600 Ain't What is Used to Be

Jim Thome is on the verge of a milestone that just seven major leaguers have reached: 600 home runs. That's far fewer than the number with 3,000 hits. But somehow the buzz in much lower than it was for Derek Jeter's 3,000th hit.

Jeter, of course, plays in New York for the Yankees, so that accounts for some of the difference. And after steroid era, it seems the value of home runs has diminished. I can remember the hoopla surrounding Hank Aaron's 500th, and Ernie Banks was widely saluted when he reached that mark for the Chicago Cubs.

But Thome's march to the plateau seems to be getting less notice. It's not hard to remember the home run chase put on by Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire. Every at-bat was a media event. Batting practice by the sluggers was watches as intently as a World Series game.

After the bubble burst on that era, the numbers seemed more like pinball than baseball. After all, until the steroid era, only Aaron, Ruth and Mays had crossed the 600 barrier. The club will soon have eight members.

Unfortunately, the effect of the steroids era has been to tarnish even those might have never used the substances. Jeter has managed to keep a clean image, and, by all accounts, Thome name has never been associated with the scandal.

Still, for me, and I suspect many others, the distrust has been planted. I love the game, but any sense of innocence about the players has been lost. For me, now, it's hard to take the breaking of these records too seriously.

Bautista's Amazing Run

By any measure, Jose Bautista is on a monster run. In his last 162 games the Blue Jays basher has banged out 64 home runs. That's a historic number. It's exciting. It's thrilling. Well, it should be anyway.

But I have a hard time getting into it. And I know why: The steroid era hangs like a dark cloud over anything that smacks of amazing on the diamond. Bautista might be another victim of baseball's lazy approach to dealing with performance enhancing drugs. Maybe he's perfectly clean and just blossomed late. Later than anyone ever.

I'll admit I was transfixed by the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa duel to break Roger Maris' season home run mark. But the old saying goes "Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you." And baseball managed to out one over on all of us. And they did it over and over.

I remember seeing Alex Rodriguez at his first spring training with the New York Yankees. I had seen him years earlier when he was a youngster with the Seattle Mariners. When I saw him in Tampa, I told my wife he looks like a cartoon character. I never believed he was clean again. And I think it would be absurd to believe that he and all the others caught using steroids and their cousins did it just "once" or a "few times."

I know baseball Commissioner Bud Selig tells us the game has never been more popular. And by the numbers he's probably right. But I can't help thinking something has been lost. Maybe for others baseball still evokes looks of wide-eyed wonder at long home runs and amazing seasons.

Yes, I still love the game. And I still cheer when Prince Fielder sends a missile 500 feet into the bleachers. But in the back of my mind I always wonder if what I am seeing is based on chemicals.

I hope someday baseball will regain my total trust. In a way it shocks me to see the media pump out Bautista stories just like they did about McGwire, Sosa and all the rest. And when someone dares mention the possibility of performance enhancing drugs, he is met with disdain of Internet readers.

I'm not sure what comes after "Shame me twice ..."