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40–40 club

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This article is about a baseball accomplishment. For the sports bar chain, see 40/40 Club. For the college soccer achievement, see List of NCAA Division I men's soccer players with 40 goals and 40 assists.

Alfonso Soriano, the third most recent player to join the 40–40 club, commemorated the occasion in 2006 by retrieving the bag from second base after his 40th steal.

In Major League Baseball (MLB), the 40–40 club is the group of batters, currently six, who have collected 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in a single season. Few professional baseball players have possessed both the power and speed to reach this level, and no players have done so more than once. Shohei Ohtani is the only player to achieve a 50–50 season, having done so in 2024.

Members

List

Key
G to 40–40 Number of games taken to reach 40–40 in that season (not the total number of games)
Team† Player's team
Season Player HR SB G to 40–40 40–40 game Ref
1988 Jose Canseco 42 40 151 September 23, 1988, Oakland Athletics† vs Milwaukee Brewers, pitcher Juan Nieves [1]
1996 Barry Bonds 42 40 158 September 27, 1996, San Francisco Giants† vs Colorado Rockies, pitcher Armando Reynoso [2]
1998 Alex Rodriguez 42 46 153 September 19, 1998, Seattle Mariners† vs Anaheim Angels, pitcher Jack McDowell [3]
2006 Alfonso Soriano 46 41 147 September 16, 2006, Milwaukee Brewers vs Washington Nationals†, pitcher Dave Bush [4]
2023 Ronald Acuña Jr. 41 73 152 September 22, 2023, Atlanta Braves† vs Washington Nationals, pitcher Patrick Corbin [5]
2024 Shohei Ohtani 52 53 126 August 23, 2024, Los Angeles Dodgers† vs Tampa Bay Rays, pitcher Colin Poche [6]
Last update: September 21, 2024

Style of play

Of the six players, four were right-handed batters and two were left-handed. Two players—Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez—are also members of the 600 home run club.[7] Rodriguez (shortstop) and Ohtani (designated hitter) are the only non-outfielders to attain 40–40. Soriano played second base exclusively from 2001 through 2005, but moved to left field starting in his 40–40 season in 2006.[8] Ohtani has been a pitcher and two-way player for most of his MLB career, but was exclusively a DH in his 50–50 season in 2024 due to an arm injury he suffered in the previous year.

For the games in which each player joined the 40–40 club, Canseco, Bonds, and Soriano joined via stealing their 40th base, while Rodriguez, Acuña Jr., and Ohtani joined by hitting their 40th home run. Ohtani is the only player to achieve both in the same game, stealing his 40th base in the fourth inning of the game and then hitting a game-winning, walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the ninth for his 40th home run.[9]

Jose Canseco and Ronald Acuña Jr. both won the MVP Award in the same year of their 40–40 seasons. Bonds finished 5th in the league on the MVP ballot, Soriano 6th, and Rodriguez 9th, the seasons in which they accomplished the 40–40. Canseco and Acuña both made the post-season during their 40–40 years, although neither team won the World Series.[10] Soriano also hit 41 doubles during his 40–40 season, the only player ever to achieve that feat.[11]

All four non-active 40–40 club members had at least 400 career home runs and 200 stolen bases. Acuña Jr. (41–37 in 2019), Soriano (39–41 in 2002), and Bonds (40–37 in 1997) were all close to having multiple 40–40 seasons. Canseco’s next closest 40–40 season was 1998 (46–29). Rodriguez hit 40 home runs on seven other occasions but never stole more than 24 bases in any of those years.

Drug use

Due to the modernity of the 40–40 club, as well as the links to the use of performance-enhancing drugs[12] by Bonds, Canseco and Rodriguez, no eligible club members have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Eligibility requires that a player has been retired five seasons or deceased for at least six months.[13] Acuña Jr and Ohtani are the only active players that have achieved a 40–40 season. Soriano fell off the Hall of Fame ballot in his first year of eligibility in 2020. Bonds made it to 10 years on the ballot but ultimately fell short in 2022, his final year of eligibility.

