My favorite piece of baseball trivia

There's a lot of useless baseball factoids running through my brain these days.

Rod Carew got his 3,000th hit on the same exact day Tom Seaver collected his 300th win. Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, and Willie Mays all finished their careers in the same cities they started in, only with different franchises. "Boog" Powell's real name is John.

But I'm proud of all these seemingly useless facts. Ask anyone my age who Ted Kluszewski is and all you'll get is a blank stare.

There's some great baseball tidbits out there, but here's my personal favorite. It certainly made my jaw drop the first time I read it. I had to re-read it to make sure I saw it right.

See if you can get the answer without scrolling to the bottom of the page.

Other than these two players...

...who is the only player to hit a home run in more than 15 consecutive seasons in Braves history?


I'll bet that this is probably the first guy that comes to mind:

On a side note, these inserts are among the nicest I've ever come across. 


Eddie Mathews hit at least one homer for the Braves from 1952 to 1966. (I'm pretty sure he's the only guy to have played for the Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta Braves as well.)

The question asks for guys who have hit a homer in more than 15 consecutive seasons, so Mathews isn't the answer.

Nope, the answer to this trivia question has an "outside the box" element to it.

Besides Chipper Jones and Hank Aaron, the only player to have hit a homer in more than 15 straight seasons in Braves history is...

...Warren Spahn.

It's true. You can look it up.

(While we're on the topic of nice-looking inserts, these "Enshrinement" ones are among my all-time favorites.)

Although he was just a .194 career hitter, Spahn hit at least one homer for the Braves for 17 straight seasons (1948-64).

His single-season career high was four, which he did in both 1955 and 1961. He'd finish with 35 career round-trippers.

On a side note, Spahn won 363 games in his career. He also finished with 363 career base hits.

Baseball's a strange sport sometimes, isn't it?

Maybe you'll impress your friends with this seemingly useless factoid.