? No. 4: Why did I ever dump Sheffield?

I drafted Gary Sheffield in the 8th round of my mixed league fantasy draft this year with pick No. 78. At that stage in the draft his .900+ OPS was a steal, even for an old fart. But he got off to a horrendous start in Tiger blue, hitting .200 in April with just five extra base hits. Thinking his old age had finally caught up to him, I dropped him. For Chris Duncan. Whom I also dropped. For Josh Hamilton. Who hit well for me for a while. But then I dropped him a few weeks ago. For Brad Hawpe. Anyway, you get the picture. Turns out, I dropped Sheffield a bit too soon, because now my arch-rival owns him, and he's hit 18 home runs since the day I dropped him. It also turns out that home runs is the one stat my first-place team is particularly weak in (Derrek Lee — you hear me talking to you?).

So Gary "Yeah, I've got an opinion about that and I'd love to share it with you" Sheffield is the subject of today's trivia question. Gary has played for seven teams — (in order) Milwaukee, San Diego, Florida, Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York, and Detroit — in his 20 seasons in the bigs. If he's got another season in him (and it sure looks like he does), he'll likely hit his 500th home run, as he's only 25 away right now. That's impressive considering he's never won a home run crown. Those 475 career dingers places him eighth on the active career list. My question for you is: Name the seven active sluggers who are ahead of him.

Yesterday's Answer: (C) Mike Schmidt. Old Iron Mike hit 38 bombs in 1975 to pace the majors, two ahead of Mr. October and Kingman. Schmidt was somewhat overshadowed by his younger teammate, Greg "The Bull" Luzinski, who hit 34 homers, drove in 120, and hit .300 — besting Schmidt in the latter two by a lot. Of course, Luzinski and Schmidt also combined to strike out 331 times that year. Ouch.