Why they rank here
Aaron is the sport's monument to sustained excellence. He never hit 50 home runs in a season, yet finished with 755 — breaking Ruth's record on April 8, 1974, while receiving nearly a million pieces of mail, much of it death threats — and he remains the all-time leader in RBI (2,297) and total bases (6,856, a full 722 ahead of second place). He hit .305 for a quarter century, collected 3,771 hits, made a record 25 All-Star selections, and posted 15 seasons of 30-plus homers. Remove all 755 home runs from his record and he would still have more than 3,000 hits. Aaron's 143.1 WAR understates the difficulty of his context: he began in the Negro Leagues with the Indianapolis Clowns in 1952 and produced his greatest seasons through the pitching-dominant 1960s in Milwaukee and Atlanta, far from the media capitals that minted legends.
Career profile
Each bar shows how this athlete compares with the strongest in our all-time list for that metric.
Head-to-head
Compare career numbers side by side.