2nd in JAWS (96.4 Career/54.4 Peak/75.4 JAWS)

Teams: Braves 1952–66 • Astros 1967 • Tigers 1967–68
Stats: .271/.376/.509 • 143 OPS+ • 2,315 H • 512 HR • 68 SB
Rankings: 9x All-Star • 9x top 5 HR • 8x top 5 WAR • 8x top 10 SLG • 7x top 5 OBP
All-time: T-22nd HR
Voting: BBWAA 1978 (5th, 79.4%)

Though he was sixth on the all-time home run list when he retired, Mathews was the first modern member of the 500 Home Run club not to get elected on the first ballot (Jimmie Foxx and Mel Ott hailed from a time before the five-year waiting period was in place). He needed five years of eligibility to get elected and even then required one of the biggest gains in modern history in order to go over the top. Revising a table from my 2016 article on big jumps:

Player	Year 1	%	Year 2	%	Gain (%)
Barry Larkin	2011	62.1	2012	86.4	24.3
Yogi Berra	1971	67.2	1972	85.6	18.4
Luis Aparicio	1983	67.4	1984	84.6	17.2
Eddie Mathews	1977	62.4	1978	79.4	17.0
Ralph Kiner	1974	58.9	1975	75.4	16.5
Tony Perez	1999	60.8	2000	77.2	16.4
Roberto Alomar	2010	73.7	2011	90.0	16.3
Tim Raines	2016	69.8	2017	86.0	16.2
Rollie Fingers	1991	65.7	1992	81.2	15.5
Duke Snider	1979	71.3	1980	86.5	15.2
Ryne Sandberg	2004	61.1	2005	76.2	15.1

Mathews was the cover subject on Sports Illustrated’s debut issue, dated August 16, 1954. Though he received only a passing mention in the pages within, the famous photograph of the slugger was used again for the magazine’s 40th anniversary in 1994 and — via a mosaic made up of thousands of tiny photos submitted by readers — the 60th anniversary in 2014.