Posted on 09/26/2022 11:21:21 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Saturday afternoon, Aaron Judge went homerless, leaving his record at 60 homers, which ties with the greatest and most important player in baseball history, Babe Ruth. Judge still needs two jolts to surpass Roger Maris and take sole leadership of the most home runs in a season in both New York Yankee and American League history. However, while 62 homers are impressive, they still significantly trail Barry Bonds’ 73 homers in 2001. Even if Judge reaches 62 sometime in the next 11 games, he’d still be only seventh on the single-season list trailing Sammy Sosa (63 in 1999, 64 in 2001, and 66-1998) and Mark McGwire (65 in 1999 and 70 in 1998).
Prominent New York media outlets are excited about this story (e.g., Forbes and the New York Times), something that should give fans pause. It’s possible that baseball, using a compliant media, is pushing hard for this “new” record to cleanse the stains from the “Steroid Era,” a time when the league, if it didn’t conspire, nevertheless aggressively ignored.
Thus, Bud Selig, the current Commission of Baseball, insisted he’d never heard of steroids during the drug’s heyday in baseball:
During a news conference at the 2005 All-Star Game in Detroit, Selig tells reporters he was unaware of rumors of steroid use in baseball until 1998, when Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris’ single-season home run mark. “I never even heard about it,” Selig says. “I ran a team and nobody was closer to their players and I never heard any comment from them. It wasn’t until 1998 or ‘99 that I heard the discussion.”
Yet baseball outlawed steroids in 1991....
In 1996 and 1997, Mark McGwire admitted to steroid use when he began his assault on Roger Maris’s Major League record of 61 runs
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Alas, Barry Bonds, the home run king who surpassed Hank Aaron, also admitted to unwittingly using steroids.
Sammy Sosa, meanwhile, maintains that he never failed a drug test.
Sosa’s answer — that he never failed a test for PEDs — echoes responses he’s given in the recent past. In a 2018 interview with ESPN’s Jeremy Schapp, Sosa said he “never had a failed test in the country” and “never missed any test at the major league level.”
But, …The New York Times reported in 2009 that Sosa did test positive for a performance-enhancing drug in a 2003 conducted by the MLB that allowed players to remain anonymous.
In reality, drugs have always been a part of baseball, whether it was steroids or “greenies” amphetamines. Even Aaron, who surpassed the Babe only to be bested by Bonds, admitted he used greenies once.
Could also be because of the short time it took for him to be the home run record holder. He was drafted in 2016, just 6 years ago. He became Rookie of the Year in 2017, 5 years ago. 🙂
The home run leaders mostly thrived during the steroid era. And pitching has gotten better in the last 20 years. Every team has five or six pitchers who thrown 95+ miles per hour. It used to be one or two who threw that hard.
Sosa, McGwire and Bonds kinda erased themselves already. They all went biking with Lance Armstrong.
Last Thursday nights game between the Red Sox and Yankees on Fox was the top rated baseball game of the year.
Aaron Judge’s story is what makes baseball great. Everyone wants to see him beat Marris’ record of 61.
I am a Red Sox fan and I want to see him beat it.
Is baseball wanting to create excitement about Aaron judge breaking Maris’s record, because they don’t want to focus on the steroid era records?
We can all debate about the records set during the steroid era , but they are still officially in the baseball record book. They are still the official records.
I keep expecting the players to collapse suddenly. The thrill of watching sports is gone.
Heck, most teams have one or two guys that can top 100 mph.
A lot of pitchers having been averaging 98-99 mph fastballs this year.
Me too, but I'm glad that the Red Sox pitchers held him homerless over the weekend. Bad enough that Ruth started with the Red Sox (until he badmouthed his way out, contrary to legend) and Maris' 61st was given up by a Red Sox pitcher, the "immortal" Tracy Stallard.
Let another team share the inglorious notoriety for giving up Judge's record breaking homer.
The Bud Selig quotes are priceless.
The “experts” have an incredible knack for being totally full of it.
If he hit 60 home runs while playing for the Florida Marlins or the Colorado Rockies, would it even make the headlines on the sports pages ahead of NFL scores?
I remember Major League Baseball.
The Yankees end the season facing the horrible Texas Rangers pitching staff—on the road so less pressure—that should help Judge break the Maris record by the end of the season.
Giancarlo Stanton hit 59 home runs for the Marlins a few years ago—and as you say—the media coverage was much much less.
I don't think this is true as players are swinging for the fences more and more and the strikeout percentage has risen enormously because players want to hit it out of the park everytime they get up. Also, what do you think the ridiculous shift rule next year is going to do to ERA?
Most of us former sports fanatics will never go to another game again, much less watch one on TV.
The trill is definitely gone.
When Roger Maris beat Babe Ruth’s record of 60 home runs, people made an issue over the fact that he had not done so in 154 games (the length of the season when Ruth was playing). Judge has a chance to beat Ruth’s record in 154 games.
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