Willie Mays hit his 600th home run on this day in 1969, and the detail people forget is that he wasn't even in the lineup when the game started. He came off the bench in the seventh inning in San Diego, took a two-run swing off Mike Corkins, and turned a 2-2 game into a 4-2 Giants win. Second man in the history of the sport to 600. First one was Babe Ruth.
Think about that setting for a second. The Padres were an expansion team in their first season, playing in a big concrete bowl that nobody had filled yet. No confetti, no national broadcast crew waiting for the moment. A 38-year-old center fielder gets called on to pinch hit, and he does the thing he had been doing since Birmingham.
When did Willie Mays hit his 600th home run?
September 22, 1969, at San Diego Stadium. Mays was 38 years old and deep into the part of a career where the legs stop cashing the checks the swing writes. He had lost most of 1952 and all of 1953 to military service, which is the quiet math nobody ever gets to settle: two prime years, gone, for a man who finished with 660. Run the average and the number that should be on his plaque is uncomfortable to think about.
He was already the whole package by then. Rookie of the Year in 1951. MVP in 1954 and again in 1965. Twelve Gold Gloves. The catch off Vic Wertz in the '54 Series, which is still the first image most people summon when you say his name, and it says something about a man that his most famous moment is a defensive play when he hit 660 home runs.
Who is in MLB's 600 home run club?
Nine men, total, in the whole history of the game. Mays got there second and has since been passed by three.
| Player | Career HR |
|---|---|
| Barry Bonds | 762 |
| Hank Aaron | 755 |
| Babe Ruth | 714 |
| Albert Pujols | 703 |
| Alex Rodriguez | 696 |
| Willie Mays | 660 |
| Ken Griffey Jr. | 630 |
| Jim Thome | 612 |
| Sammy Sosa | 609 |
When Mays crossed the line in San Diego, that table had two names on it. Aaron didn't join until 1971. So for the better part of two years, the entire 600-homer population of planet Earth was Babe Ruth and Willie Mays, and one of them was still active, still playing center field, still stealing bases.
What comes next
Mays finished up with the Mets in 1973, went into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 1979, and died in June 2024 at 93, two days before the league played a game at Rickwood Field in Birmingham to honor the Negro Leagues and the ballpark where he started. The timing of that one still sits funny in the chest. He didn't get to see it, and the whole event turned into something else the moment the news came down.
The anniversary lands on a live baseball day, which is its own small joke. The Padres, the club that surrendered number 600, are in Los Angeles at 10:11 PM ET. The Giants, the club he made famous in two cities, host Minnesota at 9:46. Late September, pennant math, everybody counting outs.
What I'm watching next is simpler than a standings page. I'm watching to see who this era sends toward that table, because right now the line behind Pujols is short and slow. Nobody is sneaking into 600. You need 15 good years and the body to survive them, and the game does not hand those out anymore.
checked the almanac: the second man ever to 600 did it as a pinch hitter, in a stadium most fans couldn't name, in front of a crowd that barely registered. greatness rarely bothers to book the venue.