Seven-hundred fifty-five, 714, 715. 61, 73. Numbers mean plenty to anyone who ever cared about baseball. You don’t even have to identify them because they are a language of their own, and they represent most of what makes baseball distinct.
Numbers, in fact, are what makes Barry Bonds so remarkable. He has hit 73 home runs in a season—12 more than the record that seemed so unbreakable for 37 years. Fans know that Babe Ruth’s 714 career homers stood as a benchmark and that Hank Aaron has the record with 755 and that Bonds is now the only one in between them.
Numbers are what tie baseball’s past, present and future. They are what give the sport its personality—for good or bad. Yes, critics point out that baseball people and fans are too hung up on figures, but it’s just the way it is. A pitcher who has 300 wins is a Hall of Famer, so is a batter who gets 3,000 hits. Numbers matter.
We know that hitting .400 for a season is almost impossible, as is winning 30 games or hitting safely in 56 consecutive games. We also know it all has been done. We know the numbers.
All of which brings us back to Bonds. What people hold against him—and any other batter or pitcher suspected of using steroids—is that he might throw a monkey wrench into the whole thing. If home run totals are artificially inflated now, what will any numbers mean from now on? Do we have a separate category for the late 1990s on? Is that even fair? Weren’t pitchers allegedly doing as many steroids as the sluggers? We just don’t know, and that’s the problem.
That’s a big reason why Bonds gets booed at Shea Stadium and everywhere else outside of San Francisco. He is the biggest target and, unlike Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and others, the one still standing.
-- Mark Herrmann
Comments (6)
The bearer Bonds numbers with the most "juice" are "clear-ly" 49 and 46...Bonds homerun totals in the years before and after he hit 73 !
"A pitcher who has 300 wins is a Hall of Famer, so is a batter who gets 3,000 hits. Numbers matter." Raffy has 3000, and he has no shot at the Hall. That's a good thing. The stat freaks had him in b/c of that number. But he ranged from good to very good, never great, over his career. The Hall should be reserved for greatness, or closed.
Actually, Bonds isn't the last one standing. There's Giambi, and maybe Sheffield, who has offered the same denials as Bonds. What this situation is causing me to do is not get angry at those suspected of past abuse but to cast doubt on the current sluggers, such as Pujols. We'll never know who is/was really clean. That's the shame.
I'm not sure if stats are a measure of greatness, either. Phil Niekro is in the Hall for winning more than 300 games. But he never won the Cy Young, meaning he was never the best pitcher in any year of his career. Willie Hernandez won a Cy Young for converting 32 of 33 saves in 1984. But he lost three games that year, and that should be factored against his blown-save percentage. And Gaylord Perry is suspected of as much dishonesty as any steroid-accused slugger.
Stephen brings up an interesting point when he mentions Gaylord Perry. I've always found it strange that we tend to look the other way at pichers who doctor the ball, be it Perry or any of the others who have been known or suspected of cheating. It strikes me as unfair, after all doesn't the pitcher have a natural advantage to start with since he's not the one trying to guess the pitch?
I apologize, too, if I came off as nit-picky. Hermann's blog is one of the best, and his game stories are always informative and well-written.