MLB Legends

The Pre-1970 Hall of Famers

Sports Name Game covers the live-stats era starting in 1970, but we've added the all-time Hall of Fame greats because no trivia game would be complete without them. These are the names that belong in any baseball conversation.

Babe Ruth

Babe Ruth is the most famous baseball player in history and arguably the most famous athlete America has ever produced. He joined the New York Yankees in 1920 and proceeded to hit more home runs than most entire teams were hitting in a season - in 1920, he hit 54 home runs; the next-best team total in the American League was 44. He career total of 714 home runs stood as the all-time record until 1974. Beyond the numbers, Ruth transformed baseball from a small-ball, contact-oriented game into the power game that modern fans recognize. The Yankees' dynasty, Yankee Stadium (originally nicknamed "The House That Ruth Built"), and the commercial sports industry as we know it all grew directly from his cultural reach.

Willie Mays

Willie Mays is the player most often cited by those who watched him play as the greatest to ever do it. He hit 660 career home runs, batted .302 for his career, won twelve consecutive Gold Gloves in center field, and ran the bases with a recklessness that made him a threat every time he reached. But the statistic that doesn't capture him is the one that matters most: Mays played every part of the game at an elite level simultaneously, which almost no one else has ever done. His over-the-shoulder running catch in the 1954 World Series - "The Catch" - remains the most replayed defensive play in baseball history.

Ted Williams and Hank Aaron

Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941 - the last player to hit .400 over a full season - and missed nearly five full seasons due to military service in World War II and Korea. By his own reckoning, and the reckoning of most analysts, those lost seasons would have given him numbers that made every other batting record look modest. Hank Aaron was the player who finally broke Ruth's career home run record, hitting number 715 on April 8, 1974, doing so while enduring years of death threats and hate mail. His final total of 755 home runs stood for 33 years. Aaron's consistency - he never had a single season of fewer than 24 home runs from 1955 to 1973 - is a kind of greatness that highlights don't capture.

The Modern Greats (1970–2010)

Nolan Ryan

Nolan Ryan pitched for 27 seasons and recorded 5,714 career strikeouts - 839 more than the second-place Randy Johnson. He threw seven no-hitters, the last at age 44 with the Texas Rangers. His fastball was still being clocked at over 95 mph in his final seasons. Ryan is the best argument available that raw stuff, maintained over a career, can produce a kind of longevity that defies conventional wisdom about when pitchers decline.

Rickey Henderson

Rickey Henderson is the greatest leadoff hitter in baseball history, and it's not particularly debatable. He stole 1,406 career bases - the all-time record by a margin of over 400. He scored 2,295 career runs, also the all-time record. He held the single-season stolen base record (130 in 1982). He was one of the few players who combined elite power (297 career home runs), a high on-base percentage, and exceptional baserunning into a package that changed how managers structured lineups. When asked about his legendary confidence, Henderson once remarked that Rickey doesn't brag; Rickey just tells the truth.

Barry Bonds, Greg Maddux, and Randy Johnson

Barry Bonds hit 762 career home runs - the all-time record - and his 2001 season, in which he hit 73 home runs while drawing 177 walks, is the most statistically dominant offensive season in baseball history. His name is inseparable from the steroid era, and his Hall of Fame case remains unresolved. Greg Maddux won four consecutive Cy Young Awards from 1992 to 1995 and made pitching look like an exercise in geometry - his command of the strike zone's edges was unprecedented. Randy Johnson was 6'10" and threw a fastball that moved, which made him one of the most terrifying pitchers left-handed hitters ever faced. His 303 career wins and 4,875 strikeouts secured his first-ballot Hall of Fame induction.

Cal Ripken Jr. and Derek Jeter

Cal Ripken Jr. played in 2,632 consecutive games, breaking Lou Gehrig's record in September 1995 in one of the most emotional moments in baseball history. The streak ran from May 30, 1982 to September 20, 1998 - through five managers, numerous losing seasons, and a championship drought that finally ended in 1983. Derek Jeter was the Yankees' captain for twelve seasons and won five championships. His "flip play" in the 2001 ALDS, his walk-off home run on his final game at Yankee Stadium, and his steady production over two decades made him the defining Yankee of his generation.

Today's Stars

Shohei Ohtani

Shohei Ohtani is the most unusual player in the history of professional baseball. He pitches at an ace level and hits at an MVP level - simultaneously. In 2021 and 2023, he won the American League MVP award while also posting an ERA below 3.00 as a starting pitcher. No player since Babe Ruth in 1918–19 had contributed meaningfully at both positions. Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2023, the largest contract in professional sports history at the time. If he stays healthy, his career numbers will require a new framework to evaluate.

Mike Trout, Aaron Judge, and Mookie Betts

Mike Trout spent his peak seasons compiling the highest WAR total of any player in the live-ball era through his first decade in the league - injuries have complicated the second act, but his peak remains historically elite. Aaron Judge broke the American League home run record in 2022 with 62, surpassing Roger Maris's mark from 1961. Mookie Betts won an MVP with the Boston Red Sox and a championship with the Dodgers, and his combination of power, speed, and defense makes him one of the most complete players of his era.

MLB Letter Strategy in Sports Name Game

With over 11,600 players in the MLB pool, baseball offers the deepest roster in Sports Name Game - which means more options in most situations, but also trickier traps if you don't know the landscape.

Letters to lean on: R is one of the richest starting letters in baseball history. Robinson, Rodriguez, Ryan, Ripken, Ruth, Rice, Ramirez - when you need an "R" player, you have decades of depth to draw from. S and J are similarly loaded. If you can steer the chain toward these letters for your opponent, you're handing them an easy turn and burning through comfortable picks. Better to force them to less familiar territory.

Letters to weaponize: Q is almost nonexistent as a starting letter for MLB last names. If the chain requires your opponent to name someone whose last name starts with Q, you've put them in a genuinely difficult spot. X and U are nearly as rare. Strategically, you want to end your turn on a player whose last name starts with one of these letters - that means you need to have a player in mind whose first name starts with Q, X, or U, so you can produce them when the chain demands it.

The fuzzy-match edge: Sports Name Game uses spelling tolerance, so you don't need to get every accent or suffix exactly right. "Pedro Martinez" is accepted even if you type "Pedro Martínez" without the accent. "Cal Ripken" finds "Cal Ripken Jr." This is worth knowing - don't avoid a great answer because you're unsure of a tricky spelling.