MLB Career Home Run Leaders

Barry Bonds hit 762 home runs across a 22-year career spent with the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants, and that total sits atop MLB's all-time home run list. It is also one of the most debated records in American sports, not because of any dispute over the number itself, but because of the era in which it was set. Bonds's march past Hank Aaron's long-standing mark in 2007 unfolded under intense scrutiny tied to baseball's steroid era, and that context remains inseparable from any discussion of this record today.

Before Bonds, the record belonged to Hank Aaron, who hit 755 home runs for the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves between 1954 and 1976. Aaron held the record from 1974, when he passed Babe Ruth, until Bonds passed him in 2007 — a 33-year reign. Ruth himself, who hit 714 home runs for the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees between 1914 and 1935, had held the record for decades before Aaron caught him. The lineage of this record — Ruth to Aaron to Bonds — spans nearly a century of baseball history.

How this ranking works

This list is ranked by total regular-season home runs, as recorded by Major League Baseball. Postseason home runs are not included in these totals; the methodology counts regular-season production only, consistent with how MLB itself compiles its all-time home run leaderboard.

The rest of the 700 club and beyond

Only four players in history have reached 700 career home runs: Ruth, Aaron, Bonds, and Albert Pujols, who hit 703 home runs for the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Angels between 2001 and 2022, becoming the fourth player ever to reach that threshold. That Pujols joined this group as recently as the early 2020s, decades after Ruth, Aaron, and Bonds each reached it, underscores just how rare the 700-homer milestone remains even in an era of modern training, nutrition, and sports science.

Just behind Pujols, Alex Rodriguez hit 696 home runs across a career split between Seattle, Texas, and the New York Yankees from 1994 to 2016. Willie Mays, who played from 1951 to 1973 primarily with the New York and San Francisco Giants, hit 660, a total compiled without any of the controversy attached to some of the names above him on this list. Ken Griffey Jr., who played from 1989 to 2010 mostly with the Seattle Mariners and Cincinnati Reds, rounds out this list with 630, likewise free of the PED scrutiny that shadows Bonds and Rodriguez. The presence of Mays and Griffey on this same list is a useful reminder that not every entry here carries the same baggage — the controversy below applies specifically to the players it names, not to the ranking as a whole.

A record shadowed by the steroid era

No honest discussion of this list can avoid the performance-enhancing drug controversies attached to several of the players on it. Bonds's and Rodriguez's careers are both connected to PED scrutiny, and that scrutiny has shaped how each man's statistics are perceived by fans, media, and the sport itself. The two cases, however, are not identical. Bonds was never suspended by MLB for a positive test; he played the bulk of his career before the league's formal drug-testing program began in 2004, and his link to PEDs stems largely from outside investigations and reporting rather than a positive test result under MLB's own program. Rodriguez's situation is different in kind: he served a season-long suspension in 2014 for violating MLB's drug policy, a punishment handed down by the league itself under its official testing and discipline system.

Despite this scrutiny, Major League Baseball has not vacated or asterisked either player's statistics. The totals listed here reflect the official record as maintained by the league. That is a deliberate editorial choice on MLB's part, not an oversight, and this ranking follows that same approach: it lists the official numbers as MLB records them, while making the surrounding context clear rather than omitting it.

Limitations and how to read this list honestly

Because this record spans more than a century of baseball — from Ruth's dead-ball-era transition in the 1910s to Pujols's career ending in 2022 — readers should be cautious about treating all seven totals as directly comparable achievements produced under identical conditions. Equipment, ballpark dimensions, the use of relief pitching, and, in the more recent era, performance-enhancing drug policy have all shifted substantially across the span this list covers. The PED context specific to Bonds and Rodriguez is addressed above and should not be read onto the other players on this list, none of whom carry that same controversy in the source record.

It is also worth being precise about what separates Bonds's and Rodriguez's situations from one another, since the two are often lumped together in casual discussion. Bonds was never suspended by MLB and played the majority of his career before the league had a formal drug-testing program in place at all; his link to PEDs rests on reporting and investigation outside MLB's own disciplinary process. Rodriguez, by contrast, was suspended for a full season in 2014 under MLB's own drug policy, an official sanction with a defined length and a defined cause. Treating these as the same kind of controversy oversimplifies two meaningfully different historical records, even though both players remain connected to PED scrutiny in the public conversation around this list.

Sourcing and verification

These totals are drawn from Major League Baseball's official home run statistics. This ranking was last verified as of February 2026. All seven careers represented here are complete, so none of these totals are expected to change.

Closing

The home run record remains one of baseball's most prestigious individual marks, and also one of its most contested, precisely because the sport's own governing body has chosen to let the numbers stand as recorded rather than revise history. For related career hitting and pitching leaderboards, see the MLB Career Hits Leaders and MLB Career Pitching Strikeout Leaders rankings.