My son innocently asked “was Hank Aaron really that good?” while they were flashing stats showing how various active players might have a shot at Aaron’s home run record. I said “yes, he really was”, and then ran a quick database query that produced the following career numbers:

Hank Aaron|116.863636363636
Stan Musial|104.556818181818
Willie Mays|103.397727272727
Ty Cobb|99.7840909090909
Babe Ruth|98.7443181818182
Barry Bonds|98.5909090909091
Pete Rose|98.0454545454546
Carl Yastrzemski|94.4147727272727
Eddie Murray|91.9943181818182
Rafael Palmeiro|91.8409090909091
Frank Robinson|91.5852272727273
Dave Winfield|88.9943181818182
Cal Ripken|88.0909090909091
Tris Speaker|86.9488636363636
Lou Gehrig|86.25
George Brett|85.9772727272727
Mel Ott|85.9261363636364
Jimmie Foxx|84.4772727272727
Ted Williams|83.25
Honus Wagner|82.875

The number associated with each name if the total bases by each player expressed in miles. Aaron had more than twelve miles more career total bases than the next in line. Bonds has no chance of beating that record.

[tags]Baseball, Fun with Databases[/tags]