RALPH KINER

There was a spell in Pittsburgh when the ballpark was a launching pad and the fences were a rumor. Ralph Kiner, a rangy kid from New Mexico, made a career of proving that rumor true. From 1946 through 1952, he led the National League in home runs seven straight times, a streak as solid as the granite in Forbes Field. He stood six-foot-two, swung a heavy bat, and did not believe in warning tracks.

In 1949, he hit 54 homers and drove in 127 runs, and the next year he added 47 more. He walked more than a hundred times in four different seasons because pitchers learned that throwing him a strike was an act of charity. His .398 lifetime on-base percentage tells you he was not just a swinger; he was a patient man with a violent purpose. He finished with 369 homers and 1,015 runs batted in, numbers that would have been higher had Pittsburgh not dealt him to the Cubs in 1953.

He played for the Pirates, the Cubs, and the Indians, but his name belongs to the steel city. Later, he sat in the broadcast booth for the Mets and spun yarns, his voice as easy as his swing had been powerful. The Hall of Fame took him in 1975, and the baseball world nodded, because for seven years, nobody hit them farther or more often. He was a slugger before slugging was a science, and the record book still remembers.