MLB History: The Ultimate Home Run Derby Competition

With the talk of pitchers joining, what would be the ultimate MLB Home Run Derby competition field?

Madison Bumgarner started the discussion of having a pitcher participate in the annual Home Run Derby, and it’s taken the topic of the Home Run Derby to points that most people don’t even give time to the derby, outside of the one night per year that most fans tune in to watch baseballs fly.

Many don’t realize this, but the modern Home Run Derby was inspired by a publicity stunt that was televised as a series of competitions among the best players of the late 1950s and early 1960s. I may be one of the few that owns all three DVDs of these great competitions, and I love the interviews between rounds with all-time greats like Aaron, Mays, Mantle and others.

Today’s Home Run Derby actually started in 1985. It wasn’t televised until 1993, and that was only on a delayed basis. The first live telecast of the derby was in 1998, which means that the high school kids just drafted last weekend have only known a televised Home Run Derby, but it’s a very recent phenomenon in the game.

I thought it’d be fun to put together an all-time Home Run Derby competition field, seeding them 8th through 1st (modern derbies have eight participants). I only chose to have players who actually participated in either iteration of the Derby, not players who predated the 1960 version or players who came between that version and the 1985 version.

We’ll go in reverse order, starting with the 8th seed…

Next: 8th and 7th Seeds