Samuel Peralta Sosa led the National League in home runs two times. This isn’t that unusual, home run hitters tend to double up in that regard quite often. Sixteen different players have led their league at least twice since 1970.
Samuel Peralta Sosa hit 63 or more homers 3 times. He is the only player to have managed this unusual feat. Even though his reputation is somewhat tarnished by the outside factors during the offensive explosion in the late 1990s, early 2000s, you can’t deny it’s a unique feat.
Now here’s the two things that I find really weird. First, Sosa never led his league in a year where he hit 63 or more homers. Second, the three years in which he hit 63, 64, and 66 homers are the only 3 years in the history of MLB in which it was possible to hit 60 or more home runs and not lead the league.
Sammy Sosa had the strangest timing of any home run champ, ever.
’98, ’99 and ’01. How I wish those years, that era even, wasn’t tainted. It’d be so much more fun to remember.
You’re not wrong. I have a huge coffee table book about the ’98 HR chase between McGwire and Sosa, which I bought with my Christmas money when I was a bright-eyed little lad. Info on each at-bat, quotes from managers, teammates and Hall of Famers… can’t help but agree that it’d be a lot nicer to look back upon and still feel what we felt at the time rather than ‘Wow, those guys were juiced as $#@%!’