Alright it's pretty clear that everyone here thinks that Babe Ruth is the best home run hitter of all time.

So I've decided to create a thread about who you guys think is the second greatest home run hitter of all time.

Personally when I look at home run hitters I dont look at home run stats right away, what I mean by that is I don't look on how many home runs this hitter hit through his career, which is the reason why I personally believe it's Mickey Mantle. Mickey could hit the ball further then anyone that wasn't name Babe. He played most of his career with bad legs, so imagine if he was healthy all his career, he could of easily hit 700 home runs in his career in my opinion.

So who do you guys think is the second greatest home run hitter of all time and why?

There are very few people who, every time they step up to the plate, I am thinking home run. Mark McGwire was one such hitter. Every time I saw him at bat, I could picture him hitting a moonshot homer. McGwire reached 500 HRs in less at-bats than anyone in history, including the Babe. In fact, Ruth didn't hit his 500th homer until he had amassed 314 more ABs than McGwire took to hit 500. Barry Bonds was another who evoked images of long homers whenever he stepped up to the plate, but it was only towards the last few years of his career, unlike McGwire whose long home runs came in bunches from his days as a rookie.

So, as a 'pure' home run hitter, my nod for second place in this category goes to Big Mac.

I'll nominate a couple of choices and add some comments:

1. Josh Gibson. Hard to prove because Negro League stats are sketchy, and it is hard to know exactly the quality of competition, but he certainly was a HR hitter.

2. Ted Williams. Lost the better part of 5 years due to war, and at 35HR per season, he'd be pushing 700 HR. That written, he never had a season where he amassed a huge number of HR, which leads to,

3. Hank Aaron. Played in the 60's and still held the career HR total. Like Williams, never had a standout season for HR.

I do not consider Barry Bonds in the discussion because I personally believe that he:

a. used PEDS, and
b. his PED use coincides with his surge in power.

I personally do not believe anyone would consider Bonds the greatest HR hitter or anything like that without the PEDs. Just my opinion.