The Race to Break Maris' Record

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There are two things I will always remember about the summer of 1998 — the worst heat wave in nearly 20 years that gripped most of the country and the duel between St. Louis' Mark McGwire and Chicago's Sammy Sosa to see who would break Roger Maris' 37–year–old single–season home run record.

(Maris, as baseball historians will tell you, broke Babe Ruth's single–season home run record in 1961, but he benefited from the fact that baseball seasons were 162 games by then, not 154 as they were in the Bambino's day. And for many, many years, Maris' record had an asterisk next to it in the record book because it was not achieved in 154 games.)

The home run chase made that summer of '98 memorable. Well, the heat wave did, too. It was the worst heat wave I've seen since 1980. But the McGwire–Sosa duel was truly riveting. If one had to stay inside because it was so miserably hot outside, watching SportsCenter for the latest update in the home run chase was worth one's time. And there was almost always a daily update.

In hindsight, one must wonder if the '98 home run chase would have happened at all if not for steroids.

In fact, McGwire did concede at the time that he used an over–the–counter substance that had been banned by, among others, the NFL — but not (at that time) major league baseball.

(McGwire was slipperier on his use of other substances.)

So my feeling is that the '98 season should have an asterisk next to it — or maybe it would be more appropriate to have a little syringe instead — in the record books.

But it doesn't, and it probably won't so 1998 will stand as the year that McGwire broke Maris' record. McGwire was eclipsed three years later by Barry Bonds, who has his own unanswered questions about steroid use, but 15 years ago today, McGwire was on his way to wrapping up the home run–hitting season of a lifetime.

("These long–ball extravaganzas were putting fans back in the seats," Greg Stejskal wrote recently in the New York Daily News, "but the cost was the integrity of the game.")

McGwire hit 70 home runs that year. No one before — and only one man since — hit that many home runs in a single season. (That year, in fact, Bonds hit slightly more than half as many home runs as McGwire.)

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That summer, I was working for a trade magazine that served the imprinted sportswear industry. Part of my job was attending trade shows in different parts of the country, and I recall attending a show in Chicago. Exhibitors at these shows were often regional representatives of licensed sports products, and major league baseball was a hot (pardon the expression) commodity in Chicago that summer.

At these shows, I would walk around the hall and sit down to interview exhibitors who caught my eye. As a former sports editor, I was particularly interested in these sports licenses. Major league baseball had a crippling strike a few years earlier, and there had been talk that baseball's popularity was on the decline.

The McGwire–Sosa home run derby was the first thing to breathe some life back into the sport. It was baseball's goose that laid the golden egg.

And the exhibitors were all too eager to talk about McGwire and Sosa — but none, that I can recall, had any interest in talking about steroids.

If they were concerned that I might quote them on the subject in one of my articles, they worried needlessly. I only asked because I'm a sports fan, and I like baseball (although not as much as I did when I was a boy).

Maris' record finally fell 15 years ago today, about three weeks before the scheduled end of the season. McGwire had broken the record in far fewer games than it took Maris — or Ruth, for that matter. That should have raised some red flags.

But, like the exhibitors I spoke to that summer, no one wanted to talk about steroids. Not the teams' management or coaches or players — or fans, for that matter. They wanted to talk about all the home runs, not the steroids that even a casual observer could conclude had made them possible.

The thought of steroids definitely crossed my mind in the summer of '98, but, as I say, I never found anyone who was interested in talking about that angle.

Perhaps now those people have learned that there is a frightful price to be paid for ignoring an approaching storm. It's like ignoring a persistent toothache, hoping it will go away. (In the words of writer Aldous Huxley, "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.")

But then I remember — that's the kind who never learn from the past.

Barry Bonds

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"Doctors ought to quit worrying about what ballplayers are taking. What players take doesn't matter. It's nobody else's business. The doctors should spend their time looking for cures for cancer. It takes more than muscles to hit homers. If all those guys were using stuff, how come they're not all hitting homers?"

Barry Bonds
2002

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I feel kind of indifferent to Barry Bonds.

