The New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge finished 60th at home of the season earlier this week, leaving him short of the American League’s longstanding record.
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The New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge finished 60th at home of the season earlier this week, leaving him short of the American League’s longstanding record.
Jamie Squire / Getty Images
As the baseball season ended, fans were watching the games as they did in 1998 – all eyes were on the home runs and two star players.
Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees, with 60 home runs so far this season, falls short of the US Championship single-season home run record, set by Roger Maris in 1961.
And on Friday night, Albert Pujols of St. Louis Cardinals hit two hits, hit 700 career run homea milestone so high that Pujols is only the fourth player to ever reach it.
With about a dozen matches left for each, ticket prices and TV ratings both increase as fans want to witness history.
For many, the excitement evokes home races from 1998 to 2001, when a trio of National League players – Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds – consistently topped the record. home run in an old Maris season on the road set the sky- the high mark that has since remained untouched: 73 houses, set by the Bonds in 2001.
But those records are viewed by some as tarnished, because they were set during the so-called “steroid era” of baseball. Bonds, Sosa and McGwire are among many star players accused of using performance-enhancing drugs.
Today, much has changed in the way the baseball team handles drug policy and testing – so much so that many observers think the records set now will go unpunished by comparison.
“For many purists who are upset about the steroid era, 62 [home runs] by Aaron Judge is, for them, the real record. And that means someone has actually surpassed Roger Maris ‘in the right way,'” said AJ Schnack, director of Summer is long gonea documentary about the 1998 McGwire-Sosa home race.
House running records and the “steroid era”
Baseball players have long sought out performance-enhancing treatments of various kinds. But baseball’s “steroid era” is considered to be the late 1990s and early 2000s.
At the time, MLB did not require drug testing. By the mid-1990s, steroid use had grown in popularity – some estimates say 20% or more – among major exercisers. But baseball officials, including MLB commissioner Bud Selig, deny knowledge of how widespread steroids have become.
Meanwhile, the 1998 MLB season featured one of the most exciting dynamics in years: Mark McGwire, the first ever capped player for St.
The two players raced to break Maris’s record in 1961, then finished the season ahead of the other. The race has rekindled national interest in baseball after a decade of decline. McGwire finished the season with 70, and Sosa with 66.
“In 1998, it was a pop culture moment that everyone in the country knew about,” says Schnack. It appeared on the front page of every newspaper.”
Sosa will delete 60 more times, McGwire once; and in 2001, Barry Bonds led both with 73, a record that still stands today.
In 2005, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa testified before Congress about steroids. Sosa denied doping, and McGwire declined to speak.
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In 2005, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa testified before Congress about steroids. Sosa denied doping, and McGwire declined to speak.
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“A Dark Day for Major League Baseball”
Then the steroid story unfolds.
A 2000 investigation by The New York Times found that steroid use had “become a problem in baseball, maybe even pervasive.” In 2002, Sports Illustrated published a pair of needles on its cover along with a quote by Ken Caminiti, MVP of the National League in 1996: “At first, I felt like a cheat. But I looked around. around and people are doing it.” And in his 2005 memoir Fruit juiceSix-time All-Star Jose Canseco was recognized for kicking off his steroid frenzy and designated a group of fellow players as steroid users, including Sosa and McGwire.
Many weeks later Fruit juice was published, a congressional committee opened an investigation into steroid use. (Members of Congress say steroid use among professional baseball players helped inspire widespread steroid use among adolescents,”Risk of serious and sometimes deadly consequences. “)
Sosa and McGwire testified in March of that year. Sosa refuses to use steroids; McGwire declined to say either way. (McGwire finally admitted to using steroids in 2010.) An independent report, conducted by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and commissioned by MLB, ultimately involving over 80 players.
“It’s been a dark day for Major League Baseball,” said Travis Tygart, head of the US Anti-Doping Agency. recent interview with NPR.
In 2007, Bonds’ professional career ended with 762 home runs, the highest total run in baseball history, and was one of only three players at the time to hit 700 or more in his career. their profession. Less than two months after his last MLB game, Bonds was in federal indictment on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice related to a government investigation into a steroid company.
Overall, the era in which baseball’s home-run standings were topped by records “we all know wasn’t done properly,” Tygart said.
None of the three – Bond, McGwire or Sosa – have been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. And their profiles, while very much official, are viewed by many as if they have an asterisk.
Now what else?
MLB and its players’ union first reached a drug-testing agreement in late 2002. Now, the league conducts more than 10,000 tests a year. Every player is tested when reporting on spring training and random tests are conducted throughout the season.
And where there have been some consequences, the penalties are now severe: A player’s first positive test result is an 80-match ban; Their second positive test would take 162 games, a whole season; A third positive test will result in a lifetime ban.
As a result, doping has dropped dramatically. Of the 8,400-several tests conducted before and during the 2021 season, only five tested positive for PED.
MLB did not hesitate to punish the big stars. Just last month, All-Star shorthand Fernando Tatis Jr., who leads the league with 42 home-team players in 2021, tested positive for an anabolic steroid and was suspended for 80 gamesput a huge rift in playoff aspirations for his team, the San Diego Padres.
Overall, more baseball fans trust any record set today than those from the steroid days, Schnack said.
“Whether or not you feel that the records set in the late 90s and early 200s are valid, you can see what’s happening now with both Judge and Pujols, at least know. that Major League Baseball has a policy. It’s experimental,” he said. “And it’s not the Wild West that it was then.”
NPR’s Tom Goldman contributed reporting.
