Willie Mays Holds a Mind-Blowing Home Run Record That'll Never Be Broken

I had to double-check this to make sure it was legit.

Willie Mays was one of the most complete baseball players the game has ever seen. He accomplished just about everything a player would want to during a professional career.

Mays was a 24-time All-Star and won All-Star Game MVP honors twice. He was also the regular-season MVP twice and took home 12 Gold Glove Awards. Let’s also not forget that with 3,293 hits and 660 homers, he’s one of just seven players in the 3,000-hit & 500-homer club.

His 660 homers ranked third on the all-time list behind Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714) for a very long time. Barry Bonds (762), Albert Pujols (703), and Alex Rodriguez (696) have now pushed him down to sixth all-time. That’s still pretty good, and he probably won’t be dropping out of the top 10 anytime soon.

But I found the following Willie Mays fact while surfing the internet in hopes of uncovering something cool to write about for you all today. This was so cool — and seemed so unrealistic — that I had to confirm it more than once.

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Willie Mays’ Unique (& Probably Unbreakable) Home Run Record

It didn’t matter when Mays stepped up to the plate during a game — he was always a threat to do some damage with a bat in his hands. Here are some of his career numbers at specific points in a contest:

• Innings 1-3: .944 OPS with 251 homers, 738 RBI, and 719 runs scored

• Innings 4-6: .916 OPS with 192 homers, 540 RBI, and 649 runs scored

• Innings 7-9: .963 OPS with 191 homers, 563 RBI, and 608 runs scored

• Extra Innings: .993 OPS with 21 homers, 42 RBI, and 84 runs scored

Those numbers are impressive but also not shocking. I mean, this is Willie Mays we’re talking about — of course, he was good at all times!

But that’s not the most impressive part. It’s not just that he was a constant threat. There was a legitimate chance he’d take a hurler deep at any moment. According to SABR, Mays holds the MLB record for hitting a home run in the most different innings.

The Say Hey Kid hit at least one dinger in each inning between the first and 16th! That’s just about unfathomable to think about.

Which Homers Were The Toughest For Him to Hit?

In their write-up about this accomplishment, the folks at SABR provided a breakdown of the first homer Mays hit in each frame. It’s an interesting look at how quickly he checked most of these boxes off, as well as how long it took for him to complete his bingo card, so to speak.

Mays was a big-league rookie in 1951. He slugged 20 taters in his Rookie of the Year campaign and went yard in 10 different innings (first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th, and 13th). It took him until the 1954 season to hit a homer in the third inning, but he also added a 14th-inning homer to his ledger that same year.

The right-handed slugger followed that up by going deep in the 11th and 12th innings in separate contests during the 1955 season. So, that only left the 15th and 16th innings as the final ones he had to cross off.

Interestingly enough, the 16th-inning homer came first, which he hit on July 26, 1963, while facing the Milwaukee Braves. It was the only run scored in an all-time pitcher’s duel between Juan Marichal and Warren Spahn (both hurlers threw complete games!). It took Mays until 1968 to get that elusive 15th-inning homer, which he launched on Sept. 27 against the Cincinnati Reds.

Since regular-season games now feature an automatic runner on second base from the 10th inning on, extra-inning contests rarely reach the 11th or 12th, let alone the 16th. So, this unique record from Mays is most likely safe for a very, very long time.