Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Should Barry Bonds' HR record count?

To answer the question, let's ask a few rhetorical questions:

Should Gaylord Perry lose every one of his 300+ wins since he regularly relied on illegal scuffballs and spitballs to get hitters out?

Should Bob Gibson's modern record 1.12 ERA from 1967 disappear because pitchers that year threw off a 15 inch mound (6 inches higher than today) and had a large strike zone that put hitters at a far bigger disadvantage than they faced today? How about Denny McLain's 31 wins that year? How about any pitching numbers from that period with the inflated strike zone and mountainous pitching mound?

Likewise, whether or not hitters were using steroids, do we assign the same credit to a 50 home run season in 1998, in new parks that featured smaller dimensions than their predecessors, that we'd give to a 50 home run season in 1968? 1938?

Should Babe Ruth lose all the home runs he hit over the 254 foot right field porch in Old Yankee Stadium, which is about the depth of a standard high school right field? How about Roger Maris? Should we only count their "real" home runs? What defines real? 330 feet? 320?

Do home runs hit in mile-high Colorado (before they humidified the baseballs) count? Hank Aaron rode out his career in Atlanta, whose high altitude and hitter friendly Fulton County Stadium made hitting home runs easier. How many of those 755 home runs would have legitimately left an average park?

Should Cy Young and Walter Johnson lose credit for recording outs against the bottom half of every order they ever faced, since those hitters were so poor in quality that they wouldn't make a Single-A minor league ballclub today? How many wins should that cost them?

Should the 1986 New York Mets be stripped of their World Series championship since several members of the team were regular cocaine users, some of which admitted to using before games?

Are we certain we're aware of every steroid user in baseball? Why are we fixated on Bonds and not, say, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire, the men who fueled the 1998 home run chase? They were subpoenaed to that infamous grand jury hearing a few years back for a reason.

Where is known user Roger Clemens and his 350 wins in this discussion? What about Rafael Palmeiro, who actually tested positive for steroids after recording his 3000th hit? Why aren't we discussing stripping his 3000+ hits away? Or Clemens' 350 wins?

Even if we test every one right now, how can we know who used 10 years ago or not? 15 years ago? We have tests from 2003, but what about 2002? 2000? 1996? There are no records whatsoever of who was using or when. And if Jose Canseco isn't lying, players were juicing as early as the early 90's, if not sooner.

Players popped amphetamines in pill form before games, during the 1960's and prior. The pills had a pet name: Greenies. Jim Bouton confirmed their existence in Ball Four. We don't even know exactly when these came into baseball. What about all the numbers and titles earned during this period?

Do we know that any record that's been set is legitimate? What even defines legitimate?

What if we knew everything about every player that ever accomplished something in Major League Baseball: every pill they took, every shot they received, every greenie they popped? Would we hold the accomplishments of yesteryear as high in integrity as fans do today?

If Barry Bonds' home run records don't count because they lacked integrity, then what records count and what records don't?

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