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His team won the 1957 National League championship then, helped by Mathews game-winning home run in the tenth inning of game four, they defeated the New York Yankees to win the World Series. In 1967, Eddie Mathews became only the seventh player to hit 500 career home runs, and is a member of the 500 home run club. Over his seventeen-year Major League career, he was named to the All-Star team nine times, hit 512 home runs, played in three World Series, and drove in 100 or more runs five times. As the one-two punch for the Milwaukee Braves, from 1954 to 1966 he and teammate Hank Aaron hit 863 homers (Aaron 442, Mathews 421), moving ahead of the duo of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees as the all-time leaders in Major League Baseball history.
The great Ty Cobb (1886-1961) once said of Mathews: "I've only known three or four perfect swings in my time. This lad has one of them."
In 1978 Eddie Mathews was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame and today still ranks second all-time among third basemen in home runs, RBI, slugging percentage and total bases. He is the only man to play for the Braves team in all three cities they called home: Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta. Mathews retired as a player after the 1968 season with final appearances in two post-season games for the World Series champion Detroit Tigers but came back to manage the Atlanta Braves from 1972 to 1974.