Chicks may dig the long ball, as a commercial once suggested, but the long ball isn’t always easy to produce.

In fact, the first time any trio of teammates produced simultaneous 40-homer seasons was 1973 – exactly a half-century ago and almost a full century since the founding of the National League.

In the 50 seasons since three Atlanta Braves slugged their way into the record books, only one other team – the Colorado Rockies – has turned the trick. And it was aided by the thin alpine air plus the elevation of the Mile High City.

Considering baseball history is filled with the exploits of slugging tandems – from Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig to Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris – it’s somewhat surprising that only the Braves and Rockies have enjoyed the exploits of troikas talented enough to strike gold at the same time.

Nobody expected the Braves or anybody else to break the barrier for threesomes.

Hank Aaron, their most prolific home run hitter, was 39 in 1973 and already dogged by a myriad of annoying injuries – not to mention the pressures of pursuing Babe Ruth’s career record.

Hounded by the media and harried by hate mail from racist fans who hated the idea of a black man chasing a white man’s mark, Aaron just wanted to play well under difficult circumstances. He finished the season with 40 home runs in 120 games but fell one short of tying Ruth’s record.

Two teammates managed to hit more – and might have done even better if they were able to bat against their own lackluster pitching staff.

Darrell Evans, a 26-year-old lefty-hitting third baseman mentored by future Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews, hit a career-high 41 home runs after hitting just 19 the year before. But he wasn’t the biggest surprise.

The Cinderella slugger of the trio turned out to be infielder Davey Johnson, later known as manager of the 1986 World Champion New York Mets. Johnson hit only five homers the year before and would collect only 15 the year after.

But, for reasons unknown, he hit 43 of his 136 lifetime homers during the 1973 campaign, his first in Atlanta after playing eight previous seasons with the Orioles. Subtracted the one he delivered as a pinch-hitter, Johnson tied a Rogers Hornsby record for the most home runs hit in a season by a second baseman.

“When I was in Baltimore,” he said by phone from his Florida home, “I had 16 before the (All-Star) break one year. But I ran over a bunch of catchers, hurt my shoulder, and for two years, I couldn’t do much. They sent me to doctors but they said there’s nothing wrong with it.

“When I got to Atlanta, (trainer) Dave Pursley told me I had stretched the tendons in my left shoulder. He told me to go a wall and push my shoulder against it. My first swing against San Diego, that shoulder popped. All of a sudden, I had full extension again. I could extend my left arm.”

That led to a bet between Johnson and Evans. “I remember when Darrell had nine home runs and I had two,” said Johnson, who also managed the Reds, Dodgers, Orioles, and Nationals.

“I said ‘Give me the difference – seven home runs’ and at the end of the year, I had 43 and he had 41. I won the bet.”

Johnson did not win the National League’s home run crown, however. That went to Pittsburgh powerhouse Willie Stargell, who finished with 44 that summer.

A year later, the focus of the baseball world was clearly centered on Aaron.

Johnson remembers the Hall of Fame slugger, who died at age 86 in late January 2021.

“We all knew he was going to break [Ruth’s record] but when he actually did it, the pressure was off. The hate mail was over. I had more joy that the pressure was off him. That was the greatest relief for us.”

On the night the record fell, April 8, 1974, Evans was on first, Dusty Baker was on deck, and Johnson was in the hole.

“One thing about Henry: when it was time to do something, he did it,” said Johnson. “First time up, in Cincinnati, he hit one. Than in Atlanta a few days later, he walked the first time but then, in his second trip, he hit it on his first swing.

“Henry Aaron was the greatest hitter I ever saw. He was like Ted Williams – he took the barrel right to the ball, even late in his career.”

Twenty-three years after the Braves trio carved their niche in the record book, three teammates from the Colorado Rockies joined them. Andres Galarraga, who would later leave the Rockies as a free agent to sign with the Braves, led the way with 47, seven more than teammates Vinny Castilla and Ellis Burks, who both had 40.

The very next season, Galarraga (41) and Castilla (40) were part of a terrific trio with Larry Walker, who finished with a league-leading 49 in the best season of a career that led to Cooperstown.

En route to the National League’s MVP award – the only one Walker would ever win – he hit .366, collected 130 runs batted in, and led the NL with 409 total bases, a .452 on-base percentage, .720 slugging percentage, and 1.172 OPS. He also won a Gold Glove and stole 33 bases.

Although the three sets of 30-30-30 players enjoyed their rare accomplishments, they were not rewarded financially – at least by current contract comparisons.

The Braves paid Darrell Evans $27,500 in 1973, according to The Sporting News Guide, with the advent of free agency still three years away. Johnson was traded to the Braves after earning $62,000 in 1972 with the Orioles. Aaron’s paycheck – then one of the highest in the game – was $200,000, more than a half-million dollars lower than today’s major-league minimum.

Salaries had changed dramatically by 1996, thanks in part to bidding wars triggered by free agency. In 1996, for example, Walker earned $4,375,000 – just a shade over the average salary of $4.9 million at the start of the 2023 campaign. His annual pay increased to $6,325,000 a year later but that included a $575,000 earned bonus, according to Baseball-Reference.com.

That same season, Galarraga got $4.9 million, including a $500,000 bonus, from Colorado but left as a free agent, signing an Atlanta contract that paid $8.4 million and included another $500,000 bonus.

Castilla, on the other hand, earned only $1,000,000 plus a $200,000 bonus in 1996, then $2 million plus a $225,000 bonus when he was again part of a 40-homer troika.

No team has had three 40-homer hitters in any season since. It didn’t even happen in 2019, when the Minnesota Twins finished with a team-record 307 home runs and the New York Yankees hit 306. Nor does it seem likely to happen this season.