There was a time, not too long ago, when Bonds was still playing — and being referred to, at every at–bat and often when he was in the field, as the home run king — and I wished the worst things I could for him.

No, I did not wish that he would die. I don't judge people for deciding to take their own lives, but if a person is alive (and, presumably, wishes to remain that way), I do not wish for his/her life to end.

But I did wish that his career would end, which it did.

And I did wish that he would be exposed for what he is — and he has.

Well, kinda sorta.

Bonds has been convicted of obstructing justice, but mistrials were declared on the perjury charges — all stemming, of course, from his use of steroids in his pursuit of the all–time home run record.

I never thought for a second that Bonds didn't take steroids.

OK, I admit I never liked him personally — but that is only because he is not likable. I have rarely, if ever, seen a professional athlete who was as universally disliked as Bonds. The only people who ever seemed to like him were the people in the cities where he played — and they always stopped liking him when he stopped wearing their team's uniform.

He started his major league career in Pittsburgh, kind of a scrawny fellow, but he was still something of a power hitter. His numbers weren't eye–popping — average for a power hitter, I'd say.

But he never had a season like the one he had in 2000. He was in his mid–30s at the time, and he became only the second man to hit 70 home runs in a season. Actually, he smashed that record.

In seven seasons in Pittsburgh, Bonds' best home run output in a season was 34. But in the next seven years in San Francisco, that was just about his low point. In fact, in every season from 1993 to 2005 (including the strike–shortened 1994 season), Bonds hit at least 33 home runs — and in eight of those seasons, he hit at least 40 home runs.

He followed the 2000 season with three consecutive seasons of 40–plus homers — at the point in a baseball career when just about any other power hitter you'd care to name experiences a sharp decline in production. The guys he passed on the way to the all–time home run crown — Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays — saw their numbers tumble in their 30s — although, to be fair, Aaron did have some great seasons in his late 30s.

But Aaron was consistent. He never had a pro season in which he hit 50 or more home runs — and rarely had a 40–homer season. He passed Babe Ruth primarily through sheer endurance.

Bonds, on the other hand, only experienced a dropoff in productivity starting in the 2005 season — the same season in which baseball put its current anti–steroid policy in place.

I never saw how anyone could believe that Bonds hadn't taken steroids — or hadn't been aware that he had.

I was glad when his career was over, and I wish major league baseball would put an asterisk (or a little hypodermic needle) next to his name in the record books because I believe his single–season and career home run records were obtained fraudulently.

What's more, I think Bonds should be banned from baseball and kept out of the Hall of Fame because his use of performance–enhancing drugs is a more blatant form of cheating than gambling.

But none of that will happen — because steroid use didn't even lead to brief suspensions before 2005. It wouldn't be fair to penalize him for violating a policy that didn't exist.

Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson will remain barred from Cooperstown because gambling was and is explicitly against baseball rules.

But Bonds will continue to be eligible for the Hall, even if baseball adopts an even tougher policy.

And his records will stand indefinitely.

But, as I say, I'm pretty much indifferent to Barry Bonds these days. He's yesterday's news.

And, for Bonds, that may be the worst punishment possible.

McGwire Finally Acknowledges Steroid Use

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It was dumb luck that I got to see the news coverage of the congressional testimony about steroids use in baseball that Mark McGwire gave on March 17, 2005.

I had been called for jury duty that day, and things got wrapped up early that afternoon, so I went home and switched on my TV. I don't think McGwire's testimony was live at the time I saw it. As I recall, I saw taped highlights.

And what I remember is his insistence that he wasn't there to talk about the past. It never seemed to occur to him that it was his past that gave any credibility to recommendations he had for the future.

It was a non–denial denial.

I was very disappointed in McGwire that day. When he broke into the majors with the Oakland A's, I liked him. I didn't care much for the other "Bash Brother," Jose Canseco — but, as it turned out, Canseco told the truth in his book when he not only admitted using steroids but fingered McGwire as someone who had injected performance–enhancing drugs with him.

Canseco told the truth. McGwire did not.

