In your mind, does Maris' 61 HR's still stand??

Nice change of pace... I kinda think you have to recognize it still, if only unofficially. Lets say all of them (bonds, mcguire, sosa...) are clean, no steroids at all. it is still a different era with ballparks made for hitters not pitchers like they used to be. I think it is very hard to compare records from such different periods of time.

 

61 still stands for me.


I think in the long term there will be two record.

61.....and the setroid mark.


Untill MLB starts to do REAL testing and handing out 2 year-lifetime bans for players that are caught for their FIRST offence.....no home run record will mean much at all.

 

Yankee Stadium was hardly made for pitchers; particularly for left-handed batters. Neither was Fenway. Parks weren't just made for pitchers back then.

Of course..there's always been an implied asterisk for Maris because he hit 61 in 6 more games than Ruth hit 60. The season used to last only 156 games...when Ruth hit his 60. Give Ruth an extra 5 games...think he'd hit one or two more, given the pace he was hitting them out that season.

Of course...you can put an asterisk by Ruth because he never played in an integrated game. He missed seeing lots of good black pitchers who weren't allowed to play MLB.

I agree that it's hard to compare numbers from different eras. I think you judge a player by how he compared to others in his era...who faced the same conditions he faced.

 

no. 73 is the record even if it is tainted with the juice.

 

That would be fine if you knew every single player was on steroids.

 

Max,

I'm pretty sure the length of the season when Ruth hit his 60 was 154 games which makes it more impressive that he hit 60 in a season with 8 less games than Maris (although for some reason I am thinking that the 1961 season had 161 games instead of 162..).

 

I think it's funny when people look to Maris as the 'Drug-Free' HR championship when he was almost certainly using a performance-enhancing drug that was far more widespread than steroids is today.

 

Officially, it's not going to change. But as far as I'm concerned, I'll never hold McGwire or Sosa in the same regard as Maris, Williams, etc.

Bonds, even without the roid rage, was a pretty special player. I'll consider his HR records just as tainted, but at least he was still a legit player on his own accord. McGwire and Sosa would have been bums without the help.

Evan

 

I believe Maris still holds the record, as will Aaron, but baseball was never clear on the whole steroids issue so you can't really say they were cheating. They technically weren't. Baseball was ok with it. So you can't really strip a guy for something that was not explicit. That is the real difficulty here. If baseball had drawn a line we could ban their ass and strip their ass of everything. And that would be sweet. But they weren't. And therein lies the difficulty. So I'm not going to destroy Bonds, But I want to, because deep down, all the players knew. Just too much unclarity.

 

and we'll never know that for sure. but i think enough of them were to be able to make that claim. particularly among the better players in the game.

 

it is dirty. it's crap. but it's the record. he physically walked up to the plate and smashed out 12 more than Roger. Yes he cheated. do we take all of the wins away from spitballers? Do we take all of the home runs away from corkers? let's differentiate between cheating and illegal. i personally do not care about illegal. and cheating is a part of baseball. the record will stay but i hope the HOF voters don't vote him in.

 

I'm kind of an 'In the now' baseball observer. If the Astros are doing well, I'll watch the occasional game, but don't get caught up in it too much.

Unfortunately, all this steroid talk is making me less interested in baseball. Both sides have their own agenda and it has nothing to do with long term solutions. Both sides just want to make their money.

 

Would that be caffeine or nicotine?

 

Something a bit stronger - amphetamines, or greenies, as they're popularly referred to.

 

Maris was on speed?

 

I don't see how you can say everyone faced the same conditions. I'm sure there are guys out there with great numbers, that just don't look so great because there were other guys taking illegal performance-enhancing substances and producing numbers that much better. Or guys who were injured and unable to even play, due to age, whatever, while other guys stayed on the field because of illegal performance-enhancing substances.

 

61 still stands.... am I the only one who finds it strange that Bonds was an all-star caliber player in the late 90's, a good player but not nearly on the level of an Aaron, and suddenly he starts cranking 70 homeruns? I mean the most HR the guy hit's before is 49, then he hits 24 over that? Possible? Yes... but highly unlikely without a little help.

I'd much rather see Rose in the HOF than Bonds.

 

couple of problems:

1. like who? beltran might be a good example. his numbers seem legit, and they look great with or without others juiced up.

2. i don't know the effects of steroids. i don't know if they make a 20 HR guy a 60 HR guy. or if they make a 55 HR guy a 65 HR guy. i just don't know the effect. i believe steroids to be influential in the HR race for sure...but i don't think it's the only factor for why the ball is flying out of the yard at a pace greater than in years past. weight training, smaller ballparks, hitting techonology and a watered down pitching pool all strike me as very significant factors as well.