STANTON’S HR CHASE SHOULD BE MORE SPECIAL
With 56 home runs in the 152 games the Miami Marlins have played in the 2017 baseball season, Giancarlo Stanton might be nearing baseball’s single-season home-run record. Then again, he might not be. Even though the era of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds is thankfully long since over, and even though Stanton had nothing to do with them and their diabolical cheating, and even though he himself presumably is not doping now, Stanton is stalked by them, linked to them and even diminished by them.
As the 2017 season reaches its final 10 games for the Marlins, Roger Maris’ record of 61 home runs in 162 games in 1961 is most definitely within Stanton’s reach. This should be one of the seminal achievements of the 2017 sports year.
But Maris’ record is buried under a mountain of syringes, pills and lies. Bonds is credited with the single-season MLB “record” of 73, followed by McGwire with 70, Sosa with 66,
McGwire with 65 and Sosa again with 64 and 63, all reached between 1998 and 2001, one of the most shameful periods in baseball history.
Had MLB owners and players cared to at least try to catch their cheaters back then and instituted the drug testing and other protocols they should have had at the time, we could presume the notorious trio of McGwire, Sosa and Bonds would have gone the way of Lance Armstrong and Marion Jones: caught, punished and purged from the record books.
Had that happened, Maris would have moved from seventh place on the list back to first, where he belongs. And then, all these years later, along comes Stanton.
Can you imagine how we would be viewing his march toward Maris in that case? It would be a national quest transcending sports, bringing new glory and interest to the game throughout American life. It would be like the 1998 McGwire-Sosa home run chase, only real — if Stanton is in fact doing everything the right way, a footnote we must add thanks in part to those scoun- drels from the past.
As it is, Stanton’s quest is a magical story for sports fans and a wonderful reason for Marlins fans to continue to pay attention to a team that is 20 games behind the first-place Washington Nationals in the National League East. It’s fun to tune in for his at-bats. In that way, it’s reminiscent of the last month of the season in 1998.
But because of what happened 19 years ago, Stanton will not get all of the attention and adoration he deserves. There’s a healthy skepticism among fans of most sports now regarding the use of performance-enhancing drugs, and who can blame them? They’re paying attention. They’re smart consumers. If you’re looking for the real legacy of McGwire, Sosa and Bonds, that’s it.
But in a season where more home runs have been hit in the major leagues than ever before, Stanton appears as a breath of fresh air, saying in August that he considers Maris’ 61 home runs the true single-season record. Maris’ son Roger Jr. agrees, and says he is rooting for Stanton to have a run at his late father’s record.
That’s good enough for me. If Stanton reaches 61, he ties the record. If he reaches 62, he owns it.
We all can dream a little, can’t we?