Technically, I suppose, you can't say McGwire lied. But implied in his protest that he did not want to talk about the past was the suggestion that he was guiltless. Actually, it wasn't even implied at one point, when he said, "[I]t remains a fact in this country that a man, any man, should be regarded as innocent unless proven guilty."

And during those hearings, McGwire sought to cast doubt on Canseco's credibility, saying, "[C]onsider the source of the statements."

I liked McGwire. His home run duel with Sammy Sosa in 1998 revived baseball with the public after the 1994–95 strike wiped out the 1994 World Series.

But it seems likely now that it was a hoax. McGwire was juiced. Sosa insists he never used steroids, but how can baseball fans believe him? Evidence is mounting that most of baseball's top performers in the last 20 years or so used steroids.

Even if no one proves his guilt, there will always be a stain on his name. Both he and McGwire exceeded the record for a single season. And McGwire apparently used steroids that season, but he has the audacity now to say he could have hit 70 home runs in 1998 with or without steroids. And Mike Bauman is right to call him on it in his article for MLB.com.

Essentially, Bauman said, McGwire is his own worst P.R. enemy: "What is apparently needed here is a basic, introductory course: Steroid Apologies 101," Bauman wrote. "You admit you took the steroids. You express your regrets for having done so. You appear to be genuinely penitent. You are a sincere seeker of redemption. You are a steroids sinner who has returned to the flock.

"What you do not do next, is what Mark McGwire did on Monday in an interview with Bob Costas on the MLB Network. He was fine through the admission and the apology. And then he said that if he had never used steroids he still would have hit all those home runs, because he was just that good. Talk about creating a nice moment and then crushing it."

Yep. Arrogance is a bad quality to project when you're trying to defend your use of performance–enhancing drugs. I must admit that I feel about the same way about McGwire as I do about Pete Rose. Even when admitting guilt, they insist on rationalizing their actions.

And that makes it difficult for those who always admired (and some envied) their talent to defend them.

This whole thing reminds me of the quiz show scandals of the 1950s. When Charles Van Doren — that scandal's version of McGwire — admitted in his congressional testimony that he had been "deeply involved in a deception," he was praised by most of the congressmen. But Rep. Steven Derounian, R–NY, refused to join the chorus praising him for admitting that he cheated.

"I am happy that you made the statement, but I cannot agree with most of my colleagues who commended you for telling the truth," Derounian said, "because I don't think an adult of your intelligence ought to be commended for telling the truth."

Well, McGwire, who likes to brag about his intelligence, cheated to get that home run record. Rose spent years denying what he finally admitted was true — that he gambled on baseball and he wagered on the team he managed.

As far as I'm concerned, they should both be kept out of the Hall of Fame.

Sports and Drugs — An Unending Story

The recent revelations of Alex Rodriguez's steroids use in 2003 have prompted me to revisit the issue of drugs and sports.

I was particularly struck by an article that ran in Sports Illustrated nearly a year ago, when Brett Favre's "retirement" from pro football was on the cover.

The article was written by Jack McCallum, and it essentially told readers not to blame sports for the prevalence of performance-enhancing drugs.

"We are a juiced nation," he wrote, making the point that there is a lot of money to be made. McCallum went on to quote Dr. Mark Gordon, a member of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, who said a 2004 study indicated that more than $1 billion was spent annually on legal human growth hormones (HGH). "And it's safe to assume it's gone up in the last four years," Gordon told McCallum.

It's hard to argue with some of McCallum's conclusions about steroids use in other segments of society — Hollywood, for example, where a plastic surgeon told McCallum, "If you're an actor in Hollywood and you're over 40, you are doing HGH. Period. Why wouldn't you? It makes your skin look better, your hair, your fingernails, everything."

McCallum wrote that "steroids are all over the culture," and I'm sure that is true. And surveys suggest that the lure of the good looks that steroids can produce is more enticing to young people than the desire to excel in sports. I was a teenager once myself, and, while I was never inclined to play football in high school, I did wish I possessed the sexy body that I believed the girls wanted. If steroids had been around in those days, I might have been tempted to take that shortcut if I had believed that it would mean I could have any girl I wanted.

