Casual Diehard

This is an obvious spinoff to the last post here, Each MLB Team's Home Run King , so before we dive into football, a minor correction... Pete Alonso  quickly broke his tie for the Mets' home run record with Darryl Strawberry , and after he did, the SNY booth mentioned Alonso being one of four active players who leads a team in dingers, and while I realized that despite mentioning Giancarlo Stanton  holding the Marlins' team record, I'd only said that Salvador Perez and José Ramirez  were looking to join Manny Machado , Mike Trout , and now Alonso "as team record holders," when what I meant was "establishing new team records with every homer." This is important context, not only because of Alonso's pending free agency and the chance that he'll join Stanton as team record holders still playing with another team (my position is the Mets should give Alonso whatever he wants to finish his career as a Met, but I don't run the Mets), but also be...

Over the weekend, Pete Alonso  tied Darryl Strawberry's  team home run record for the Mets, going deep for the 252nd time in his career. When he hits number 253, the Polar Bear will be the new owner of a record that the Straw Man had held since May 3, 1988, when he passed Dave Kingman  with career home run 155. Strawberry continued to add to his club record through the 1990 season, and his departure for Los Angeles not only ended an era of Mets baseball, but also froze the team record at a relatively low number. The only teams whose home run records are below the Mets' figure are the Diamondbacks ( Luis Gonzalez , 224) and Padres, who are 13 Manny Machado  dingers away from becoming the 30th and final major league team to have a 200-home run hitter. Alonso is only signed through this season, with a player option for next year, but he can still move the Mets up the home run record leaderboard by passing Evan Longoria's  tally of 261 home runs for the Rays. The Ma...