Henry Aaron! Barry Bonds! Josh Phelps? The Home Run King for All 50 States

We know who MLB’s all-time home run leaders are. Go ahead, you can probably rattle off most, if not all, of the top 10 right now without looking it up. On this Fourth of July, though, let’s look at the home run leaders from a different perspective. It’s America’s birthday this week, so let’s see who the home run leader is in each of the 50 states (and also the District of Columbia). 

These home run leaders are not distributed equally. Some states have produced far, far more players than others, and some used to be a relative hotbed of new players, but aren’t any longer, or never were and still aren’t. That’s the fun of this exercise, however: Where else will you ever see Chase Headley on a list of all-time home run leaders? Or have a reason to know that Phil Plantier hails from the Granite State?

For your pre-fireworks pleasure, we’ve assembled a visual aid in the form of a map, as well as a bunch of assorted notes that came out of staring at the map and the statistics that brought it to life. The map is color-coded, giving you a look at roughly how many home runs the various state leaders have produced – the full chart with exact figures can be found at the bottom of the article.

Grab a hot dog and/or a burger, take a seat and see who has set off the most fireworks in each of the 50 states.

Barry Bonds — the all-time home run leader and California’s representative — hit 762 homers in his career, more than the combined output of the leaders of Alaska, Maine, New Hampshire, Utah, Montana, Colorado and Wyoming (731). If you throw the state with the next-lowest leader on the pile, South Dakota, then the combined effort passes Bonds, but still loses to Japan’s all-time home run leader, Sadaharu Oh (868). That’s not the United States, no, but it’s still fun.

Bonds out-homered entire states, not just various all-time leaders: Alaska (85), Colorado (615), Hawaii (588), Idaho (749), Maine (256), Montana (211), New Hampshire (330), North Dakota (412), South Dakota (322), Utah (178), Vermont (568), Wyoming (478) and the District of Columbia (697) for good measure. 

California not only sports the all-time dinger leader, but, as the state with the most MLB players — California has produced 2,510 players, while second-place Pennsylvania is just over 1,000 players behind — it’s also the home of the most 300-homer players. The top five, in ascending order: Alabama, Maryland, and Illinois with six, New York and Pennsylvania with seven, Texas with 10, Florida with 11, and California with … 30. 

Eight of those 30 have at least 400 home runs, which is also good for first among the 50 states (and one nation’s capital). Alabama, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas and Florida are tied for second with four such players. Maryland and Pennsylvania (two), Alabama and Texas (three) and California (four) are the top-5 for players with at least 500 career homers. Besides Bonds, California also boasts Mark McGwire (563), Ted Williams (521) and Eddie Murray (504).

Barry Bonds is not only the MLB’s all-time home run king, but he’s also out-homered 12 states and Washington D.C. (Tom Hauck/Allsport)

Josh Phelps not only leads Alaska in home runs, but he’s responsible for 75% of its long ball production. Only one other player born in Alaska — Randy Kutcher, who played from 1986 to 1990 — has reached 10 career dingers. There are no active players from Alaska, either, so it might be a while before anyone passes Phelps, who is also the state’s hit leader with 380. Second place? Curt Schilling, with 117 hits. No home runs for Schilling, which shouldn’t be a surprise, but he has given up more long balls than anyone else from the state by virtue of throwing two-thirds of Alaska’s innings.

Ryan Zimmerman is the leader in North Carolina, but only for now. It’s not just that 284 is a surmountable total, but that it’s likely to be passed by at least one of two active players. Corey Seager is the current leader among active North Carolinians, and he’s only just turned 31 years old. Seager has hit at least 30 homers three years in a row, and while he’s gone yard just 11 times in 2025, that’s due to a couple of IL trips for a hamstring strain. Oh, and Cal Raleigh is next up, with 126 homers. He’s 28, but in his three full seasons he’s hit 27, 30, and 34 homers, and currently leads MLB with 33 dingers.

Eight states lack an active home run leader, either because there is no one from that state currently in the majors, or because whoever is in the majors from that state doesn’t have a home run. That list is made up of Vermont, Arkansas, West Virginia, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Maine and Alaska.

All but one U.S.-born player with at least 600 homers is from a different state: Barry Bonds (762) is from California, Henry Aaron (755) from Alabama, Babe Ruth (714) from Maryland, Alex Rodriguez (696) from New York, Ken Griffey Jr. (630) from Pennsylvania and Jim Thome (612) from Illinois. The lone repeat state? Alabama, which also produced Willie Mays (660). Albert Pujols (703) and Sammy Sosa (609) round out the 600-plus club, with both players from the Dominican Republic. 

Connecticut is currently Mo Vaughn’s thanks to 328 homers, but George Springer is the active leader with 274. He doesn’t go deep as often as he did in his younger years, but another 55 homers for the 35-year-old before he calls it a career is likely, given he averaged 22 dingers per year from 2022-2024. Mookie Betts, with 280 homers, is just 89 behind Todd Helton for first in Tennessee history: even if his power isn’t what it used to be, either, he’s still just 32 years old. 

Arizona is even more likely to switch hands, as Ian Kinsler (257) is just 49 homers ahead of Cody Bellinger’s 208. John Buck holds Wyoming for now with 134, but Brandon Nimmo (126) is right behind him. Jared Triolo, born in New Hampshire, has just 15 career homers in 230 games. However, he’s chasing Phil Plantier, who didn’t crack 100 bombs. Can Triolo make it to 92 and a new New Hampshire record before he’s done?

This one might be tougher, given the stadium he’s likely to spend the rest of his career in, but Manny Machado is 154 homers behind Gary Sheffield for control of Florida. Can Machado crack 500 homers and hit another 10 for good measure? It’s possible, just like 3,000 hits is possible, but “possible” is not the same thing as definitely for a nearly 33-year-old ballplayer.

Bryce Harper is both the all-time and active leader for Nevada, at 345. Mike Trout (391) is in the same situation for New Jersey, while Paul Goldschmidt (370) sits on both thrones in Delaware. Goldschmidt, by the way, will likely reach 400 home runs before anyone else from Delaware even gets to 100: John Mabry, Randy Bush and Dave May all finished their careers with 96, a figure Goldschmidt passed back in May 2015. 

Mike Trout and Bryce Harper are their respective home states’ home run kings.(Photo by Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

The largest gap between the all-time leader and the active leader for a state is Alabama: Henry Aaron’s 755 is the second-most anywhere, and it’s also 657 more long balls than Tim Anderson has hit in his career. 

Max Muncy and Randal Grichuk have no real hope of catching Frank Robinson — with 586 home runs, he’s not just the most in Texas but the 10th-most in MLB history — but they are in a battle to be the active leader. Muncy is at 208 long balls, and Grichuk 207 — by the end of their careers, they’ll likely be ahead of Robinson if you combine them together. 

Finally, New England and its tiny states are not necessarily known for producing baseball players in the way that California or Texas and so on are, at least not since the early days of MLB before it truly became a national game. And while New Hampshire and Maine have little to contribute in the way of homers either historically or recently, Connecticut has Mo Vaughn (328, 30th), Vermont has Carlton Fisk (376, 21st), Rhode Island has Paul Konerko (439, 17th) and Massachusetts has Jeff Bagwell (449, 15th). 

And now, the home run leaders by state, in table form, sorted from the most long balls to the fewest:

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