Hack Wilson: the hard-living Chicago Cubs star whose epic 1930 endures

With more than 40 home runs, nearly a hundred runs batted in and over a third of the season still to play, Aaron Judge is poised to complete the best season of his mighty career.

Still, the New York Yankees slugger will have to pick up the pace to match Hack Wilson, one of the greatest and most rambunctious hitters in the history of Major League Baseball and the holder of one of the sport’s most impregnable records.

Judge joined an exclusive club last month when he walloped more than 40 home runs by the end of July. With a strong end to the summer the outfielder might surpass Wilson’s career-best tally of 56 home runs, set with the Chicago Cubs in 1930 when he was 30 – the same age that Judge is now.

But it’s impossible to imagine anyone – not Judge, not Pete Alonso, not Jose Ramirez, not a single modern hitter – threatening Wilson’s MLB-record total of 191 runs batted in. That, too, was achieved with the Cubs 92 years ago. August 1930 was a monstrous month for Hack: 113 at-bats, 45 hits, 13 home runs, 53 RBI.

Wilson ended the year with 146 runs scored and a .356 batting average to accompany those eye-popping 191 RBI. The 56 homers were a National League record that stood for 68 years until surpassed by Mark McGwire in 1998.

Lou Gehrig batted in 185 runs for the Yankees in 1931, which remains the second-highest single-season RBI total. Wilson was originally credited with 190 but a rather tardy review determined that an RBI that should have gone to Hack was wrongly given at the time to a teammate, and his tally was boosted to 191 in 1999.

Driving in hordes of teammates is an old-fashioned habit now that on-base percentages and the average runs per game tend to be lower than in the pre-war period. Among the 30 highest