Bonds and Canseco were both implicated in the December 2007 Mitchell Report,[14][15] while Rodriguez admitted in 2009 to using steroids.[16][17]

Non-MLB 40–40

After stealing a base in an October 2, 2015 game for the NC Dinos, first baseman Eric Thames became the first player to reach 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in a season in a Korea Baseball Organization season.[18] The feat has never been achieved in Nippon Professional Baseball; the closest effort was Koji Akiyama's 1987 season, in which he hit 43 home runs and stole 38 bases.[19]

Early history and pioneers

The first player to approach the mark was Ken Williams in 1922, with 39 home runs and 37 stolen bases, thus making him the first player to reach the 30–30 club. It took another 30 years for another player to come close to 40–40, as Willie Mays did in 1956 with 36 home runs and 40 stolen bases. In 1973, Bobby Bonds achieved 39–43 and was unfortuate that he hit two home runs in a rain-out against the Braves on May 23, and a third home run in the 1973 MLB All Star Game, none of which counted as official home runs.

When Canseco predicted he would reach 40–40 in 1988,[20][21] he mistakenly assumed "five or six players must have done it."[22] After Canseco MLB's first 40–40, Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle was quoted as saying, "Hell, If I'd known 40–40 was going to be a big deal, I'd have done it every year!"[23] Mantle's closest record was 31–21 in 1959.[24]


See also

References

General

  • "40–40 Club". Baseball-Almanac.com. Baseball Almanac. Retrieved May 27, 2012.
  • "The 40–40 Club – Rare Feats". MLB.com. Major League Baseball. Retrieved July 4, 2012.

Specific

  1. ^ "Oakland Athletics vs Milwaukee Brewers Box Score: September 23, 1988". Baseball-Reference.com.
  2. ^ "San Francisco Giants vs Colorado Rockies Box Score: September 27, 1996". Baseball-Reference.com.
  3. ^ "Seattle Mariners vs Anaheim Angels Box Score: September 19, 1998". Baseball-Reference.com.
  4. ^ "Milwaukee Brewers vs Washington Nationals Box Score: September 16, 2006". Baseball-Reference.com.
  5. ^ "Atlanta Braves vs Washington Nationals Box Score: September 22, 2023". Baseball-Reference.com.
  6. ^ "Tampa Bay Rays vs Los Angeles Dodgers Box Score: August 23, 2024". Baseball-Reference.com.
  7. ^ "Career Leaders & Records for Home Runs". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved May 8, 2012.
  8. ^ "Soriano's first game in left field goes smoothly". ESPN (Associated Press). April 3, 2006. Retrieved June 25, 2012.
  9. ^ "Taking a deep dive into Ohtani's historic 40–40 feat". MLB.com.
  10. ^ "Most Valuable Player MVP Awards & Cy Young Awards Winners". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved May 24, 2012.
  11. ^ "Soriano first ever to reach 40–40–40 mark". Associated Press. May 24, 2012. Archived from the original on November 2, 2007. Retrieved July 31, 2007.
  12. ^ Posnanski, Joe (February 16, 2009). "The End Of An Era?". Sports Illustrated. Archived from the original on November 18, 2015. Retrieved August 21, 2012.
  13. ^ "Rules for Election". National Baseball Hall of Fame. Retrieved July 4, 2012.
  14. ^ Bloom, Barry M. (December 13, 2007). "Mitchell Report proposes solutions". MLB.com. Retrieved June 25, 2012.
  15. ^ "Baseball's Mitchell Report Players". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved May 24, 2012.
  16. ^ Gammons, Peter (February 9, 2009). "A-Rod admits, regrets use of PEDs". ESPN. Retrieved February 9, 2009.
  17. ^ Schmidt, Michael S. (February 9, 2009). "Rodriguez Admits to Using Performance-Enhancing Drugs". New York Times. Retrieved February 9, 2009.
  18. ^ "Eric Thames becomes first with 40–40 in S. Korean baseball; Park Byung-ho sets RBI mark". Yonhap. October 2, 2015. Retrieved October 2, 2015.
  19. ^ "日本のプロ野球では前人未到の４０―４０　最も惜しかったのは４３本塁打３８盗塁". Sports Hōchi. August 25, 2024. Retrieved September 20, 2024.
  20. ^ Eskenazi, Gerald (October 5, 1988). "Canseco Facing High Expectations". The New York Times. Retrieved June 17, 2012.
  21. ^ Thomas Boswell (August 19, 1988). "Jose Canseco's 40–40 Vision Starting to Come Into Focus". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
  22. ^ Roberts, Russell (1999). Stolen!: A History of Base Stealing. McFarland. p. 175. ISBN 9780786406500. Retrieved August 21, 2012.
  23. ^ Shaughnessy, Dan (June 16, 2009). "These Lakers fans are living in la-la land". The Boston Globe.
  24. ^ "Mickey Mantle Statistics and History". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved August 11, 2012.
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