How Major League Baseball Destroyed the Single Season Home Run Record.

Americans have long had a love affair with the long ball (chicks especially dig it).Other sports have their records, but they couldn't hold a candle to the appeal of MLB's single-season Home Run record. Most points in an NBA season...yawn. Most points scored in an NHL season...next. Rushing for 2000 yards in an NFL season...much closer, but sorry no. Baseball's single season Home Run record was the best and most beloved in all of sport. Thanks to the steroid era, this is no longer the case and never will be again.

Part of the lasting American enchantment with baseball, over the last 100 years, is the fact that we can compare the statistics between the different eras and get an idea of how a player from the 1930's would stack up today. People might argue that the Dead Ball Era contradicts comparing time periods, nevertheless, people still had a love for the numbers 60 and 61 when discussing Home Run records. Any season a player neared or crossed 50 home runs brought an excitement and media coverage that was palpable. That conversation is irrelevant today as the ability to threaten the record (73) is as attainable as getting any politician to tell the truth on a regular basis.

In 1994, Major League Baseball dealt with an issue that no professional sport is immune from, a labor dispute. But baseball was about to do something that most people would have never thought possible. Major League Baseball threatened to cancel the World Series. The same World Series that had survived two world wars was about to be cancelled due to disagreements over the value of the labor involved. The baseball strike of 1994-95 derailed a playoff run by the Montreal Expos while also angering millions of baseball fans around the country.

In 1995, Major League Baseball solved their issues and returned to play. Many fans displayed that anger by showing up as empty seats. Attendance was down significantly and the feeling amongst many was that they didn't miss it as much as they thought and they could spend their money on other things. This definitely got the attention of MLB brass.

Changes were taking place in the Majors that should have sparked fan interest. There was the change in divisional alignment which gave more teams a chance to make the playoffs. There was even a move towards inter-league play. This sparked controversy because it was such a polarizing concept. Old-timers couldn't bear this mar on tradition. This was akin to stitching Chico's Bail Bonds across the back of Yankee pinstripes. But, for the casual fan, reactions were more like...~meh. Baseball was suffering declining fan interest and declining ballpark attendance.

All of the changes occurring were new and interesting but not interesting enough to entice old baseball fans back let alone attract new ones. This became a concern for front offices of baseball operations around the league. Getting people to attend games and watch them on TV would affect their bottom lines and TV contracts.

Meanwhile, players were (still do and always have been) finding it difficult to compete at such a high level for any length of time. A baseball players career is short. It is even shorter if he doesn't produce. More and more players were trying to find ways to produce and stay in the league as long as possible. One of the ways to do so was to take performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids. These chemical performance-enhancers had the ability to repair muscles and help players bounce back from the day to day grind that is Major League Baseball. Many players chose this route to help extend their careers. MLB didn't act quickly or decisively enough for the players to stop this harmful activity and it would eventually reduce the single season HR record to nothing more than a trivia question.

The Summer of 1998 was a season that many baseball historians looked back on and declared that it saved Major League Baseball. Today, these same historians as well as many others look back on this year and see it as the year that they should have known something was up. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa engaged in an epic home run battle that summer. As each of them crossed the 50 home run mark, the media got into the game whole hog. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch had a graphic in its binder each day that showed the total number of home runs for each and what each had done the day before. ESPN led the day's sports coverage with the home run chase. The excitement built as stations did live cutaways for each of the men's at-bats as they neared the record. And then McGwire was the first to break 60, then tie Roger Maris and then break the record. Sosa would follow, but McGwire had stolen the thunder. McGwire went on to set the pace at 70....70 home runs! Sosa finished with 66.

It seems obvious today that something was wrong, but we as fans, went on about our blissful ignorance and lapped up every at bat. A quick look at the numbers tells us what we should have been noting. In 1927, Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs. 34 years later, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle challenge for the record. Mantle fell off with an injury but Maris was able to break Ruth's record on the last day of the season (don't forget the 154 vs. 162 game controversy *...asterisks all around!). 37 years later, McGwire and Sosa would put on their assault of the record. However, this time they wouldn't need every day and every at bat to beat it. They would destroy the record and set the bar incredibly high.

Of the top 45 single season HR hitters in the National League, 25 occurred since 1998 (as of 2011). The top 8 HR hitters occurred after 1998. The next highest total of 56 was by Hack Wilson in 1930 and the last time someone had broken 50 in the National League before Sosa and McGwire was George Foster in 1977. The American League has only 16 of their top 43 since 1998, but 23 since 1995. The last time someone crossed 50 in the American League was Mark McGwire with 52 in 1996 and Cecil Fielder with 51 in 1990. Compare these instances to the outlandish crossing of 61 homers in a season 6 times during the 4 year span between 1998-2001. To cap it off, Barry Bonds finishes the 2001 season with a ridiculous home run total of 73. It is interesting to note that something seemed to be strange even before 1998. In 1996 Brady Anderson, a lead off hitter for the Baltimore Orioles hit 50 home runs while also stealing 21 bases. Home runs per game were up and most people were happy because they were too engrossed in their fantasy baseball boom to care. "Brady Anderson hit a home run with 3 RBI's and 2 SB's today? Awesome, I am going to own my league!"

Home runs per game between 1999-2001 were respectively, 1.14, 1.17 and 1.12. These are the highest totals ever. 1.12 was matched again in 2004, but has been in a downward trend ever since.

The home run totals during this time period served notice that something was not proper in the universe of Major League Baseball. But, it was too late. Bud Selig moved on the issue of PED's in baseball entirely too late. Many suggest that people inside baseball looked the other way when alerted to the issue. The reason for this, they say, is that people were finally getting interested in baseball again with this home run race and no one wanted to stop the momentum. But there would be a price to pay.

After 2001, seasons came and went and with them new allegations and questions surfaced about who was juicing and who was not. The argument wasn't limited to hitters. Pitchers were among those accused of taking PED's. The cloud over baseball grew darker and more ominous. But, the real damage was in the numbers.

The Era of 1998-2001 is one that will stand out like a pimple on a wedding day forever. Billy Crystal may as well begin making a movie about it. 73 home runs hit by Barry Bonds is a record that will never be threatened. These totals are Nintendo-ish like numbers and everyone knows there was a cheat code involved. This time the cheat code was steroids and other PED's. If there were some adults on the clock who were willing to see things and act upon the first reports, then it may have been possible to save the best record in all of sports from becoming a joke (with an asterisk).