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500 career home runs is one of baseball’s magical milestones, with only 28 players in league history having reached that mark as of the end of the 2021 MLB season; aside from those with issues of steroid usage during their careers (e.g. Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, etc.), it is also generally viewed as an automatic ticket to the Hall of Fame. Among this illustrious group, two of the first 10 players to achieve the milestone were Ernie Banks and Eddie Mathews – both longtime NL stars and peers in the 1950s and 1960s, each played a non-traditional power position (shortstop and third base, respectively) and finished his career with exactly 512 home runs, which makes for an interesting comparison:
Who was better – Ernie Banks or Eddie Mathews?
The Beginning
Both originally from Texas, Banks and Mathews took very different paths to MLB, yet each was an immediate contributor at the major league level starting from his rookie season.
The second of a dozen children, Banks grew up in Dallas, Texas, where he was originally indifferent to baseball, instead participating in swimming, basketball, and football. Under the influence of his father, a former semi-professional baseball player, he eventually played semi-professional baseball and fastpitch softball for a church team while also doing basketball, football, and track for his high school. Signed by the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League in 1951, Banks then spent a couple of years serving with the Army in Germany during the Korean War before re-joining the Monarchs in 1953; later that year, he was signed by the Chicago Cubs and would make his major league debut late in the season, playing 10 games. Then, as a rookie in 1954, he hit .275 with 19 home runs, 79 runs batted in, 70 runs scored, a .326 on-base percentage, and a .427 slugging percentage (94 OPS+, which measures on-base percentage plus slugging vs. a league-wide average set at 100) to finish second for NL Rookie of the Year.
Meanwhile, born in Texas, but raised in Santa Barbara, California, Mathews was a high school baseball star who was signed by the then-Boston Braves in 1949 upon graduation. Following a couple of years in the team’s farm system, he was called up to the big leagues in 1952, hitting .242 with 25 home runs, 58 runs batted in, 80 runs scored, a .320 on-base percentage, and a .447 slugging percentage (113 OPS+) to place third in NL Rookie of the Year voting.
Career Comparison
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Banks and Mathews were not only perennial All-Star sluggers and MVP candidates, but in the pre-free agency era, established themselves as respective franchise faces of the Cubs and Braves.
In just his second full season, Banks emerged as an MVP candidate by hitting .295 with 44 home runs, 117 runs batted in, 98 runs scored, a .345 on-base percentage, and a .596 slugging percentage (144 OPS+) to finish third for NL MVP and earn his first All-Star selection; the 44 home runs were a single-season record for a shortstop at the time. Between 1955 and 1962, he was an All-Star and would hit at least 25 home runs with 80 runs batted in every season. Following a slight dip in production in 1956, he had another 40-home run year in 1957 and finished sixth for MVP: .285 batting average with 43 home runs, 102 runs batted in, 113 runs scored, a .360 on-base percentage, and a .579 slugging percentage, good for a 149 OPS+. This culminated in Banks becoming the first NL player ever to win back-to-back MVP awards:
- 1958: a career-high .313 batting average with a league-leading 47 home runs (also a personal best) and 129 runs batted in, a career-best 113 runs scored, a .366 on-base percentage, and a league-high and career-high .614 slugging percentage (155 OPS+)
- 1959: .304 batting average with 45 home runs, a league-best and career-best 143 runs batted in, 97 runs scored, a career-high .374 on-base percentage, and a .596 slugging percentage (156 OPS+)
Entering the 1960s, Banks continued his dominance in 1960 – in addition to finishing fourth for MVP by hitting .271 with a league-high 41 home runs with 117 runs batted in, 94 runs scored, a .350 on-base percentage, and a .554 slugging percentage (146 OPS+), he also won his first and only Gold Glove at shortstop. However, due to persistent knee issues, he made the move from shortstop to left field and eventually to first base in 1961, where he would spend the rest of his career. Though the power was still there (37 home runs and 104 runs batted in for the 1962 season), Banks’ overall production began to wane, culminating in a career-worst 1963 season in which he hit a paltry .227. From this low, he improved back to the .260 range and continued to be a run producer, hitting .265 in 1965 with 28 home runs, 106 runs batted in, 79 runs scored, a .328 on-base percentage, and a .453 slugging percentage, good for a 116 OPS+ and his first All-Star selection since 1962.
