Homers for the hometown

In honor of Stan Musial's 90th birthday today and inspired by George Vescey's column in The New York Times, I was curious to see which towns produced the most prolific home run duos in history. Stan and Ken Griffey Jr., representing Donora, Pa., were bumped down from third to fourth late this season when a New York-born slugger added on to his total for his New York team.

I filtered the top home-run hitters born in the United States on Baseball-Reference, then arranged them by birthplace as listed on the site and got these top duos:

Mobile, Ala. (Hank Aaron 755, Willie McCovey 521), 1,276

Baltimore (Babe Ruth 714, Al Kaline 399): 1,113

New York (Alex Rodriguez 613, Lou Gehrig 493), 1,106

Donora, Pa. (Ken Griffey Jr. 630, Stan Musial 475), 1,105

Riverside, Calif. (Barry Bonds 762, Bobby Bonds 332), 1,094

Tampa (Gary Sheffield 509, Fred McGriff 493), 1,002

Los Angeles (Eddie Murray 504, Duke Snider 407), 911

San Diego (Ted Williams 521, Graig Nettles 390), 911

Beaumont, Texas (Frank Robinson 586, Gus Zernial 237): 823

Oklahoma City (Joe Carter 396, Johnny Bench 389), 785

Portland, Ore. (Dale Murphy 398, Richie Sexson 306), 704

St. Paul, Minn. (Dave Winfield 465, Paul Molitor 234), 699

Shreveport, La. (Albert Belle 381, Reggie Smith 314), 695

St. Louis (Yogi Berra 358, Roy Sievers 318), 676

Sacramento (Greg Vaughn 355, Derrek Lee 312), 667

Columbus, Ohio (Frank Howard 382, Paul O'Neill 281), 663

Chicago (Greg Luzinski 307, Fred Lynn 306), 613

Seattle (Ron Santo 342, John Olerud 255), 597

Westminster, Calif. (Jeromy Burnitz 315, Ryan Klesko 278), 593

New Orleans (Rusty Staub 292, Will Clark 284), 576

Pittsburgh (Hank Sauer 288, Frank Thomas 286), 574

El Cajon, Calif. (Brian Giles 287, Bret Boone 252), 539

Long Beach, Calif. (Tim Salmon 299, Jeff Burroughs 240), 539

Philadelphia (Del Ennis 288, Roy Campanella 242), 530

Tallahassee (Dean Palmer 275, J.D. Drew 238), 513

If we were to rank cities based on all American-born players in the top 200 results, we'd get these totals (players in parentheses below are in addition to the pairs above; the four towns in italics had no additional players in the top 200):

Los Angeles (Darryl Strawberry 335, Troy Glaus 320, Cecil Fielder 319, Garret Anderson 287, Eric Davis 282, Brian Downing 275, George Hendrick 267, Todd Zeile 253, Joe Gordon 253, Ray Lankford 238, Eric chavez 230), 3,970

New York (Rocky Colavito 374, Hank Greenberg 331, Edgar Martinez 309, Ken Singleton 246, Raul Ibanez 232), 2,598

Tampa (Luis Gonzalez 354, Tino Martinez 339, Steve Garvey 272), 1,967

San Diego (Deron Johnson 245, Kevin Mitchell 234), 1,390

Chicago (Rickey Henderson 297, Wally Berger 242, Cliff Floyd 233), 1,385

Riverside, Calif. (Dusty Baker 242), 1,336

Oklahoma City (Bobby Murcer 252, Mickey Tettleton 245), 1,282

Mobile, Ala. (Hank Aaron 755, Willie McCovey 521), 1,276

Baltimore (Babe Ruth 714, Al Kaline 399): 1,113

New York (Alex Rodriguez 613, Lou Gehrig 493), 1,106

Donora, Pa. (Ken Griffey Jr. 630, Stan Musial 475), 1,105

St. Louis (Ryan Howard 253), 929

And, lastly, I was curious how the list might look when accounting for home runs per capita. Of course, we'd have to take into account all cities, because ... well, as you'll see, Jimmie Foxx hit a homer for every person in his tiny hometown.

