Sadly, we might be back to square one with Maris and 61. The whole Bonds/McGwire/Sosa era is under a giant, black, thundering cloud of suspicion. I want to give players the benefit of the doubt, but for these three there's too much out there to take their numbers seriously anymore. There's a whole book connecting Bonds and steroids, Sosa used corked bats and freaked out at getting tested*, and McGwire politely declined to deny he used steroids, preferring to "not talk about the past."** Finally, they all set their records when there was absolutely no testing for performance enhancers. Thank you, Bud Selig.
"I solemnly swear to give lame excuses and dodge all your important questions."
Now, to Howard. He has played in 135 of the Phillie's 138 games, and has hit 53 home runs. That's an average of one homer every 2.6 games. Assuming Howard plays in all of his team's remaining 24 games, that comes to nine more home runs, leaving him with 62 for the season, just enough to pass Maris. ESPN's projections concur.
"This one's for all the clean guys out there!"Suffice it to say, Howard is a beast. And now that we're playing in an era of testing, I can have at least a reasonable belief that he's clean. As a bonus, I get to watch him play on local TV since I'm 30 minutes from Philly. Do I think he'll pass Maris? Yeah, I do. If not, he'll get at least 60. He hit 14 in August and is only getting hotter. Look out for Mr. Howard.
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*For the record, I hate Rick Reilly, and this is just one of the reasons. That was a cheapshot interview. Reilly knew that the Player's Union didn't allow their members to take independent tests. Still, if his description of Sosa's reaction is genuine, it's worth noting. Plus, Sosa's production fell off of a cliff the moment mandatory testing began.
**You know what I wanna see? McGwire gets elected to the Hall of Fame and, instead of an induction speech, he just says "I'm not here to talk about the past."
6 comments:
Interesting. Didn't think about that.
I still kinda stick by McGwire. There's no hard evidence that he cheated while playing (unlike Sosa and Bonds). Yes, his silence is suspicious, but there's that whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing too...
Ryan Howard went to the high school that I'd have gone to if I went to public school and the school I should have gone to blew up...
This guy stole your post: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=cnnsi-thechasefor62&prov=cnnsi&type=lgns
that bastard.
well, let the record show i got my post out a good 20 hours before he published his version.
he better be careful you know, i'm learning every day more and more ways to sue people.
goodness, here's another one
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-maris090606&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
i am absolutely loving that i noticed this right before the major press picked up on it
I hope this story picks up steam, so if Howard makes it to 62 there'll be lots of celebration. Plus we can say that you started it all, you'll get hired by the Phillies, and we'll be in your posse.
On another note, I'm disappointed to hear that you don't like Reilly, but I understand your reason. His is the first article I read when I get SI.
Perhaps I should elaborate on Reilly.
I've subscribed to SI for over 10 years, and I used to enjoy Reilly. However, I began to tire of his one-sided stories. I know it's an editorial and therefore pure opinion, but I still felt he put too much effort into "tricking" people into agreeing with him by not giving the whole story. The Sosa interview is a great example.
Do I do that on my own blog? Probably, even if I don't mean to. But I'm not the senior writer for Sports Illustrated.
But that was just a nuisance. What really got me to hate him was when he wrote an entire article criticizing Bush, one reason being because Don King endorsed his 2000 campaign. Maybe that was his lame excuse for a connection to sports, I don’t know. The point being, it had no place in a magazine on sports. So that was the anvil that broke the camel’s back.
For a while after that, I actually ripped out and threw away Reilly’s article as soon as I got that week’s issue. I’ll admit that was immature. But I still refuse to read any of his articles since he decided to abuse his post as a sports writer by using it as a political sounding board.
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