Daryle Ward (son of Gary) had a big hit for the Cubs today. Perusing his career stats, I noticed that he once hit 20 homers for the Astros, doing it in just 264 ABs. Got me to thinking about who's been able to reach 20 homers in a season with the fewest ABs:

  Cnt Player             **AB** HR Year Age Tm  Lg  G   PA  R   H  2B 3B RBI  BB IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Positions
+----+-----------------+-------+--+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+
    1 Willie McCovey      229   20 1962  24 SFG NL  91 261  41  67  6  1  54  29   1  35   0   0   3   6   3  3  .293  .368  .590  .958 739       
    2 Art Shamsky         234   21 1966  24 CIN NL  96 271  41  54  5  0  47  32   1  45   0   3   2   5   0  2  .231  .321  .521  .842 79        
    3 Mark McGwire        236   32 2000  36 STL NL  89 321  60  72  8  0  73  76  12  78   7   0   2   5   1  0  .305  .483  .746 1.229 *3/467    
    4 Johnny Blanchard    243   21 1961  28 NYY AL  93 275  38  74 10  1  54  27   9  28   4   0   1   6   1  0  .305  .382  .613  .995 *2/79     
    5 Dave Ross           247   21 2006  29 CIN NL  90 296  37  63 15  1  52  37   7  75   3   4   5   4   0  0  .255  .353  .579  .932 *2        
    6 Glenallen Hill      253   20 1999  34 CHC NL  99 278  43  76  9  1  55  22   1  61   0   0   3   7   5  1  .300  .353  .581  .934 79/D      
    7 Kevin Maas          254   21 1990  25 NYY AL  79 300  42  64  9  0  41  43  10  76   3   0   0   2   1  2  .252  .367  .535  .902 *3D       
    8 Daryle Ward         264   20 2000  25 HOU NL 119 281  36  68 10  2  47  15   2  61   0   0   2   6   0  0  .258  .295  .538  .833 73/D9     
    9 Johnny Mize         274   25 1950  37 NYY AL  90 305  43  76 12  0  72  29   0  24   2   0   0   4   0  1  .277  .351  .595  .946 *3        
   10 Chris Duncan        280   22 2006  25 STL NL  90 314  60  82 11  3  43  30   0  69   2   0   2   4   0  0  .293  .363  .589  .952 *793/D    

There's Ward at 8, but McGwire really sticks out, getting 32 homers in just 236 ABs.

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