More than any other sport, baseball is a numbers game. Everyone from the grumpy “get off my lawn!” sportswriter who still harps about RBIs and batting average only when determining the MVP to sabermetricians utilize them on a daily basis. When we were kids we memorized the stats on the backs of our favorite players’ cards. As adults we stare at our favorite players’ profile pages and our fantasy players’ fantasy pages. This week’s Top 7 takes a look at the most famous baseball numbers.

7. 500
There was a time when 500 home runs meant that you were a Hall of Famer for sure. The offensive explosion of the last 15 years has done that one in. Eddie Murray, not exactly one of the most popular players nationally, got the “every at-bat on ESPN” treatment when he was shooting for his 500th back in 1996, and this was before ESPN owned the world and had 60 channels. The Mike Schmidt 500th homer replay is probably burned in your memory because it was shown so many times (the one where he pumps his fists right after he hits it). Do you even remember Frank Thomas’s 500th? Or Jim Thome’s? They happened last season. 500 is probably close to being off of the list.

6. 300
Back in previous eras, hitting your 300th career home run was a pretty big deal. Rickey Henderson, for instance, never even got there (297). Neither did Roger Maris (275). Rogers Hornsby (301) barely did. Nowadays, Reggie Sanders and Shawn Green are there, and Ryan Klesko (278) got close. 300 homers definitely don’t mean much of anything anymore. But 300 wins still guarantees you a spot in the Hall of Fame. Those of us in our late 20s and early 30s remember seeing Nolan Ryan get his 300th win and the media saying that he was the “last of a dying breed,” and we may never see another one. When Tom Glavine got his last year, they said the exact same thing. It will be the last one…until the next one. Also, if you threw a decimal between the 3 and the zeros, you have the cutoff point for a ridiculously good ERA nowadays. Throw two decimal places before it and you have yourself a good batting average. It’s also the number of times JD Drew has been on the DL.

5. 5
This one is simply to annoy the people who keep complaining about Albert Pujols being shilled for MVP in the Top 7 every week. Hi guys! Go ahead and give the MVP to Ryan Howard and his 18 errors at first base, or Carlos Delgado because of a good half-season. You are still on the right side of logic. Actually, the number five would shoot up near the top of this list if anyone ever broke the record for home runs in a game. Remember when Mike Cameron had two chances to do it a few years ago? That’s underrated. Another underrated game was 15 years ago last week, when Mark Whiten had four bombs and 12 RBIs in one game. He didn’t have five though…too bad, that’s going to be a great day when someone finally does it.

4. 40/40
Here is an underrated club. 40 homers and 40 stolen bases. It was either Willie Mays or Bobby Bonds that said that “if he had known it would be such a big deal,” he would have done it himself. But no one had done it before Jose Canseco, and he didn’t even know that when he predicted that he would do it before the 1988 season. Pretty impressive. Even twenty years later, there is still just three other members: A-Rod, Alfonso Soriano, and Barry Bonds.

3. 20
More and more people are realizing how random and overrated wins are, but 20 wins will still get you Cy Young consideration even if you have an ERA of 6.00. There was no better example of the misleading aspect of wins than Opening Day of this season. The Brewers score three off of Kerry Wood in the top of the 9th in Chicago. Eric Gagne gives up three in the bottom of the inning. Had he given up four, Kerry Wood gets a win for giving up three runs in one inning pitched. Instead, the Brewers score one in the 10th, and Gagne gets HIMSELF a win for blowing a three-run lead and nearly getting taken out of the game.

2. 56
If this list were done ten years ago, the number 61 would have definitely been on it. One could even make the argument that 70 would have made the list post-McGwire and pre-steroid scandal. But now you rarely hear about Barry Bonds’s record 73 homers much at all. If there is ever a movie made called 73*, it’s not going to be in a good light. The same goes for the career home run record set by Bonds. Without looking, do you even know what it is? It’s 762. Hank Aaron’s 755 was also once one of the most magical numbers in baseball, but not so anymore. Pete Rose’s all-time hit record of 4,256 is even overshadowed by his gambling. So what’s the point of all of this? The number 56 now represents the most legendary, the most unbreakable record in all of baseball, Joe Dimaggio’s hitting streak. It has passed both of the greatest home run records due to the tainting of the last few years.

1.100
100 is unquestionably the biggest milestone number in baseball. 100 walks. 100 runs. 100 stolen bases (back in Vince Coleman’s day at least). 100 RBI. 100 wins for a team. A 100 mph fastball. 100 years since the Cubs’ last World Series title. 100 miles and runnin’.