Forget Roids, Do Mac's Numbers even qualify him?

A test for you.

Quick, tell me how many yards Emmitt Smith rushed for in his NFL career. How about Jim Brown? Walter Payton? How many points did MJ score in his career? Kareem?

Now tell me how many homers the Babe hit. Aaron? The single season mark of Roger Maris?

Heretofore, home run records in major league baseball were sacred; part of the American vernacular. I’m writing about baseball, and I just used the words “heretofore” and “vernacular.” I think I just tasted a little bit of vomit.

Prior to 1998, the home run record was so popular that when Mark McGwire was set to break it, Fox broadcast the game on National network TV when the game had no implications for the postseason, and neither team played home games in New York.

Steroids have apparently been widespread in baseball, used by both pitchers and hitters for the past dozen years. During the “steroid era” there have been no .400 hitters, few 300 strikeout seasons, and no great increase in dominant starting pitchers.

However, one thing is clear. Steroids have completely changed the home run in baseball.

In the 95 seasons between 1900 and 1994, 18 players hit 50 or more homers; twice during that time span a player hit 60 or more. Since 1994, a player has hit 50 plus homers 21 times; six times a player has exceeded 60 homers. Steroids have, to state the obvious, brought us more home runs.

So whither, Major League Baseball? Do we allow steroid users into the hall, thus making comparisons of home run numbers across eras essentially meaningless? Or do we exclude McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, Palmeiro and scores of others based on their cheating?

To accomplish the latter would require MLB to actually rid the sport of the juice. To do that, they’d have to actually test for all known performance enhancers, and save the samples for five years for retesting for “unknown” performance enhancers.

I don’t see baseball doing this. It simply makes too much sense, and would solve the problem.

The alternative is simply to allow baseball to evolve, as other sports do. In this new era, we can still worship the home run. But don’t be impressed by 500 of them anymore.

So now that we've shed a tear for the MLB home run records, let's look at whether McGwire qualifies for the Hall.

Mac’s career accomplishments were fueled, at least in part, by steroid use. In looking at McGwire’s career, we are left to but speculate as to when he used the juice, and when he harnessed its power. I have a theory as to the latter.

At the end of the 1994 season, McGwire turned 31 years of age. His career batting average was .250 and he had hit one HR every 14 at-bats. His career was not all that different from that of Dave Kingman, who finished his career with a homer every 15 at-bats.

From 1995 to 2001, Mac batted .273, and hit a homer every 8 at-bats. It was during those seven seasons that McGwire accumulated what were, at the time, Hall of Fame worthy numbers. Certainly seems like "something" turned Mac from ordinary to extraordinary. I'm not betting against the juice being the factor.

So if we allow steroid users into the hall, does Mac belong?

McGwire did nothing in baseball to make his Hall of Fame case except hit the long ball. No hall-worthy defense, no hall-worthy steals, no hall-worthy batting average. If he’s in, it’s because he hit a lot of home runs. Did he? Hit “a lot” of homers? He hit 583 of them.

I have no idea if that is “a lot” anymore.

When McGwire retired, only four players had hit more homers than he. None had done so with the aid of steroids. In the five years since he retired, two players have passed Mac, and one, Griffey, Jr., is poised to do so during his next healthy month, or sometime between now and 2009.

Of today’s active players, at least nine are on pace to exceed McGwire’s career home run total, or have already done so. (Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Griffey, Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Andruw Jones, Vlad. Guerrero, and Albert Pujols.) Of those players, all but Sosa and Andruw Jones have batting averages at least ten points higher than McGwire’s career average.

Twenty years from now, where will McGwire sit among baseball’s all-time home run leaders? How impressive will those 583 home runs be? Fact is, they may not look any better than Kingman’s numbers, who ranked in the top twenty in career home run hitters when he retired 20 years ago, and is now 34th.

To be fifth all-time on the home run list is hall-worthy. To be tenth among your peers is not.

The fact is, none of us know how impressive McGwire’s homers were. He performed at a high level during a new era. The era will have to last a few years before we can be sure Mac did something special.

I say no to McGwire for at least ten years. Then we’ll have some data which we can use to compare McGwire to other juiced home run hitters.