Ryan Howard 41 RBI in August

[Kingman26]

I don't know if anyone has posted or mentioned this already but if you have sorry in advance.

Not only has Ryan Howard broken Mike Schmidt's team homerun record when he blasted his 49th tonight but another great stat is that the other day he drove in his 40th Run of the month becoming the first player in the National League and the majors to do this since Ryan Klesko drove in 40 during the month of May, 2001. Howard now has 41 for the month of August.

Who was the last player in the American League to drive in 40 or more in one month?

[GiambiJuice]

I'm not sure who was the last AL player with a 40-RBI month, but didn't Joe Dimaggio have 53 in a month once?

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Not an American Leaguer, but Hack Wilson had 50+ RBI in August 1930.

[GiambiJuice]

Not an American Leaguer, but Hack Wilson had 50+ RBI in August 1930.

Joe D. and Hack are tied at 53 for the most RBI in one month.

[Kingman26]

Joe D. and Hack are tied at 53 for the most RBI in one month.

Actually Joe D. only holds the AL record with 53, new information on month to month RBI indicates that Sam Thompson had a remarkable 61 in 1894, so that would be both the National & Major League records.

Check this link out here on Baseball Almanac and scroll down to the Month to Month RBI leaders. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/recbooks/rb_rbi1.shtml

To find out who the American League player is that had the last 40 RBI month I'll give some hints, it was after WWII and before 1960. BTW- This player didn't have 100 RBI for the year just one great month!

[brett]

The only other 40+ RBI month I can find in either league since 1957 was Sammy Sosa in '98 I believe.

[Kingman26]

The only other 40+ RBI month I can find in either league since 1957 was Sammy Sosa in '98 I believe.

Well, Frank Howard in 1962 playing for the Dodgers had 41 RBI in the month of July, in 1998 Sammy became the first player to have 40 since that time.

Cecil Cooper had 39 RBI in July 1983, this was the highest total in any month in the Majors from 1963 to 1997. The 39 RBI shared with Juice Boy Rafael Palmeiro - Texas (1999) and Jim Thome - Cleveland (2001) are the highest totals in the American League since the players total that I am looking for.

Let's go back a little further now to 1953 and we find Gus Bell playing for the Cinn. Reds and he had 45 RBI in the month of June enroute to a total of 105 that season. So Ryan Howard's 2006 41 Aug. total along with Hondo in July 1962 are the most in the majors since Bell's 1953 total.

But they aren't who we're looking for and we have to go back a little farther now and my next hint is that it happened between the years of 1950 and 1953, this should help narrow it down.

Good Luck!

[brett]

Anyone have an answer for this one?

[Richmond Hill Phoenix]

I don't really know how to go about finding it out... Retrosheet doesn't have box scores from the time frame, and I'm not a big 1950's expert either.

[Utter Chaos]

Who was the last player in the American League to drive in 40 or more in one month?How about Ted Williams in 1950? He had 97 RBI's in only 89 games.