Before the turn of the 20th century, baseball was a simpler sort of game. Find some men, a field where the cows weren’t, a small ball of horse hide, a stick and a few pieces of leather (if you were wealthy enough) and you had a baseball game in the making. Rules were general in nature with the idea being to have fun without getting yourself hurt. Today’s game is still about having fun. But it is also about making money through whatever means necessary. For the most part, this is accomplished through hard work and skill but can also be accomplished by other methods such as steroids. Stronger and more alert generally means more homeruns and more homeruns means more money.
History of the homerun
Putting a homerun into historical perspective gives a look at how much stronger and alert baseball players have become since statistics have been reliably kept. An exact date as to when baseball might have had an official beginning is a bit murky and depends upon whom you might talk to, but for this consideration 1880 is the arbitrary year of choice.
In 1880 Roger Connor played with seventeen different teams and came home with a record 67 homeruns in one decade. Once 1900 rolled around and a more accepted organized baseball system was formed, homerun statistics didn’t find much movement with the record number per decade remaining at 67. The first real movement came with the established career of George Herman Ruth (Babe Ruth.) His first decade in baseball saw him hit 467 homeruns, later to rise to 714 for his career and forty years as the record holder. Hank Aaron would later brake this record in 1974 and go on to hit 755 homeruns before his career ended. Depending upon your point of view, Barry Bonds now holds the Homerun record with 762 in 2008 and is still playing on a somewhat tenuous basis.
A tenuous basis
Although the controversy is relatively new to the baseball going public, the use of steroids has been pervasive for some time. Their use is said to make a player stronger, faster and quicker to react to the 100mph ball leaving the pitchers hand. The debate continues as to how this affects the homerun record because Barry Bonds has been accused of using them. Baseball is rooted in fair play with the use of performance enhancing substances, until now tolerated, discouraged. As the records for career and yearly homeruns fell, however, the ire of fans and government began to rise.
The mark of an asterisk
The ball that broke Hank Aarons record is a permanent reminder of the use of steroids. After public comment, to a fan that owed and donated the ball to the baseball hall of fame, the physical ball was marked with an asterisk indicating that the record breaking homerun may have been tainted.
Who holds the record?
The use of steroids can also be traced to homerun hitting single year records. Who is the record holder? One man’s opinion guesses Hank Aaron at 755 for career and Sammy Sosa for a single year at 66.
History of the homerun
Putting a homerun into historical perspective gives a look at how much stronger and alert baseball players have become since statistics have been reliably kept. An exact date as to when baseball might have had an official beginning is a bit murky and depends upon whom you might talk to, but for this consideration 1880 is the arbitrary year of choice.
In 1880 Roger Connor played with seventeen different teams and came home with a record 67 homeruns in one decade. Once 1900 rolled around and a more accepted organized baseball system was formed, homerun statistics didn’t find much movement with the record number per decade remaining at 67. The first real movement came with the established career of George Herman Ruth (Babe Ruth.) His first decade in baseball saw him hit 467 homeruns, later to rise to 714 for his career and forty years as the record holder. Hank Aaron would later brake this record in 1974 and go on to hit 755 homeruns before his career ended. Depending upon your point of view, Barry Bonds now holds the Homerun record with 762 in 2008 and is still playing on a somewhat tenuous basis.
A tenuous basis
Although the controversy is relatively new to the baseball going public, the use of steroids has been pervasive for some time. Their use is said to make a player stronger, faster and quicker to react to the 100mph ball leaving the pitchers hand. The debate continues as to how this affects the homerun record because Barry Bonds has been accused of using them. Baseball is rooted in fair play with the use of performance enhancing substances, until now tolerated, discouraged. As the records for career and yearly homeruns fell, however, the ire of fans and government began to rise.
The mark of an asterisk
The ball that broke Hank Aarons record is a permanent reminder of the use of steroids. After public comment, to a fan that owed and donated the ball to the baseball hall of fame, the physical ball was marked with an asterisk indicating that the record breaking homerun may have been tainted.
Who holds the record?
The use of steroids can also be traced to homerun hitting single year records. Who is the record holder? One man’s opinion guesses Hank Aaron at 755 for career and Sammy Sosa for a single year at 66.
