Who will beat Pete Alonso’s single season ledger record?

The record for most ledger home runs in a single season has switched hands eleven times since 1901. Pete “The Polar Bear” Alonso is the current record holder after swatting 18 ledgers during his rookie campaign in 2019. Let’s take a look at who has held the record over the years.

Six Ledger Home Runs (1901)

The fledgling American League sought talent from all corners, including luring players away from established National League franchises. In Philadelphia, the Phillies first baseman was putting up significant numbers for an owner that was best case “frugal” and worst case “unscrupulous” when it came to player salaries. When this player wanted out after being shorted salary he deserved during the 1900 season he was only a streetcar ride away from his new team, the Philadelphia Athletics.

Hall of Famer Nap Lajoie would go on to hit home runs against every other AL team except the White Sox in 1901 setting the first record for ledger home runs in a season.1 Remarkably only two other players managed to tie this record of six: Harry Lumley in 1904 and Tim Jordan in 1906.

Seven Ledger Home Runs (1911)

It seems borderline preposterous that no batter was able to “clear” their league of ledgers in a single season in the first decade of v-Club tracking. But the data shows many players’ first seasons were lightly peppered with a handful of home runs making hitting seven ledgers in a single season thereafter very difficult. In fact, the aforementioned Harry Lumley hit nine total home runs in his first season to set the record for players debuting between 1901 and 1910.

Cubs first baseman Fred Luderus seemed destined to be one of these peppered players. In 104 plate appearances across one-and-a-half seasons with the Cubs he hit a single home run and it was against the Phillies. He was then traded to those Phillies where he didn’t hit any home runs for his first season-and-a-half with the team. Then in 1911 he exploded in a MVP-vote-getting way with sixteen home runs. And it just so happened he hit a home run against every other team in the National League. The added bonus was he was now “maxed out” against the NL, but he was not the first to do it.

It would be an incredible twelve seasons before another player tied Luderus’s seven ledgers, but after that batters were off and running. Numerous Hall of Famers maxed out in a single season (Joe Dimaggio, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantles, and Willie Mays to give an incomplete list) as did future v16 Club inductee Earl Torgeson.

Eight Ledger Home Runs (1954)

While it seems easy to hit seven ledgers in a season, hitting eight or more appears magnitudes more difficult. This is because a mid-season transaction would need to move a player to a second team AND the schedule and luck have to be on their side. The easy way to do it is to switch leagues mid season. The batter who set the record did it the hard way.

Bill Wilson started the 1954 season with the Chicago White Sox and hit two home runs while there, against the Orioles and Athletics. He was traded to the Athletics on June 11 and proceeded to hit fifteen more home runs and ledger-cleared all remaining opponents (and interestingly did not hit another against the Orioles that season). By my calculations, Bill Wilson is the only player to clear an entire league in a single season.

Nine Ledger Home Runs (1961)

When the first expansion happened in 1961 the number of opportunities for ledgers grew. A batter in the American League could now clear nine ledgers in a season without needing a transaction. Three players were able to do so in 1961 and the first was Ken Hunt playing for the expansion Angels. Eight other players also collected nine in a single season over the next seven seasons, all of them in the American League (except Clete Boyer in the NL) despite the National League also expanding to 10 teams in 1962.

Ten Ledger Home Runs (1969)

MLB has its third expansion in 1969 which added a pair of teams to both the American League and National League, meaning a maxed season would have eleven ledgers. No player hit all eleven in 1969, but four did hit ten and the first was Carlos May on Independence Day (which is quite the tidy collection for a half season). No other played tied after the 1969 season because we moved directly to…

Eleven Ledger Home Runs (1970)

Up until the 1970 season Vada Pinson had been a lifelong National Leaguer collecting every team there except the Reds (the team for which he debuted). He was traded to Cleveland prior to the 1970 season and efficiently maxed out the American League with eleven ledgers.

Six additional players collected eleven ledgers before the next expansion.

Twelve Ledger Home Runs (1977)

Two more teams were added to the American League in 1977 making the max-out numbers 13 for the AL and 11 for the NL. Formerly a lifelong Pirate, Richie Zisk joined the White Sox and knocked out 12 of the 13 possible ledgers for the American League. Coincidentally, Jeff Burroughs did max out in the National League in 1977 with a non-recording setting eleven.

Then something strange happened. There were eight ties with Zisk’s mark of twelve and despite having the one-more-to-get-to-max available in the American League, a new record would not be set for another ten seasons.

Thirteen Ledger Home Runs (1987)

The Crime Dog, Fred McGriff, finally ponied up a 13-ledger season in his first full season with the Blue Jays. He and Jack Clark would end up being the only two players to hit 13 ledgers in a season despite the National League also moving to 14 teams in 1993.

Fourteen and Fifteen Ledger Home Runs (1997)

Whereas expansion was the driver for ledger-count growth for the first 90+ years, Interleague play stepped in to massively up the game in 1997. Now instead of being limited to the league in which you played, you could add five or six more teams per season. In 1997 this meant a single-team player could max out at eighteen. With the last expansion in 1998 that number moved up to nineteen and when inter-league division rotation began in 2002, the number climbed to twenty.

José Cruz (the junior) set the first interleague-era mark at fourteen on September 17 then broke his own record on September 24 with fifteen. That mark would neither be broken nor tied until…

Sixteen Ledger Home Runs (2003)

Which was set by Rangers rookie Mark Teixeira. The sixteen ledgers would neither be broken or tied until…

Seventeen Ledger Home Runs (2014)

Which was set by White Sox rookie José Abreu. And the seventeen ledgers would not be broken or tied until…

Eighteen Ledger Home Runs (2019)

Which was set by Mets rookie Pete Alonso. And this is where we stand today. Pete Alonso holds the record with eighteen ledger home runs in a single season but this record is far from secure.

With the introduction of the balanced schedule in 2023, a single-team player can max out at 29 teams. In 2023, Astros rookie Yanier Diaz immediately threatened the record, but fell short with 17 ledgers. The v30 Club spreadsheets pay close attention to those players who are making gains towards capturing The Polar Bear.