600 Still Impressive

Alex Rodriguez hit his 600th home run yesterday and no one seemed to care. ESPN tried to make us care by featuring live look-ins to his at bats, but at the end of the day, he just can't avoid the steroid stink.

I don't need to tell you that baseball is in a tough spot. No other sport embraced statistics quite like baseball. Growing up I was one of several of my friends who could name the top 10 leading home run hitters of all time. The numbers 755, 714, 660, 586 and of course 61 all meant something. Then the steroid era hit baseball and players starting crushing records at an extraordinary pace. I was a freshman in college the summer that McGwire and Sosa shattered Roger Maris' mark and like most Americans, I didn't think anything was fishy. Baseball had just gotten over the strike, attendance was down and the home run chase was exciting. If any sports fan says differently, they are lying.

I'm not here to point fingers because I think everyone has some blame - MLB, owners, managers, players, media, fans - but I do want to discuss what to do with the record books.

I was listening to Around the Horn yesterday and JA Adande was saying that 600 is a big accomplishment because players in all different eras had one advantage or another and yet only 7 players have ever done it. You know what? He's totally right. Think about it. Babe Ruth never played against the Negro Leaguers (not to mention that he used a bat that looked like something out of the Flintstones). Roger Maris played more games in a season. Aaron and Bonds played during the days of expansion when pitching was diluted.
Add in the rule changes, the drug scandals (ie - cocaine in the 80's) and no two eras can be considered equal. Being one of seven players to have ever done something is astonishing considering that in 2010 alone, the Mets have given at-bats to 22 different players.

I am of the belief that you cannot take away what has already been done. You can try to clean things up and make them look pretty, but in the end they are what they are. There is no going back and erasing the past. All we can do is change how we think and act in the future.

Rodriguez has hit 600 home runs. That cannot be taken away (in the same way that you cannot erase the Fab Five or the Reggie Bush years - they happened, don't pretend like they didn't by erasing) so his name belongs in the record book. Records and stats are not meant to be subjective. If you are of the mind that some of his 600 should not count because he was on steroids, then that is something that should be tackled by the Hall of Fame, not the record books. Don't put an * in the record book - on his Hall of Fame plaque explain that he played during the Steroid Era and move on. Let the history books tell the story of the numbers, but don't change the numbers to suit the collective needs of purists.