Two Orioles Near 400 Home Runs

BALTIMORE —  No team has ever had two players hit their 400th home runs in the same season, and the Orioles probably won’t be the first. Still, Joe Carter is only 22 homers short, Cal Ripken 29. One way or another, the Stone Age Orioles should be good for a few milestones.

Ripken hit career homer No. 371 Wednesday night, driving a grand slam into the left-field seats in the first inning of the Orioles’ 10-1 victory over Kansas City. It’s highly doubtful he’ll finish the season with 30 homers, a total he has reached only once in his career. But sometime next season, he figures to join both the 400-homer and 3,000-hit clubs.

Take away his consecutive-games streak, and those numbers alone would qualify Ripken for the Hall of Fame. He has played most of his career at shortstop, and set both offensive and defensive records at the position. Indeed, he was a revolutionary figure in the sport, paving the way for Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and all the bigger shortstops who followed.

It’s major-league history every time Ripken walks onto the field, but the neat thing about this team is that it’s full of accomplished veterans. Carter, Roberto Alomar and Mike Mussina figure to be Hall of Fame candidates. Rafael Palmeiro, with 271 career homers, has a chance for 400.

So, two 400-homer men in the same year? Don’t count on it--there has been only one season in major-league history in which more than one player reached that total, much less more than one from the same club. According to home-run historian David Vincent, it happened in 1963, when Eddie Mathews, Duke Snider and Willie Mays all passed 400.

Chances are, Ripken and Carter both will fall short this season--Ripken has hit 17 or fewer homers in four of the past six years, and Carter probably will get 400 at-bats instead of his usual 600.