Records Should Be Protected From PED's
In 1961, Yankees' star Roger Maris set the all-time single season home-run mark with 61 Home-runs. One would think this would be an amazing moment for Maris and for baseball. However, instead of celebrating Maris and his amazing accomplishment the media turned Maris into a pariah of sorts. Through no fault of his own, baseball had added 8 games to the schedule since Babe Ruth set the record of 60 home runs in 1927. Then baseball commissioner, Ford Frick even went so far as to suggest that in order for Maris' record to stand, he would have had to break the record in 154 games. The sad fallout from this of course led to an asterisk being placed beside Maris' name in the record books until Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa both allegedly broke his record in 1998 but more on that later. To be clear, the asterisk carried the connotation that Maris' record was indeed not valid as while he broke the record with 61 home runs, it took him 162 games to do it.
Maris' record stood for 37 years; an incredible feat in sports. Then along came Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998 who electrified MLB with a home run race never before seen in the history of the sport. Giants' star Barry Bonds got in on the act a fews years later setting the record at 73. It's important to note that Bonds later broke Hank Aaron's career home run mark as well, retiring with an astounding 762 home runs. To be clear, it was just what MLB needed after suffering through a work stoppage in 1994 that ended in a lost season and a cancelled World Series. The irony in all of this is the fact that all three players have been linked to steroid use during this time which should have been the death knell for these so called records but alas it was not. Not only did MLB choose to count the records, there were no asterisks placed by their names and the only debate about their validity continues on sports talk radio to this day.
Fast forward to 2017 and we are witnessing Miami Marlins star, Giancarlo Stanton take his own run at the record books. As of today he sits with 53 home runs with 21 games to play. While we should again be celebrating the history that is potentially being made, fans and the sports media are debating what the real single-season home run record is. Is it Maris' with 61 or Bonds with 73? When Stanton was asked recently about this he was very blunt in his response stating that if he broke 61 he would consider himsef the all-time single-season record for home runs and thus, the debate continues.
From a sports purist perspective, none of this had to happen. All MLB needed to do in response to the steroid era was look to the precedent set by the Olympic Games and abolish all records that had been proven to be tainted by the use of PED's. We need to look no further than Canadian Sprinter, Ben Johnson and US Track Strar, Marion Jones. Despite setting major records in their respective sports their names and records have been abolished from the record books. The power brokers in the Olympics clearly realized that it came down to a question of the integrity of the movement they represented. They new they had to take drastic action and they should be applauded for taking the strong steps that they did. We can only hope that at some ppoint, MLB takes similar action to protect what are some of the most hallowed records in all of sport. While we can't change history, we can and must take steps to ensure that true greats like Hank Aaron and Roger Maris' are afforded their rightful place in it.