A beloved figure in Chicago known as “Mr. Cub”, Banks remained a productive, albeit no longer superstar player in his mid-30s. Appointed as a player-coach in 1967, he did manage to reclaim some of his previous glory over the next couple of season, twice making the All-Star team with a final 30-home run campaign in 1968 (32 home runs and 83 runs batted in, but just a .246 batting average) and a final All-Star appearance in 1969 (23 home runs and 106 runs batted in). During the 1970 season, he became just the ninth player in league history to reach 500 career home runs and would then play sparingly in 1971 before retiring at age 40; upon retirement, Banks’ 277 home runs at shortstop were an all-time record (now held by Cal Ripken Jr.) and he is the Cubs’ all-time career leader in games played, at-bats, extra-base hits, and total bases.
Likewise, with the Braves moving to Milwaukee in 1953, Mathews broke out in his sophomore campaign by hitting .302 with a league-leading and career-best 47 home runs, a career-high 135 runs batted in, 110 runs scored, a .406 on-base percentage, and a career-high .627 slugging percentage (171 OPS+) to not only earn the first of a dozen All-Star selections (including every season from 1955 to 1962), but also finish second for NL MVP to Roy Campanella. From there, he would team up with Hank Aaron to form one of the most potent one-two punches in baseball history; while Aaron was for many years the all-time home run king, Mathews was no slouch in his own right, racking up nine straight seasons with 30+ home runs. Immediately following his near-MVP season, Mathews followed up in 1954 and 1955 with back-to-back seasons of 40+ home runs and 100+ runs batted in; though his batting average and run production declined over the next couple of years (with then-career worsts of a .251 batting average and 77 runs batted in during the 1958 season), he continued to swat 30+ dingers and score around 100 runs a year.
As the 1950s came to a close, Mathews returned to peak form – in 1959, he once again was MVP runner-up (this time to Banks) on the strength of a career-high .306 batting average, a league-best 46 home runs, 114 runs batted in, a career-best 118 runs scored, a .390 on-base percentage, and a .535 slugging percentage, good for a 168 OPS+. The next season would be his last 30-100 and top-10 MVP campaign (39 home runs, 124 runs batted in, and 108 runs scored), but he retained his eagle eye at the plate – for three consecutive seasons from 1961 to 1963, Mathews led the NL in walks (4x overall), highlighted by a career-high 124 walks and a league-best .399 on-base percentage in 1963.
At this point in his career, Mathews settled into hitting around .260 a year with 25 home runs and 80-90 runs batted in annually, though had a final 30+ home run season in 1965 (32 home runs and 95 runs batted in). Upon the Braves moving to Atlanta in 1966, he became the only player in franchise history to play in all three cities (Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta). However, he only spent a lone season in Atlanta before being traded to the Houston Astros; during his dozen plus years playing with Aaron, the duo surpassed New York Yankees greats Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig for most home runs by teammates in MLB history. While Mathews did hit his 500th career home run with Houston (seventh player to reach the milestone), he struggled overall and was dealt mid-season to the Detroit Tigers, where he spent one-and-half seasons before retiring after the 1968 season at age 36.
Starting their MLB careers a year apart, Banks ultimately played a couple of more seasons with more career games played and at-bats; as a result, he accumulated more career hits and runs batted in with a slightly higher batting average, but both players had exactly 512 career home runs, with Mathews actually racking up more runs scored and walks with a better career on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS+. On a seasonal basis, their production is also mixed: Mathews had more .300+ seasons (3 to 2), 30+ home run seasons (10 to 7), and seasons with 100+ runs scored (8 to 2), but Banks more frequently hit 40+ home runs (5x vs. 4x) and drove in 100+ runs (8x vs. 5x). Accolades-wise, this resulted in more All-Star Game selections for Banks (14 vs. 12), plus the two MVP awards and a Gold Glove; on the other hand, however, when you look at each player’s career through the lens of Wins Above Replacement, Mathews comes out comfortably ahead at 96.2 to 67.8. Nevertheless, as two of the top sluggers of their generation, the duo went into the Hall of Fame one after the other, Banks in 1977 followed by Mathews in 1978.
Regular Season Statistics
| Ernie Banks | Player | Eddie Mathews |
| 19 (1953-1971) | Seasons | 17 (1952-1968) |
| 2,528 | Games Played | 2,391 |
| 9,421 | At-Bats | 8,537 |
| 2,583 | Hits | 2,315 |
| 1,305 | Runs | 1,509 |
| 512 | Home Runs | 512 |
| 1,636 | Runs Batted In | 1,453 |
| 763 | Walks | 1,444 |
| 50 | Stolen Bases | 68 |
| .274 | Batting Average | .271 |
| .330 | On-Base Percentage | .376 |
| .500 | Slugging Percentage | .509 |
| 122 | OPS+ | 143 |
| 67.8 | Wins Above Replacement | 96.2 |
| 14x | All-Star Games | 12x |
| 2x | MVP | – |
| – | World Series Titles | 2x |
| 1x Gold Glove | Other Awards | – |
| 1977 | Hall of Fame Induction | 1978 |
Source: Baseball-Reference.com
With their overlapping careers primarily spanning the pre-expansion era when the AL and NL pennant winners met directly in the World Series, Banks and Mathews nevertheless had very different postseason success (or lack thereof).
