The story behind a home run

This morning, new subscriber Bill asked me a question following this post I wrote in Notes:

Bill has been an Astros fan for more than 20 years, when, as he says, “hardly anyone was betting on the team ever being able to win a World Series.” He saw Nolan Ryan pitch and still has a Jeff Bagwell autograph. He suffered the White Sox sweep in the 2005 World Series. He survived the rebuilding seasons, and the new era in the American League, and still says that he remains a staunch defender of José Altuve. It was fun to feel that passion from Bill, and after our talk, I thought I'd open a new category here for bold readers. “It will be fun to read,” my friend Kiki told me from Houston, “especially if we have more context of José Abreu's fascinating career.”

So, as we interacted, I began to dig deep into José Abreu's 259th home run in the 1,400th game of his career. By the way, the hit put the Astros ahead momentarily, 6-5, at the end of the seventh inning. But then the Orioles turned the score around 8-7 with a three-run rally at the start of the ninth.

So, the big question here was whether Abreu had been one of the Cuban hitters who hit the most home runs in the first 1,400 games of his Major League career. What do you think about that?…