C*ngratulati*ns Barry B*nds for H*me Run Number 715



I've never seen this much buzz around someone getting into 2nd place in the record books. It is a HUGE accomplishment, don't get me wrong, and it deserves all this attention and more, but I feel like there are two main reasons why it's been all over talk radio, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, and the like: 1) America's love for Babe Ruth, and 2) America's hate for Barry Bonds. It's got very little to do with the actual accomplishment and very much to do with comparing two legends of two very different eras.

I'd bet that if one were to take a poll of average Americans and ask who they think holds the career home run record, more people would say Babe Ruth than Hank Aaron. Babe Ruth has now fallen to 3rd on the all-time home run list, but he keeps that aura as being bigger than the sport itself. Very rarely will you hear Aaron talked about in that respect, with a sense of awe and mystery always surrounding the stories about him. And maybe there is a logical reason for it. I mean, Ruth single-handedly changed the face of baseball, by introducing the home run as a reliable tool in the repertoire instead of a once-in-a-blue type of thing. He was the first home run hitter, as we think of them today. And for that, he should never be forgotten.

But the first to ever do it shouldn't by default be considered the best to ever do it. And all the asterisks in the world aren't going to take away the fact that Barry Bonds, juiced or not, hit SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN friggin home runs, and surpassed the man that people equate to Jesus in cleats. A lot of dudes are juicing in the Majors today, and it seems pretty obvious that Bonds is one of them, given the fact that his head about doubled in size over the past decade, but nobody in the steroid-ridden MLB has come anywhere near accomplishing what he has.

There is much more beneath the surface of this whole controversy, and as much as I'd like to see steroids wiped out from all sports, I contend that adding asterisks to the record books do much more harm than good, and add in needless complications and tarnish baseball, which as I alluded to in an earlier column, is the most statistic-obsessed sport on the planet.

There have been numerous reasons mentioned as to why this 715 has been "artificially inflated" and why it should be thrown out, ***'d, or put in a separate book along with other accomplishments of this era and set aside from the rest of baseball history.

That doesn't work, for a number of reasons.

First of all, we have no idea who is and is not on steroids, aside from Jose Can$eco's noble crusade, some court testimony, and a lot of speculation. How do we go about gutting the record books without solid evidence on every player? If steroids have been this prevalent for the past 15 or 20 years, who's to say which players stayed clean their whole careers, which players dabbled in it, which players tried it for a little while and went clean afterwards, and which players consumed it like it was a 4th meal? You can't determine these things with any sort of accuracy, and that makes it impractical to even bring this up. Also, steroids don't only necessarily affect hitting. Who knows if a juiced up pitcher can add a few MPH to his fastball, or add a little extra snap to his breaker.

Second, what constitutes an illegal substance? Andro's illegal, but becuase it was a legal substance during McGuire's run, it's retroactively okay too? So do we pencil in some asterisks, and put others in solid ink? Maybe a color-coded asterisk system?

Third, it could be argued that Babe's numbers are "artificially inflated" as well, because the world's best pitchers could very well have been playing in the Negro Leagues, and maybe Babe was playing against a watered-down talent pool. Should we then look at Babe's numbers in a different light? Should we have separate books for the eras before and after the Negro Leagues, like they have for the NFL when it combined with the AFL?

Fourth, the idea of an athlete has changed significantly since the early days. Workout regimens, nutritional knowledge, personal training, etc have turned natural athletes into modern-day super-athletes, even without the idea of steroids. Not to mention the fact that pitching rules and the ball itself have undergone changes which help the modern-day hitter, and the season has been extended. We should view each era's records within the context it was set, but should we go so far as to explain each and every nuance of these eras in the record books, and discredit each successive era's players?

Finally, who's to say Babe wouldn't have taken steroids if it meant staying competitive in the league and being able to continue earning a salary? Are we punishing these athletes because it is illegal, or because it is an advantage that earlier-era players did not have access to? I can guarantee that once someone's livelihood is based on athletics, especially in an arena like this where you're only as good as your last season, players have no qualms about keeping up with their competition, by all means. Steroids happened to not be accessible in Babe's day. Had they been, maybe he would have crushed another 200 home runs and the record would still be there today.

The point of all this is, we can't erase history, as much as we might like to. The numbers are what they are, and no amount of rearranging, rewording, or re-editing is going to change what these athletes have accomplished. We should keep in mind the factors that have gone into the numbers, and we should be able to keep an open forum about who is a better player and why, and in that conversation, by all means should we address the steroid issue, as well as every other issue that comes up when comparing the past with the future. The point is, the playing field will never be completely level between eras, and as sacred as people may hold records, and subsequently the players that set these records, we cannot go so far as to keep future athletes from breaking them with bureaucracy.