ESPN - A-Rod likes first pitch he sees, hits homer No. 500 - MLB

A-Rod likes the first pitch he sees, hits homer No. 500

He became the youngest to reach 500 by almost a year (330 days). It could portend future records. Or not. The previous record was held by Jimmie Foxx, who never even made it to 550 homers. Double X's 500th was his last homer of the 1940 season. Foxx had a massive drop-off in production in 1940. In the previous two years, his OPS had been unearthly, 1.166 and 1.158, and he finished first and second in the MVP balloting. (He knocked in 175 runs the year he won the MVP award. He was so good that year that he took 19 of 22 first place votes. Joe DiMaggio got none. Hank Greenberg got none, despite 58 homers.) Foxx dropped to a .993 OPS in 1940. Of course .993 is still the level of a star, so he finished sixth in the MVP balloting, but the steep decline signaled that his career was ending. The following year he dropped even more significantly, hitting only 19 homers and ending his streak of twelve consecutive seasons of 30 homers or more. That was basically the end. The Red Sox dumped him on the Cubbies early in 1942, and he proceeded to treat Chicago fans to batting averages of .205 and .050 (!!). He hung on through 1945, but all during the war years he could deliver only 15 homers and 73 RBI and a batting average below .250, so the youngest man to reach 500 finished with "only" 534.