But medical science is providing more and more evidence that steroids use can have deadly consequences — whether the objective was to be more sexually appealing or to be the next Babe Ruth.

Peer pressure isn't just tough on adolescents, who tend to think they are indestructible, anyway. Adults are subject to even more pressure — to keep up with others, to constantly compare themselves and their accomplishments to others.

No one likes to get older. But it's a natural part of life. Some steroids have a legitimate role to play — but that's a decision for a qualified physician to make, in relation to recovery from an injury. The unauthorized use of steroids, whether administered by a coach or a teammate or the athlete in question, needs to be stopped.

Sports boards and organizations need to focus their efforts on cracking down on this, even if means toppling all the Alex Rodriguezes from the pedestals on which they are perched. Baseball is paying for two decades of neglect. The other sports need to follow its lead and put the well being of their athletes ahead of trophies and revenue.

But even if the subject of steroids is adequately dealt with, sports still will need to be diligent about responding to the presence of anything that gives even a subtle hint of the existence of cheating.

It's a problem with no ultimate resolution, a story without an end.

A Strange Time in Sports

Time was when sports was a way for people to escape the cares of their daily lives.

One of my favorite sports writers, Red Smith, once observed that people went to sporting events to have fun, then they picked up the newspaper the next day to read about it "and have fun all over again."

But these are strange days in sports.

• Last weekend, I wrote on this blog about the trouble Alex Rodriguez was having with the revelation that he tested positive for steroids in 2003.
  
  Joel Sherman of the New York Post writes that the Yankee organization and Rodriguez's teammates will stand by him. Both are committed to him through 2017 because of the rich contract he signed with the Yankees.
  
  "As bizarre as it might sound considering current events," Sherman writes, "A-Rod actually has more job security than anyone in baseball."
  
  The Rodriguez revelation is another opportunity for some to play the race card. Jason Whitlock writes, for Fox Sports, that the "furor" over Rodriguez and Barry Bonds is really about protecting the legacy of a revered white hero, Babe Ruth.
  
  Now, I realize there are some differences between Whitlock and myself that affect our perceptions. He is black, I am white. I am also more than seven years older than he is, which may not be a lot in the great scheme of things, but it means I'm old enough to remember when Ruth's home run record was surpassed by Hank Aaron. I was 14 when that happened, and Whitlock was not yet 7.
  
  Aaron was one home run away from tying Ruth when the 1973 season ended, and he had to endure an offseason filled with the racism and the hate of those who wanted Ruth to remain the all-time home run king before being allowed to take the field and claim the record. But he did so with his natural abilities, just as Ruth did a couple of generations earlier. That, to me, has always been the difference between Ruth and Aaron and today's ball players who have exceeded (in Bonds' case) or who threaten to exceed (in Rodriguez's) the all-time mark with the help of performance-enhancing drugs.
  
  The "furor" has never been about racism for me. It's about cheating. Aaron and Ruth didn't cheat. Bonds and Rodriguez did.
  
  When Whitlock writes, "Barry Bonds threatened Ruth's legacy in a way Hank Aaron never could," it implies a lack of understanding about the reality of the times. In 1974, George Wallace was still a political force in America. School busing was still a prominent issue in America.
  
  If steroids had been a potential factor in the 1970s, I'm sure many in the anti-Aaron camp would have seized on it. But he could not be accused of cheating, so the underlying objection was about race. The passage of time — and the rise of Bonds and Rodriguez — may permit some, like Whitlock, to conveniently overlook that racism was alive and well in the 1970s, even if it was no longer legally sanctioned in places where it had been only a few years earlier.
  
  Rodriguez has been a respected star in baseball, who was often cited as proof that great things can be accomplished if a player relies strictly on his natural abilities. But the revelation of his steroids use has prompted many to second-guess their conclusions. Commissioner Bud Selig suggested, to USA Today, that he would consider reinstating Aaron as baseball's all-time home run king.
  
