- Dis-Asterisk
It?s everywhere now. Billy Crystal even made a movie about it ? the unjust * that Roger Maris had to suffer beside his name indicating his 61-homer season of 1961 was not up to Babe Ruth-ian standards as it occurred during Major League Baseball?s inaugural 162-game season.
The only problem with that story is, it?s just that - a story.
In July of '61, then commissioner Ford Frick suggested to some sports writers that if Ruth's record went down in the 154 games he took to do it, it would be the new standard. However if it took longer and the record fell somewhere in the expanded schedule ?there would have to be some distinctive mark in the record books...?
It did. But there wasn?t.
Baseball didn?t even keep record books back then, and those publishers that did listed Maris on top and Ruth second and both were asteriskless.
Yet the idea of one stuck, and Roger Maris died feeling that the record his name became synonymous with was somehow unjustified.
Flash forward to now and how MLB is dealing with the ?Steroid Era? of the game. There are calls that either all the records that were set during those bum-jabbing years be either expunged or set apart somehow.
A return of the asterisk.
The problem is, history demonstrated one was never really necessary back then. Maris didn?t get his asterisk, but one stuck with him anyway. His record was set apart from Ruth?s simply by the suggestion of the need for one. That?s baseball. Records matter so much, especially the major ones, like home runs in a season, that fans know the story about the record so well, no typographical distinction is required to make it special.
The same applies today. Imagine what the official record book would look like if you added little *?s to all the prominent players who were busted or have since come clean?
It would look like you killed a chicken on the thing.
No ? this is best left to the court of public opinion. What the fans think is what really matters, not what some record book says.
If you want proof, look at the events of just this week.
Mark McGwire came semi-clean on Monday letting us all know that he did in fact take steroids during his career, including 1998 when he hit 70 homers.
This news was greeted by a robustly cynical press with pretty much universal distain:
?Mark "Big Mac" McGwire telling Bob Costas on the MLB Network that yes, I did steroids but I didn't use them to hit home runs.
That statement belongs right alongside the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and Eskimos among famous lies.?
or
?So, Mark McGwire used steroids. In other breaking news, Pete Rose bet on Baseball, Gilbert Arenas is familiar with the Second Amendment, and Tiger Woods is out of the running for Husband of the Decade.?
Those attitudes were stoked by truly terrible optics. Five years ago McGwire ruined what little reputation he had left stating before a congressional committee looking into PED?s in baseball that, ?now was not the time to look back.?
So bad was the reaction to that he literally went into hiding.
Now McGwire is about to return to the game as hitting instructor for his old boss Tony La Russa, and indications are that Bud ?Wink Wink? Selig insisted that he had to come clean before he would be allowed back.
Then there was the timing. His mea culpa and crying jag on MLB?s own TV network came just a few days after he?d been passed over for the Hall of Fame ? again.
Everyone has his or her own opinion on Mark McGwire.
Upon hearing the news Roger Maris' son Rich said, ?Obviously, I think my dad still holds the record.?
It?s hard to argue with that.
Especially when you consider that if you take away the steroids Mark McGwire would have been just another power hitter who was forced into early retirement due to injuries.
But he did take the drugs ? and he did have those amazing years.
Before he and Sammy Sosa?s home run derby, baseball was in the dumper suffering at the gate and on TV due to the strike that cancelled the World Series.
His power at the plate captivated the nation like few things ever have in sports, with network programming routinely being interrupted to show his each and every at bat.
He took the steroids so he could do that.
Does anyone think he really think an asterisk beside his name is required for us to remember all of that?
Gavin McDougald ? AKA Couch
It?s everywhere now. Billy Crystal even made a movie about it ? the unjust * that Roger Maris had to suffer beside his name indicating his 61-homer season of 1961 was not up to Babe Ruth-ian standards as it occurred during Major League Baseball?s inaugural 162-game season.
The only problem with that story is, it?s just that - a story.
In July of '61, then commissioner Ford Frick suggested to some sports writers that if Ruth's record went down in the 154 games he took to do it, it would be the new standard. However if it took longer and the record fell somewhere in the expanded schedule ?there would have to be some distinctive mark in the record books...?
It did. But there wasn?t.
Baseball didn?t even keep record books back then, and those publishers that did listed Maris on top and Ruth second and both were asteriskless.
Yet the idea of one stuck, and Roger Maris died feeling that the record his name became synonymous with was somehow unjustified.
Flash forward to now and how MLB is dealing with the ?Steroid Era? of the game. There are calls that either all the records that were set during those bum-jabbing years be either expunged or set apart somehow.
A return of the asterisk.
The problem is, history demonstrated one was never really necessary back then. Maris didn?t get his asterisk, but one stuck with him anyway. His record was set apart from Ruth?s simply by the suggestion of the need for one. That?s baseball. Records matter so much, especially the major ones, like home runs in a season, that fans know the story about the record so well, no typographical distinction is required to make it special.
The same applies today. Imagine what the official record book would look like if you added little *?s to all the prominent players who were busted or have since come clean?
It would look like you killed a chicken on the thing.
No ? this is best left to the court of public opinion. What the fans think is what really matters, not what some record book says.
If you want proof, look at the events of just this week.
Mark McGwire came semi-clean on Monday letting us all know that he did in fact take steroids during his career, including 1998 when he hit 70 homers.
This news was greeted by a robustly cynical press with pretty much universal distain:
?Mark "Big Mac" McGwire telling Bob Costas on the MLB Network that yes, I did steroids but I didn't use them to hit home runs.
That statement belongs right alongside the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and Eskimos among famous lies.?
or
?So, Mark McGwire used steroids. In other breaking news, Pete Rose bet on Baseball, Gilbert Arenas is familiar with the Second Amendment, and Tiger Woods is out of the running for Husband of the Decade.?
Those attitudes were stoked by truly terrible optics. Five years ago McGwire ruined what little reputation he had left stating before a congressional committee looking into PED?s in baseball that, ?now was not the time to look back.?
So bad was the reaction to that he literally went into hiding.
Now McGwire is about to return to the game as hitting instructor for his old boss Tony La Russa, and indications are that Bud ?Wink Wink? Selig insisted that he had to come clean before he would be allowed back.
Then there was the timing. His mea culpa and crying jag on MLB?s own TV network came just a few days after he?d been passed over for the Hall of Fame ? again.
Everyone has his or her own opinion on Mark McGwire.
Upon hearing the news Roger Maris' son Rich said, ?Obviously, I think my dad still holds the record.?
It?s hard to argue with that.
Especially when you consider that if you take away the steroids Mark McGwire would have been just another power hitter who was forced into early retirement due to injuries.
But he did take the drugs ? and he did have those amazing years.
Before he and Sammy Sosa?s home run derby, baseball was in the dumper suffering at the gate and on TV due to the strike that cancelled the World Series.
His power at the plate captivated the nation like few things ever have in sports, with network programming routinely being interrupted to show his each and every at bat.
He took the steroids so he could do that.
Does anyone think he really think an asterisk beside his name is required for us to remember all of that?
Gavin McDougald ? AKA Couch
