A Modest Proposal

Barry Bonds hit career home run # 714 last night, tying him for second on the all-time list with Babe Ruth. While it is quite an accomplishment, it pales in comparison to Ruth's overall impact on the game. Ruth far and away is still the greatest single baseball player ever. For one thing, Ruth became the all-time home run leader when he hit his 137th big fly. The next 577 were superfluous. Also, entire teams hit fewer home runs in any given season than Ruth hit by himself the same year. For yet another thing, Ruth began his career as a pitcher, and his name is still sprinkled liberally throughout baseball's collection of pitching records, too. No one before or since has performed at a level so far beyond everyone else in the game as has the Babe.

Besides, there is absolutely no whiff of steroids or other performance enhancers anywhere near Ruth. Indeed, one wonders how much more he could have accomplished than he did if he'd lived a less "party hardy" life.

So what do we do with Bonds's records, especially once he hits his # 715 and beyond? And what do we do with the records of other baseball players who've been touched by the steroids scandal still simmering in baseball?

My modest proposal (thank you, Dean Joanathan Smith) requires consideration of the following: first, that the single most difficult feat in all of sport is to hit "squarely" a spherical object, the baseball, with a conical object, the bat (it's not a cylinder because it tapers at the handle) when the ball is moving toward the batter at upwards of 90 mph. Second, that steroids do not so much change one's abilities as they enhance them (by about 10% according to the talking heads on ESPN).

We thus should go back and remeasure every home run hit by every player who has been at all touched by the steroids scandal. For the players who have either confessed to using steroids or who have been confirmed to have used steroids, take 10% off the distance of every homer they hit, compare the new distances to the dimensions of the ballparks in which each homer was hit, and continue to count each hit as a home run if it still exceeds the distance to the applicable outfield fence. If the adjusted distance is the same as the outfield fence, go ahead and give the player the home run. (The ball could have bounced off the top of the wall and beyond the field of play.) If the adjusted distance is shorter, subtract the hit in question from the player's home run totals. No asterisks required. A parenthetical notation after the player's name that the totals were adjusted (and by how many) because of confirmed steroid use will suffice.

For the players who have not been proven to have used steroids, use the same procedure, but place an asterisk by the player's totals to indicate that X number of home runs may or may not count if the allegations/suspicions/implications of steroid use by the player in question are ever confirmed.

This will clarify the situation in the record books, honor the dignity of the game, and yet recognize that some of the things that have happened in the past several seasons may not be entirely on the up-and-up. Of course, all this becomes moot if someone proves that steroids do not merely enhance performance, but change/improve it.

In that case, there's no other answer but to force the players involved to eat their children [no comments, please. If you do not get the reference to Swift's A Modest Proposal, go read it before you castigate me for this made-in-jest suggestion.--Ed.].