On one hand, in spending his entire career with Chicago, like his longtime Cubs teammate Ron Santo, Banks never played in a postseason game; perhaps the closest he came was in 1969, when Chicago led the NL East for most of the season before having a dreadful final month and falling behind the eventual World Series champion New York Mets. In fact, Banks’ 2,528 regular season games are the most in MLB history without making the playoffs.
On the other hand, Mathews appeared 3x in the World Series, winning twice. In 1957, the Braves beat a Yankees team led by the likes of Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Whitey Ford in the full seven games, though Mathews hit just .227 (5 hits in 22 at-bats) with a home run and 4 runs batted in; nevertheless, that home run was a walk-off to win Game 4 in extra innings. The next season, the Braves and Yankees would meet in a rematch, but this time, the Yankees prevailed in seven games, with Mathews hitting just .160 this time. Finally, in his last MLB season with the Tigers in 1968, Detroit beat Bob Gibson’s St. Louis Cardinals in seven games; this time around, Mathews was in a reserve role and had just 3 at-bats during the series.
Playoff Statistics
| Ernie Banks | Player | Eddie Mathews |
| – | Games Played | 16 |
| – | At-Bats | 50 |
| – | Hits | 10 |
| – | Runs | 7 |
| – | Home Runs | 1 |
| – | Runs Batted In | 7 |
| – | Walks | 15 |
| – | Stolen Bases | 1 |
| – | Batting Average | .200 |
| – | On-Base Percentage | .385 |
| – | Slugging Percentage | .360 |
Source: Baseball-Reference.com
Every athlete goes through a natural career lifecycle, from starting off as a rookie to reaching peak years of performance and finally, declining into the inevitable retirement due to a combination of age and/or injury; after dominating in the 1950s and early 1960s, Banks saw his production decline after injuries forced him to move to first base, while Mathews also slowed down after his prime in Milwaukee. For Hall of Fame caliber players across sports, I like to look at a concept I call a “decade of dominance.” The thinking behind this is that for most Hall of Fame type careers, there are roughly 10 great seasons that define an athlete (this idea is embodied in a sense by the NFL’s All-Decade teams), though due to injury or other factors, they might not be 10 consecutive years.
Decade of Dominance
| Ernie Banks | Player | Eddie Mathews |
| 1955-1962, 1964, 1968 | Decade of Dominance | 1953-1962 |
| 1,513 | Games Played | 1,489 |
| 5,795 | At-Bats | 5,474 |
| 1,637 | Hits | 1,562 |
| 903 | Runs | 1,058 |
| 369 | Home Runs | 374 |
| 1,055 | Runs Batted In | 1,024 |
| 501 | Walks | 972 |
| 39 | Stolen Bases | 53 |
| .282 | Batting Average | .285 |
| .340 | On-Base Percentage | .392 |
| .541 | Slugging Percentage | .552 |
| 61.6 | Wins Above Replacement | 71.3 |
Source: Baseball-Reference.com
For the most part, when you normalize across their respective decades of dominance, Mathews holds the advantage in essentially every hitting category except for total hits and runs batted in despite fewer games played and at-bats, ultimately resulting in nearly 10 additional WAR during that span.
My Thoughts
Ernie Banks is unquestionably the most recognizable Chicago Cub of all-time, known not just for his slugging ways, but also for his cheerful disposition even during a generation of futility for the ballclub (e.g. his famous quote “it’s a great day for a ball game, let’s play two!”); in contrast, outside of Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews is arguably the greatest Braves hitter of all-time, yet is probably underrated from a historical context. However, in comparing the two legends, my vote is for Mathews – despite fewer All-Star selections and never winning an MVP award, the third baseman maintained his level of elite play for a slightly longer period of time (i.e. Banks declined faster in the 1960s, both offensively and defensively), resulting in similar career batting averages and overall run production in fewer games and at-bats. Moreover, when you dig a little deeper into the numbers beyond the usual batting average, home runs, and runs batted in, Mathews was superior to Banks in nearly every ratio metric of comparison, from on-base percentage to OPS+ to WAR. In short, while Banks may have the greater name recognition, it is Mathews who had the more productive career.
Thus, after weighing their careers against each other in terms of statistics, achievements, and impact, the winner of this faceoff is:
Eddie Mathews
As always, vote for your choice and leave your thoughts and comments below.
Further Reading
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