  Tom Knott writes, in the Washington Times, that, as far as the fans are concerned, there are already asterisks attached to the names of many modern stars.
  
  "Selig's sudden philosophical shift comes about 20 years too late," says Knott. "His anxiety over the record book comes late, too."


• One of the all-time great football players (in my opinion) — Brett Favre — appears to have called it quits — for good, this time. But some continue to raise doubts.
  
  Dennis Dillon of The Sporting News, for example, suggests that Favre, who will turn 40 before the next NFL season ends, may be setting the stage for another return to football, this time with Green Bay's rivals from Minnesota, the Vikings.
  
  Dillon may prove to be right. Perhaps we won't know for certain until training camp opens in the summer. Maybe a few months off to rest will give him time to persuade himself, again, that he can still do things he did when he was 10 years younger. But, as I wrote on this blog in recent days, I think Favre may be finished this time. His December collapse with the Jets may have been the wake-up call he needed.
  
  I disagree with Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution when he says Favre "is the most overrated athlete of our time."
  
  For nearly two full decades, Favre played football in one of the harshest climates imaginable, but he took the Packers to two consecutive Super Bowls. It was a coaching decision that cost the Packers the second one, not an on-the-field decision. And Favre won three MVPs — more than anyone else in NFL history.
  
  And he also established a record for consecutive starts that may well last forever. In the process, he set many records that may prove just as elusive for future quarterbacks. He revived a franchise that had been given up for dead many times in the decades since Bart Starr was the quarterback and Vince Lombardi was the coach.
  
  Overrated? Hardly.

As I say, these are strange days in the world of sports.

But when hasn't it been a strange time for sports fans? I used to work on the sports copy desk for a metropolitan newspaper. During my days there, a great college basketball player, Len Bias, was thought to be the next star of the Boston Celtics when he was taken second in the NBA draft in 1986. But less than two days later, he died of a heart attack following a cocaine overdose.

When I came in to work that Thursday, I was immediately assigned the job of compiling information from the various wire services. I had envisioned, when I began working for the sports department, editing stories and writing headlines about games and coaching techniques. But that day, my attention was focused on real world issues, like drug abuse and drug laws and the death of an athlete at the tender age of 22.

I felt much the same way four years later. By that time, I had moved to a new state, where I was pursuing my master's degree, and I was working on the sports desk of another newspaper. College basketball star Hank Gathers collapsed and died during a game.

Gathers' death was not brought on by a drug overdose, but I still experienced a sense of "déjà vu." Once again, serious matters intruded into what should have been a pleasurable world.

I guess my point is that you can never completely escape from serious issues, whether you seek that escape through the sport that is in season or the darkness of a movie theater. The escape can only be temporary, and then, eventually, you are faced once again with the issue you sought to escape — be it the untimely death of someone like Bias or Gathers or the unpleasantness of seeking work in a contracting economy.

Escapism is temporary and fleeting. What remains is real, and it will always be there, waiting for you.

'A-Fraud' Can't Compete With Evidence

Alex Rodriguez apparently came clean today, acknowledging, in an interview with ESPN's Peter Gammons, what just about everybody already knew.

He used steroids.

Rodriguez gave the following as his excuse — he was young, he was naïve, he was under a lot of pressure to produce because of the extremely lucrative contract he signed a few years earlier.

Well, cry me a river.

Thomas Boswell wrote, in today's Washington Post, that Rodriguez needed to tell the truth and live with the consequences.

But he also suggested that, at some point, we need to finish this and move on.

Indeed we do. But this isn't finished — not until the whispers that remain about other ballplayers have stopped. And that won't be achieved unless we permit the investigations in baseball to run their course. A player's personal popularity is no measure of whether he is guilty of using steroids or not — Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire were popular with the fans, but they appear to be as guilty of steroids use as Barry Bonds, who was widely disliked and now faces perjury charges.

And Rodriguez has been generally popular, although there have always been fans who resented his enormous paycheck — and his inability to lead teams to the World Series.

