By : Mike Rifkin
On Tuesday night, Aaron Judge hit his 62nd home run of the season establishing a new Yankee and American League record. The record overtakes the 61 hit by Roger Maris in 1961. But this is nothing against Judge he bet on himself this season and had arguably one of the greatest seasons in the history of Baseball and he will get paid by someone this winter.
My issue is with people who are calling 62 the Major League record. It’s not the record Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001. Now Bonds is one of the many faces of Baseball’s steroid era, but for a game that loves to talk about the history of it, how can people ignore the steroid era? In 1998 the greatest thing during the summer was the race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.
Now none of those three Bonds, McGwire and Sosa are no longer on the Hall Of Fame ballot and the only way they can get in is by a Veterans Committee. But here is where Baseball really has a double standard the Commissioner at the time Bud Selig is in the Hall Of Fame. As is former Red Sox Designated Hitter David Ortiz who got in this year, his first on the ballot. Ortiz was mentioned in the Mitchell Report for illegal PED use. Again not attacking Ortiz I think he is a Hall of Famer as are Bonds, McGwire and Sosa. If you want to put an asterisk next to their names in Cooperstown that’s fine, but to act like these guys didn’ achieve anything when you reward others in the era of which they played is insane to me.
To ignore the entire steroid era to me is stupid. Yes, I grew up during the steroid era and yes I am against cheating, but to totally ignore what these guys did is comical especially when you honor the guy who was at the helm during the era. Aaron Judge set an American League and Yankee record, but not the Major League record. So whether you agree with me or disagree the steroid era happened and you cannot scrub that from history.
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