On Friday night, Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh did more than belt his 46th home run of the season. He drew a straight line back to one of baseball’s most iconic seasons: Mickey Mantle’s 1961 campaign.
As MLB Network’s Sarah Langs noted, Mantle had 46 homers through his team’s first 123 games in ’61–the exact same number Raleigh has now through the Mariners’ first 123 contests. That alignment puts Raleigh on the same pace as Mantle’s legendary chase, a season forever remembered for the “M&M Boys” and their pursuit of Babe Ruth’s record.
The Golden Benchmark
Mantle’s 1961 season stands as one of the great power displays in baseball history. While teammate Roger Maris ultimately broke Ruth’s single-season mark with 61 home runs, Mantle’s total of 54 homers remains the all-time record for a switch-hitter.
To even match Mantle’s pace deep into August is extraordinary. Few switch-hitters have threatened that territory across six decades. Raleigh, in doing so, isn’t just having a career year; he’s carrying the torch for an archetype Mantle defined.
Raleigh’s surge didn’t happen overnight. He’s been piling up milestones throughout 2025. According to Sports Illustrated, he is “the first catcher to have back-to-back 100 RBI seasons since Mike Piazza from 1996-2000.” That number underscores not only his power, but also his knack for driving in runs in clutch spots.
Reaching 100 RBIs before mid-August places Raleigh among the league leaders, and it echoes the type of well-rounded offensive impact Mantle himself had. It’s one thing to hit homers in empty situations; it’s another to consistently deliver with traffic on the bases. Raleigh has done that, cementing himself as the engine of Seattle’s offense.
But this 46th homer is different. It places him shoulder-to-shoulder with a Yankees icon whose name is shorthand for switch-hitting greatness. For Mariners fans, it represents not just individual brilliance, but also the continuation of a season where Raleigh has kept Seattle in the postseason hunt with his consistent power production.
Why This Pace Matters
Tracking “through 123 team games” stats can sound technical, but it’s the cleanest way to compare players across eras. It smooths over the noise of injuries, lineup changes, and off-days, and lets us ask: how fast is a player stacking homers relative to the march of a season?
By that measure, Raleigh is matching one of the most celebrated power paces in MLB history. With roughly six weeks left in the season, the chase is now framed in tangible terms: can Raleigh reach or surpass Mantle’s 54 homers? And if so, could he challenge for even more?
Mantle’s 1961 is immortal because of the drama; he and Maris trading long balls, the pressure of Ruth’s ghost, and the electricity of Yankee Stadium. Raleigh’s season doesn’t carry the same weight of history, but it does carry echoes of it. Every swing that clears the fence now draws comparisons to a Hall of Famer in his prime.
That’s the essence of baseball’s connective tissue: the present mirroring the past, the new weaving into the old. Raleigh isn’t just chasing a Mariners record book anymore; he’s brushing up against one of baseball’s universal measuring sticks.
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