Power surge raises some troubling issues
ATLANTA - We’ve been through this before. Everyone swinging for the fences. Balls flying out of the park. Fans presumably gushing over the tape-measure spectacle (because, you know, chicks dig the long ball).
Sorry, we’ll take a pass on this bandwagon.
As baseball heads toward a recordobliterating season for home runs — yes, a power display that eclipses even the height of the steroid era — one can’t help but wonder if it’s all on the up and up .
Granted, baseball now has a serious drug-testing plan, something that didn’t exist at all during the heyday of Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, but no one can ever know with certainty that it’s weeded out all the chemically enhanced sluggers.
Doping is a battle that’s never really won. The best one can hope for is maintaining a slight edge over the would-be cheaters.
“You don’t want people to be skeptical,” said Miami Marlins manager Don Mattingly, who has the game’s top slugger at the moment, Giancarlo Stanton . “I think what fans really want to know — they love greatness, they love seeing the ball go out of the ballpark, you love seeing athletes in all sports do great and do great things — but I think as a fan, and I include myself in that, you want to know it’s coming through hard work and dedication and talent. Not any other help.”
Beyond that, the emphasis on hitting the ball out of the park — by everyone from mammoth outfielders to light-hitting shortstops — raises another issue that is troubling to the long-term health of the national pastime.
A game that should be filled with nuance and infinite possibilities has become something akin to slow-pitch softball, the lineups filled from top to bottom with beefy guys who do nothing more than swing from their heels on every pitch.
If everyone is hitting the long ball, it’s it really all that exciting?
Take the Texas Rangers , who heading into Friday were leading the majors with 218 homers and, in an interesting twist, stopped by Atlanta this week for a series against Braves.
This, of course, is the home of Hank Aaron, whose statue adorns a place of honor in new SunTrust Park and remains the true home run king in our books. So perhaps it wouldn’t have seemed out of place to say the Rangers are faithfully carrying on the Hammer’s power-hitting legacy.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Rangers’ lineup features Joey Gallo, who leads the team with 37 homers but is hitting barely above the Mendoza Line (.211) with a whopping 162 strikeouts. He’s hardly alone. Texas also has Mike Napoli (.196, 29 homers, 155 strikeouts) and Rougned Odor (.213, 28 homers, 137 strikeouts), who are following much the same blueprint every time they step to the plate.
Knock it out of the park or go down swinging as hard as you can.
Compare that with Aaron, who in addition to 755 homers finished with a career average of .305 and never struck out as many as 100 times in any of his 23 seasons.