional leagues he played in before MLB. We have some records, but not all of them.

Before the minor leagues were under the full control of the major leagues, there were many professional ballplayers who never appeared in what is now known as the major leagues, especially before MLB expanded west. There were also players who may have played for five, six, seven, etc. years in these other professional leagues before joining the major leagues. We would have to add all their pro-ball hitting records together to get true records, but no one will do that because there is no such thing as world records among all the professional baseball leagues.

Another example. Ichiro Suzuki broke George Sisler's single-season MLB hit record a few years back, yet the single-season professional record by your standards *might* belong to Paul Strand, who banged out 325 hits in the Pacific Coast League in 1923, following up on the 289 he had the prior season. Strand was a professional baseball player, yet he never played in MLB. In 1948, Bob Crues hit 69 HRs, while having 254 RBIs, most likely a record for professional baseball. Yet we don't really know.

Sadaharu Oh? He's Japan's all-time HR leader. He is not the world record holder of anything since world records don't exist among the professional baseball leagues, and for good reason.

[I realize that this is an old thread, but I just need to add this.]

If we discount Oh's HR totals as lesser because of a different size ball, shorter fences, etc., well, before 1946, Major League Baseball was an all-white league. At one time ground rule doubles were called home runs. Juiced balls, juiced players, so many variables over time.

What went on this season (2017) where so many HR records were set? Gibson's totals are mostly apocryphal since little record keeping of exhibition games exists and not all games were even reported or reported in detail. If we count everything, why not Spring Training games which once were taken far more seriously.

Here is my home run records page. You will note that almost arbitrarily I skip post season numbers even as I include minor league regular seasons in totals of season by season list.

Write me with errors spotted or additions you may have.

I know Sadahura Oh is the all-time king with 868. The active leader, unfortunatly, I don't know.

The active leader is Kazuhiro Kiyohara of the Yomiuri Giants, with 502 home runs. [As of the end of play on May 7, 2005.]

868 Sadaharu Oh
657 Katsuya Nomura
567 Hiromitsu Kadota
536 Kohji Yamamoto
510 Hiromitsu Ochiai
508 Kazuhiro, Kiyohara *
504 Isao Harimoto
504 Sachio Kunigasa

* active
record as of July 14, 2005

(corrected stats - my last post was incorrect)

868 Sadaharu Oh
657 Katsuya Nomura
567 Hiromitsu Kadota
536 Kohji Yamamoto
511 Kazuhiro, Kiyohara *
510 Hiromitsu Ochiai
504 Isao Harimoto
504 Sachio Kunigasa

* active
record as of July 14, 2005

[Tweaking an old thread.]

What foreign born player has hit the most home runs in Japanese baseball?

I'd guess Karl "Tuffy" Rhodes with 402 as of this season.

While I'm sure Gibson was a heck of a hitter, the record keeping in the Negro Leagues was so abysmal that it is hard to take seriously. They couldn't even decide, often times, which games were official and which were exhibition games. So the purported records from them have to be taken with a freighter load of salt.