Connor, Roger
Baseball
b. July 1, 1857, Waterbury, CT
d. Jan. 4, 1931
Connor was major league baseball's career home run leader until Babe Ruth broke his record. Ironically, no one knew it until Hank Aaron broke Ruth's record in 1974.
A left-handed third baseman when he arrived in the major leagues with the NL's Troy, NY, team in 1880, Connor moved to first base after dislocating his shoulder early in the 1881 season and he remained at that position for the rest of his career.
Connor led the league in triples with 18 in 1882 and with 20 in 1886. He was the home run leader only once, with 14 in 1890, when he was in the Players' League, but he had 11 or more home runs six times in an era when that was an unusual accomplishment.
The Troy team moved to New York City in 1883 and eventually became known as the Giants. Connor was the league's top hitter with a .371 average in 1885 and he hit .355 the following season. On May 9, 1888, he became the sixth player in history to hit 3 home runs in a game.
In 1890, Connor joined the New York team in the Players' League, but that league folded after one season and he returned to the Giants in 1891. Traded to Philadelphia in 1892, he was back with the Giants the following year, then was traded again, to St. Louis, in 1894. He finished his major league career there by appearing in only 22 games in 1897.
Connor hit 138 career home runs, a record broken by Ruth in 1921. No one noticed that Ruth had broken a record, however. Only when Aaron surpassed Ruth, more than fifty years after Connor's death, did anyone wonder whose record Ruth had broken. The answer led to Connor's election to the hall of fame.