Video-Manny Ramirez Hits His 500th Home Run - YouTube

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6/1/08

Manny Ramirez Hits His 500th Home Run

Manny Has Officially Punched His Ticket To The Hall Of Fame

MLB, 500 Home Run Club

100%InjuryRate

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I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone that thinks Manny Ramirez doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame, but that doesn't matter anymore as Manny hit his 500th home run in Baltimore last night. This now firmly cements him as a first ballot Hall of Famer.

I realize 500 home runs doesn't mean what it used to, look at how McGwire did with Hall of Fame balloting. But Ramirez is a different case. He's exactly like Ken Griffey Jr. We know he never used performance enhancing drugs, so we hold his achievements in a different light than we do Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, etc.

That said though, I don't want to diminish Ramirez's accomplishments either. For all the grief that Manny Ramirez gets for being a space cadet, he is, in my mind, one of the greatest right handed hitters of the last 25 years - if not the greatest.

Ramirez is a career .312 hitter with an on-base percentage of over .400. He currently has a higher career slugging percentage than Alex Rodriguez and Mark McGwire (that's astounding). He's had 11 seasons in which he's driven in more than 100 runs and 13 seasons in which he's driven in more than 80 runs.

I know Ramirez isn't going to the Hall of Fame for his defense, no question. But in terms of his batting statistics, Manny is by far one of the all-time greats to ever play the game.

Granted, Manny doesn't have a regular season MVP, and the best he's ever done is finish third twice. But he's also been on two World Series winning teams and was an MVP of one of them. In other words, he's also delivered when it's counted, something A-Rod still has to prove he can do.