Post-career: Broken Records & 2001 HOF Ballot
Within two years of his retirement, Johnson's two major National League switch-hitting home run records were broken. In 1996, his single-season record was broken by former teammate, Todd Hundley, who finished with 41. In 1997, his career record was broken by another former teammate, Bobby Bonilla, who hit his 210th National League home run in the midst of a championship season with the Florida Marlins.
Bonilla finished his career in 2001 with 249 NL home runs, but Chipper Jones of the Braves currently holds the NL single-season switch hit HR record (45), achieved in 1999, and the career mark as well (452).
Mike Piazza passed Johnson into second-place on both the all-time Mets home run list in 2004 and the all-time Mets RBI list in 2005.
In 2001, Johnson was on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot but received no votes.
Read more about this topic: Howard Johnson (baseball)
Famous quotes containing the words broken, records and/or ballot:
“He told me that the Indians were nearly all gone to the sea-board and to Massachusetts, partly on account of the smallpox—of which they are very much afraid—having broken out in Oldtown.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What a wonderful faculty is memory!—the most mysterious and inexplicable in the great riddle of life; that plastic tablet on which the Almighty registers with unerring fidelity the records of being, making it the depository of all our words, thoughts and deeds—this faithful witness against us for good or evil.”
—Susanna Moodie (1803–1885)
“I do not think the mere extension of the ballot a panacea for all the ills of our national life. What we need to-day is not simply more voters, but better voters.”
—Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911)