The farthest ball ever hit in pro baseball didn't come off Babe Ruth's or Aaron Judge's bat. It belonged to Joey Meyer, a near-unknown player who launched one 582 feet in 1987. Here's the thign about home runs — half of baseball's biggest blasts are eyeball estimates, not radar-measured, so the record depends on whether you trust that era's stat guys. Swipe ahead to learn more.

Official vs. Legend

Here's the catch with home-run distances: baseball only started measuring them precisely in 2015, when MLB rolled out its Statcast tracking system in all 30 ballparks. Everything before that is a mix of eyewitness math and legend, so the biggest numbers you'll hear aren't the ones with radar behind them.

Nomar Mazara

505 feet, 2019

On June 21, 2019, Nomar Mazara of the Texas Rangers turned on a 94.7 mph fastball from Chicago White Sox pitcher Reynaldo Lopez and, per Statcast, sent it 505 feet into the upper right-field deck. Statcast clocked it off the bat at 109.7 mph, the longest home run of the tracking era.

Giancarlo Stanton and C.J. Cron

504 feet, tied for second

By Statcast's numbers, two sluggers sit one foot back at 504 feet. Giancarlo Stanton got there on Aug. 6, 2016, and C.J. Cron matched him on Sept. 9, 2022 — proof that even among the game's biggest hitters, the top of the leaderboard is crowded by inches.

Babe Ruth

About 575 feet, 1921

Babe Ruth's blast at Navin Field in Detroit on July 18, 1921 is widely called the longest verifiable home run in MLB history, pegged at roughly 575 feet. Historian Bill Jenkinson, a long-distance consultant to the Hall of Fame, landed on it as the longest verifiable homer of the modern game.

Mickey Mantle

565 feet, 1953

Mickey Mantle was 21 when he hit one clean out of Griffith Stadium in Washington on April 17, 1953, batting right-handed off Senators lefty Chuck Stobbs. By the Yankees' account, PR man Red Patterson tracked the ball to a yard in a backyard, paced off 565 feet with help from a 10-year-old named Donald Dunaway and coined the phrase tape-measure home run.

Reggie Jackson

539 feet, 1971 All-Star Game

Pinch-hitting for Vida Blue in the 1971 All-Star Game at Tiger Stadium on July 13, Reggie Jackson smashed a transformer on a light tower atop the right-center roof while the ball was still climbing — a shot commonly estimated around 539 feet. Al Kaline reportedly called it "the hardest hit ball I've ever seen in my life."

Joey Meyer

582 feet, 1987

The longest home run in pro baseball belongs to a name most fans have never heard. Joey Meyer hit a reported 582 feet for the Triple-A Denver Zephyrs on June 2, 1987, though the mile-high air did some of the work. Meyer reportedly said, "In the thin air, it doesn't take much."

Jac Caglianone

NCAA, estimated 516 feet

In 2024, University of Florida's Jac Caglianone launched one his team estimated at 516 feet against Jacksonville, which would top Mazara if it held up under Statcast. That figure is a team estimate, not officially tracked, so it comes with an asterisk.

So What's the Real Record?

College baseball has no league-wide system like Statcast, so its distances are estimates the official record book won't stack against the majors. By ESPN's tracking, which only goes back to 2011, Wyatt Langford's 456-footer in 2023 leads the pack — which leaves Mazara's 505 feet as the real measured record and everything longer as a great story.