Mr. 5694

In what's come to be known as the Year of the Home Run, with sluggers such as Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger grabbing headlines, someone else delivered the year's signature blast. That happened Tuesday night, when the Royals' Alex Gordon connected off Ryan Tepera of Toronto for the 5694th home run of 2017. That's the most ever in a season, erasing the old record set in 2000.
In case you want to go deeper into the number-crunching, there were 5610 homers during 2016, an average of 2.31 per game. With a week and half of games (roughly a dozen per team) left in the season, if this year's average of 2.53/game remains steady or close it, we'll have our first 6000 home run year (the pace actually projects to a final total of 6139).
(These images of Gordon are from a May 2016 Royals/Yankees game in New York.)
And to go off on a bit of a tangent, one could make a fair argument that Gordon is the Second Mr. 5694. The other would be "King" Carl Hubbell. The legendary New York Giants lefthander was the dominant player during the Hebrew Year 5694 -- winning two games as his club swept the 1933 World Series, then striking out five future Hall of Famers in a row (Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx, Simmons and Cronin) the following July in the All Star Game. 
With the Jewish New Year (5778) arriving at sunset, here's my wish for "L'shana Tovah," a happy and sweet year ahead.

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