Two home run milestones have been reached recently. One involves Aaron Judge hitting his 60th home run to equal the mark that Babe Ruth established in 1927, and one short of tying Roger Maris’ American League record of 61, which Maris reached in 1961. The other milestone is even more consequential-- Albert Pujols hitting his 700th career home run joining a very exclusive club of sluggers.

Reaching the 700 homer club before Pujols was Barry Bonds, 762; Hank Aaron, 755 and Babe Ruth. 714. I don’t know if Pujols plans on playing beyond this year, but if he does, he likely would surpass Ruth’s mark. One would think that it would take at least two more years to get to the level of Aaron and Bonds. But regardless, Pujols is up in the rarefied air now even if he never hits another long ball.

I am a traditionalist at heart, so I have to admit to being a little hesitant about accepting Maris’ mark of 61 and Aaron breaking Ruth’s career mark at the time they happened, but I’ve gotten over that. Now I am having some difficulty in accepting Judge’s accomplishment, which goes to show you.

When I was a youngster and in the prime of my baseball loving days, I loved reading about Babe Ruth and his monumental career. As you all probably know, he started off as a youth in Baltimore being reared after age 7 in a Catholic reformatory (St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys). There he learned how to play baseball. He started his career as an outstanding pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and for many years held some World Series records for pitching. He started playing every day in 1919 and hit 29 home runs, which was the major league record at the time. After that season he was sold to the New York Yankees, where he had his most productive years as a batter. He hit 54 home runs in his first year as a Yankee. He broke that mark the next year, hitting 59.

Babe was a known carouser. His roommate on the road, Ping Bodie, commented once “I am not the roommate of Babe Ruth. I room with his suitcase.” Many stories are told about his capacity for eating hot dogs and drinking soda pop. He was ill once and the illness was attributed to binging on hot dogs and pop. This illness was known as the stomachache heard around the world. It was even rumored that he had died at one point and a couple of newspapers in Great Britain published obituaries. What the illness was has never been revealed, but Ruth was out of action for quite a while and played in only 98 games that year (1925). The illness can be traced back to spring training in Hot Springs, Ark, and he struggled for almost the entire season. His batting average was only .290 (low for Ruth) and he hit only 25 home runs. The Yankees also had a bad year finishing in seventh place in the eight-team American League with a record of 69-85 record, their last season with a losing record until 1965.

Ruth also was known for going regularly to Mass and contributing to many charitable causes. When stories about his more admirable traits would emerge, Ruth was quick to squelch their telling.

It was the colorful image of Ruth that I had fostered as a youngster that made it difficult for me to accept Maris and Aaron when they surpassed his records.

Actually, I really liked Roger Maris. He had become a favorite of mine when he was an outfielder for the Kansas City A’s. He started in the MLB in 1957 as a member of the Cleveland Indians. In the middle of the 1958 season he was traded to Kansas City along with Dick Tomanek and Preston Ward for Vic Power and Woodie Held.

In Kansas City he hit 19 home runs in 99 games and was immediately elevated to star status in an environment hungry for a star. He missed about 40 games in 1959 due to appendicitis and after the season he went the way of most of Kansas City’s better players, traded to the Yankees. He was traded with Kent Hadley and Joe DeMaestri for Marv Throneberry, Norm Siebert, Hank Bauer and Don Larsen. I was excited about the trade even though I liked Maris. Siebert, Bauer and Larsen were others who were favorites of mine. I didn’t take into account at the time that Bauer and Larsen were past their most productive years.

In New York, Maris really blossomed into a home run threat in the 1961 season, he and teammate Mickey Mantle went on a homer spree and through much of year were involved in a contest to see who would break Ruth’s record of 60. Mantle became ill towards the end of the season and had to drop out of the race. Maris hit No. 61 on the last day of the season. I remember reading about it because I had to work and wasn’t near a television set when the game was played. An asterisk was placed by Maris’ record in the official MLB stats because Ruth’s record was set in a 154-game season, while it took Maris 162 games to break it. I was OK with that rule at the time, because Babe’s mark would still be recognized. Maris never came close to hitting that many home runs after that year.

I had some of the same reservations when Henry Aaron threatened Ruth’s career home run record. I liked Aaron when he was a young member of the Milwaukee Braves, one of my favorite National League teams. Aaron was a model of consistency. The most home runs he hit in a season were 47, a number he reached in 1971. He hit 40 or more homers in eight of his 23 years in the majors. One of the things I remember most about his early career was that he hit a walkoff home run against the St. Louis Cardinals in 1957 to give the Braves the NL pennant. As I said earlier, the Braves were my favorites at the time in the National League and I was an excited listener to the Cardinals network that night. The Cards and the Braves had battled down to the wire that year with the Braves winning out. Aaron had a great year in 1973 and hit 40 home runs that year. He hit his 713th home run one day before the season ended and with one game remaining it was thought he might tie Ruth’s 714 mark yet that season. But he didn’t and because he had received many death threats he and his family were fearful he might not live through the off season. The US Postal Service gave Aaron a plaque for having received 930,000 pieces of mail more than anyone other than politicians and most of it was in support of his efforts and urging him to continue his pursuit of Ruth’s record. He did break the mark early in the 1974 season getting the homer off of Al Downing of the Dodgers before a sell-out crowd in Atlanta. He went on to play a couple of more years and hit 765 long balls by the time he retired.

Barry Bonds is the other member of the 700 club. His mark is tainted by the presence of performance enhancing drugs associated with Bonds and a number of other home run hitters in that era. I always liked Bonds and would tend to agree that he probably would have hit 700 home runs even without the steroids.

I am happy for Albert Pujols, the latest member of the club. I remember when he came up as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals hearing the late Jack Buck and his broadcast partner, Mike Shannon, give glowing reports on his activities. They said at the time that he was a special player and I remember Shannon making the statement, “One day we will see him in the Hall of Fame.” That was high praise for a rookie, but Pujols proved Shannon right. I am pulling for him to hit more, maybe even surpassing Ruth’s 714.

As far as Judge is concerned, I only wish him well. He is a young player, so it is likely that he will establish many records during his career. In hitting his 60th home run, he joins Bonds (73), Mark McGwire (70 and 65) , Sammy Sosa (66, 64, 63), Maris (61) and Ruth (60). Ruth hit 59 as did Giancarlo Stanton in 2017. McGwire and Sosa suffer the same association with steroids that Bonds does.

Will anyone break Bonds’ mark of 73. Probably. Many think Judge will be the one.