Using steroids is cheating, plain and simple. Joe Posnanski is right when he writes, for Sports Illustrated, that Rodriguez didn't need to take steroids. He had an abundance of talent.

Some players with far less talent may have felt that steroids would keep them playing longer and help them play better than they might otherwise. But Rodriguez wasn't one of those players. In 2003, when he tested positive for steroids, Rodriguez was the highest-paid player in baseball, by far, and he was widely viewed to be a natural talent. He was still in his 20s, and people were speaking of him in the same way they speak of the legendary players of the past.

Well, Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron and Willie Mays combined for more than 2,000 home runs, and none of them ever took steroids. They accomplished things with their natural talents. Many others may have wished they had those skills, and some may have resented the fact that Ruth and Aaron and Mays had those skills, and they did not.

But that's the way life is. Some people have natural skills — whether those skills are for hitting a baseball or playing a musical instrument or performing on the silver screen — that have the potential to produce a lot of income. Most do not.

It is good, as Barack Obama said tonight, that baseball is taking this issue seriously — at last. It has taken 20 years, but perhaps now baseball is sending an unmistakable signal to the young people of America that "there are no shortcuts." That may be the only good thing to come of this, but, if so, it may be sufficient.

For baseball to restore its integrity, it must rid itself of the cheaters — just as it did in the wake of the "Black Sox Scandal" 90 years ago.

'Pay-Rod' Paying the Price

Here in Texas, when Alex Rodriguez signed his mega-million-dollar contract to play for the Texas Rangers, his nickname of "A-Rod" was immediately transformed to "Pay-Rod."

These days, he plays third base for the New York Yankees, but, earlier in his career, he was a shortstop. Shortstops are notorious for being weak hitters — typically — but Rodriguez is 12th on the all-time home run list with 553.

If he hits 47 more, he will join a very exclusive club — only half a dozen major league baseball players have hit as many as 600 home runs in their careers and, unless Rodriguez spends a lot of time on the disabled list (or is otherwise unable to play), he will easily be the youngest to achieve it. Babe Ruth was 36 when he hit his 600th home run; Rodriguez is only 33.

There may be some doubt, however, about his future in major league baseball.

Selena Roberts and David Epstein write in Sports Illustrated that Rodriguez tested positive for two steroids (testosterone and Primobolan) in 2003, when, as a shortstop for the Rangers, he won the American League home run crown and the AL Most Valuable Player award.

Kevin Kaduk writes, in "Big League Stew" for Yahoo!, that, if the report is true, it will be devastating.

I don't know if I would go that far. Some of the recent revelations about steroid use in baseball truly were devastating. I have the feeling that baseball fans are becoming accustomed to it, and some may have suspected that Rodriguez had been guilty of using steroids in the past.

Rodriguez faces no penalty or legal action because "the survey testing that took place in 2003 was intended to be non-disciplinary." It was also intended to be anonymous, so major league baseball is making no comment on the report. In 2003, there was no penalty or punishment for a positive test.

However, at the very least, the allegations will be a distracting cloud that follows Rodriguez through the 2009 season and, in all likelihood, beyond.

There may be some logical explanations about testosterone — it is available by prescription for some uses. Primobolan, however, has no approved prescription use — but it is regarded as a "weak steroid" and is typically used with other steroids.

If such an explanation exists, Rodriguez is not required to disclose it unless he decides to do so on his own. But such an explanation may be regarded with suspicion today. As Pete Gaines points out in Deadspin, Rodriguez flatly denied ever taking steroids in a 2007 interview with Katie Couric.

New York is clearly not the place where a professional athlete wants to play with this kind of controversy swirling around him. Joel Sherman writes, in the New York Post, that the Yankees must regret signing him to a new 10-year, $275 million contract in 2007, with a clause that would pay him an additional $30 million if he breaks Barry Bonds' all-time career home run mark — less than two months after he opted out of the last three years of his old contract.

There is bound to be more reaction from New York. It is a city that takes baseball very seriously. Rodriguez was expected to add to the Yankees' extensive list of World Series championships — but New York hasn't even won an American League pennant since Rodriguez has been on the roster.