On Sunday Manny Ramirez hit his 400th career home run in typical Manny fashion; quietly and powerfully. The home run ? a 1-1 Gil Meche fastball taken opposite field ? propelled Ramirez into some pretty exclusive company. By now, you are probably aware of some of the important numbers behind his accomplishment. With his 400th home run in only his 5,695th at-bat, Manny has reached the 400 home run plateau fifth-fastest in MLB history, behind some guys you may have heard of before: Babe Ruth, Mark McGwire, Harmon Killebrew and Jim Thome. He is also only the 13th player to hit the 400 home runs before his 33rd birthday. While many consider Manny to be one of the best-right handed sluggers of his generation, it?s interesting to see how his numbers compare to right-handed sluggers of any generation. The 400 club currently has 19 right-handed sluggers among its ranks: Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Harmon Killebrew, Mike Schmidt, Jimmie Foxx, Ernie Banks, Dave Winfield, Jose Canseco, Jeff Bagwell, Dave Kingman, Andre Dawson, Frank Thomas, Juan Gonzalez, Cal Ripken Jr., Gary Sheffield, and the latest to the party, Manny Ramirez. This is obviously not your run-of-the mill crowd; nine are in the Hall of Fame with four more (McGwire, Sosa, Bagwell, Thomas) sure bets and two borderline cases (Sheffield and Gonzalez). So, how does Ramirez stack up against such an elite list? Amongst right-handed batters in the 400 club, at the conclusion of the 2004 season Ramirez is second in career average (.316), slugging percentage (.599), and OPS (1.010), all behind Jimmy Foxx (.325AVG, .609SLG, 1.038OPS) and Ramirez? career .411 OBP is third behind Frank Thomas (.429) and Foxx (.428). Ramirez? career OPS of 1.010 is good for ninth overall for all hitters. Amongst right-handed batters, he is currently fourth; only Foxx, Rogers Hornsby and Hank Greenberg have higher career OPS numbers. While Foxx is the only right-handed member of the 400 club with a higher OPS than Ramirez, no other right-handed member of the 400 club has an OPS over 1.000. (Frank Thomas is the closest with a career .996). Ramirez also has a career adjusted OPS value (aka OPS+, one that takes into account park and league factors) of 156, a value good enough to be tied for fourth among the 400 club, right behind Mark McGwire and Jimmie Foxx (each with 163), Frank Thomas (162), and tied with Willie Mays. Among all hitters, Ramirez is currently 19th in career OPS+. In Ramirez? first ten seasons with at least 400 plate appearances, all consecutive starting with his third year in the bigs, his OPS+ has never dipped below 140. No other right-handed hitter in the 400 club can lay a similar claim, in consecutive or non-consecutive seasons with at least 400 plate appearances. (One should consider that both Hank Aaron and Willie Mays only failed to do so in their rookie seasons and should be included on this list otherwise.) Ramirez has also enjoyed a six-season run (1999-20004) where his OPS has never gone below 1.000 and his OPS+ never dipped below 150. No other right-handed hitter in the 400 club with at least 6 consecutive seasons of 400 plate appearances or more can claim both, although Mark McGwire could if it wasn?t for a truncated 2000 season and Hank Greenberg could if he hit 400 home runs. In fact, only Greenberg has had a longer streak of 1.000+ OPS/150+ OPS+ seasons with 7. McGwire, Foxx, and Thomas can lay claim to five seasons of above-1.000 OPS seasons. Conversely, only five right-handed batters in the 400 club can claim a longer streak of 150+ OPS+ seasons in which they saw 400 plate appearances; Aaron (10), Mays (10), Foxx (9), Robinson (, and Thomas (7). It is interesting to note that Edgar Martinez, he of 309 career HRs, put together a seven-year stretch of 150+ OPS+ baseball, from 1995-2001, in which his OPS never dipped below .966. Rogers Hornsby, one of the most underrated sluggers in the history of the game, also enjoyed a seven-season stretch of 150+ OPS+ baseball. Finally, Ramirez is currently enjoying a ten-season run of consecutive years with a .500+ slugging percentage in seasons with 400 plate appearances. Only three right-handed batters in the 400 club can claim a longer consecutive streak: Jimmie Foxx (15), Hank Aaron (13) and Willie Mays (13). With all due respect to Frank Thomas, whose injuries have prevented him from becoming the best right-handed slugger (if not best overall) in baseball history and to Albert Pujols, who should have the title in a few years, Manny Ramirez is the best right-handed slugger from the mid-90s on and one could make a rather convincing argument that he?s currently in the top five of all time. Ramirez has repeatedly hinted that he may retire at the end of his current contract, which expires in 2008. Hopefully this isn?t so because, with a few more typical Manny seasons, he may go down as the best right-handed slugger of them all.