Sudlersville, Md. (Foxx), 534 homers/396 population, 1.34 HR/person

Spavinaw, Okla. (Mantle), 536 homers/582 population, 0.92 HR/person

Earlsboro, Okla. (Stargell), 475 homers/667 population, 0.71 HR/person

Westfield, Ala. (Mays), 660 homers/1,403 population, 0.47 HR/person

Donora, Pa. (Griffey/Musial), 1,105 homers/5,253 population, 0.21 HR/person

Now, in no way is this a scientific study. It's something I threw together on a Sunday afternoon watching football, using 2000 census data. Numbers for Sudlersville, Md., were not available before 1990, so it's likely that fewer than 396 people lived in the hamlet when Foxx was born in 1907. But these are the numbers available, so that's what I used. And to keep it consistent, I went with the 2000 census data for all towns. Ideally, I would've averaged the populations for the towns and cities over the time period from the first-born player on the list to the most recent, but that would involve numbers and formulas that no one should be playing around with on a Sunday afternoon.

Ike's rookie power

Ike Davis' 14th home run last night marked the most by a Mets rookie since David Wright hit 14 during his rookie year in 2004, when he also was an in-season callup. Wright hit his 14 in 69 games (283 plate appearances), Davis needed 84 games (344 PAs). The current corners of the Mets infield now rank third in rookie-year home runs in team history.

Ahead of the pair is Ron Swoboda's 19 long balls in 1965 and the best hitter developed by the Mets until Wright came along, Darryl Strawberry, who hit 26 in 1983. At Davis' current rate of one homer every 24.7 plate appearances and estimating 245 more PAs this season (based on his 115 in May and 110 in June), he could have about 10 more left in him, putting him at 24.

Whether he hits more or less depends on the adjustments he makes as pitchers become even more familiar with him and his endurance as he plays past Labor Day for the first time in his career. But the home run rate is right on his combined numbers from St. Lucie and Binghamton in 2009: his 20 homers in 488 PAs was one every 24.4 at-bats. (In his 42 PAs at Triple-A Buffalo to start 2010, he hit two, or one every 21 PAs.) I left out his 2008 pro debut in Brooklyn, when he went homerless in 239 PAs, because that was no doubt an aberration as he adjusted to professional ball after being drafted that June out of Arizona State. And if you want the high end of his ability, perhaps what he did at Double-A last summer is an indication: He hit 13 homers in 233 PAs, or one every 17.9 trips to the dish.

Here are the best home run totals (10+) by Mets rookies, courtesy Baseball-Reference:

Rk	Player	HR ▾	Year	Age	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	RBI	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	SF	GDP	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
1	Darryl Strawberry	26	1983	21	122	473	420	63	108	15	7	74	47	9	128	4	2	5	19	6	.257	.336	.512	.848
2	Ron Swoboda	19	1965	21	135	438	399	52	91	15	3	50	33	3	102	3	2	10	2	3	.228	.291	.424	.714
3	David Wright	14	2004	21	69	283	263	41	77	17	1	40	14	0	40	3	3	7	6	0	.293	.332	.525	.857
4	Ike Davis	14	2010	23	84	347	311	47	78	18	0	46	34	3	85	1	1	9	1	0	.251	.326	.444	.769
5	Jeromy Burnitz	13	1993	24	86	306	263	49	64	10	6	38	38	4	66	1	2	2	3	6	.243	.339	.475	.814
6	Jim Hickman	13	1962	25	140	452	392	54	96	18	2	46	47	2	96	3	3	9	4	4	.245	.328	.401	.729
7	Steve Henderson	12	1977	24	99	398	350	67	104	16	6	65	43	2	79	1	4	13	6	3	.297	.372	.480	.852
8	Mike Jacobs	11	2005	24	30	112	100	19	31	7	0	23	10	0	22	1	1	5	0	0	.310	.375	.710	1.085
9	Ron Hunt	10	1963	22	143	600	533	64	145	28	4	42	40	0	50	13	6	13	5	4	.272	.334	.396	.730
10	Tsuyoshi Shinjo	10	2001	29	123	438	400	46	107	23	1	56	25	3	70	7	2	8	4	5	.268	.320	.405	.725

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Generated 7/24/2010.