Born on this day, March 13, 1886, 139 years ago, John Franklin “Home Run” Baker became a baseball icon during the dead ball era — a time when home runs were few but fabled. He earned his nickname during the 1911 World Series with the Philadelphia Athletics, with two pivotal home runs — one a go-ahead shot off Rube Marquard in Game 2, the other a 9th-inning blast off Christy Mathewson that broke a shutout and ignited a comeback victory in Game 3 — helping secure the World Series after leading the American League that year with 11 homers. That power launched an era-defining run, as Baker led the American League in home runs for four straight seasons from 1911 to 1914, totaling 42 long balls across that span — modest by today’s standards but Herculean then.
Baker’s 1912 season was a masterpiece: leading baseball with 10 home runs, he also became the first player ever to notch 10 home runs, 20 triples, 40 doubles, and 40 stolen bases in a single year, finishing with 10 homers, 21 triples, 40 doubles, and 40 steals. Kiki Cuyler, in 1925, is the only other to achieve this 10-20-40-40 feat, while Future Hall of Famer Jimmy Rollins is the only player since Cuyler to even amass 10 home runs, 20 triples, 30 doubles, and 40 stolen bases in a season, falling just shy of the 10-20-40-40 mark by a pair of doubles.
Now, imagine earning the nickname “Home Run” only to be outdone by some kid called “Babe.”
Baker’s career took him from the Athletics to the New York Yankees in 1916 after a contract dispute sidelined him for the entire 1915 season. Before that, he’d helped Philadelphia win three World Series (1910, 1911, 1913) as part of Connie Mack’s famed $100,000 infield. While still with the Athletics, Baker faced Babe Ruth — then a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox — 54 times, and Ruth had his number, holding him to a .135/.167/.154 batting line.
Then, by 1920, Ruth, now with the Yankees, eclipsed Baker’s four-year total of 42 homers from his 1911-14 league-leading stretch with 54 that season alone — heralding the end of the dead ball era and the dawn of a new slugging age. In 1921, Baker’s final season and his first alongside Babe Ruth on the New York Yankees, Ruth smashed 59 home runs — 50 more than Baker’s nine that season — topping his own single-season record. Ruth even scored on four of Baker’s nine homers that year, underscoring the shift in baseball’s power dynamic.
With the Yankees, Baker reached two more World Series (1921, 1922), both losses to the Giants, who avenged their 1911 and 1913 defeats to his Athletics. In 1922, his final year, he closed out a Yankee tenure that totaled 48 homers and a .288 average — solid numbers for a star fading in Ruth’s live ball surge. He retired with a .307 career average, 96 home runs, and a legacy as an early home run standout, elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955.
In a twist only baseball could script, Baker’s given name, John — though he went by Frank off the field — ties him to a fellow namesake. The other John Baker hit nine home runs in 2009, echoing “Home Run” Baker’s final league-leading total of nine in 1914 in perfect baseball harmony, and though never dubbed “Home Run,” he remains the only John Baker honored with a day named after him, earned for his heroics on July 29, 2014, when he pitched a scoreless 16th inning, then walked and scored the walk-off run on a Starlin Castro sacrifice fly to seal a Cubs victory.
From the dead ball era to Babe Ruth’s explosive reign, John “Home Run” Baker bridged baseball’s transformation — his nickname a tribute to an age when clawing into double-digits crowned you a titan, only for Ruth to redefine peak power with seasons that dwarfed Baker’s best career stretches. Yet, across a century, another John Baker staked claim to the name, etching a modern mark with a single day’s heroics that echoed the original’s flair.
