Moonbear said:
How would you know which past records were obtained with the aid of performance enhancing drugs when there were no tests done at the time? What's more likely to happen is that nobody will be able to break the old records if they play clean. The only way I could see it being possible would be to just wipe the slate clean and start tracking new records from the date the enforcement takes effect. Can you imagine the uproar from fans of seeing old records just tossed to the wind?
Personally, I've found baseball becoming more irrelevant ever since they canceled the Series in '94. I followed that Indians team for a few more years, but pretty much lost interest in baseball as that bunch of players slowly broke up.
I almost think baseball owners were afraid to address the issue of performance enhancing drugs because they needed the extra attention of players challenging famous records to keep bringing in the money they can't seem to help paying the players. Almost a second-hand endorsement by silence of whatever it took for players to raise their performances to legendary levels - juiced parks, juiced balls, juiced players - whatever it takes.
Baseball has always had a problem with statistics - it's an integral part of the sport in spite of the fact that the stats have always been suspect. Just about any legendary record set before 1950 has been unbreakable because it's seriously inflated by the lack of talent that existed in baseball during it's early years. For example, when Ruth hit 60 home runs, only white Americans were eligible to play in the majors. If you took the percentage of the
eligible US population that played in the major leagues and applied that same percentage to today, then you need to expand the major leagues to encompass all of the AAA clubs (imagine how many home runs McGwire or Bonds would hit if half their games were against AAA clubs). Expanding to the AAA clubs just accounts for the larger US population, plus expanding the talent pool to include Hispanic and black Americans. It doesn't account for the number of foreign players playing in the major leagues (I wouldn't know how to account for that).
In spite of that, Ruth's 60 home runs was always considered superior to Maris's 61, blaming Maris's 61 on a longer season and diluted talent (such an ironic claim) and Ruth's 714 career home runs was always considered superior to Aaron's 755, blaming Aaron's larger number of plate appearances (a bizarre twist - Aaron's better work ethic diminishes his career accomplishments while the plate appearances Ruth missed because of hangovers makes his accomplishments greater - surely it wasn't just his color, was it?).
A large number of fans will have no problem dealing with the records of McGwire and Bonds - they'll just keep track of three sets of records now instead of two (or, maybe Maris and Aaron will finally get their due). At least, baseball probably hopes so. Without the stats, baseball just doesn't compete with the action of football or basketball among younger people.
They change the stats all the time, anyway. It was sometime around 1990 that they erased most of baseball's no-hitters. While I could see erasing the rain-shortened 5 inning no-hitters, they also erased one of baseball's best trivia questions: Who was the only pitcher to be credited with a no-hitter in a relief appearance. The answer: Ernie Shore of the 1919 Red Sox. The starting pitcher showed up with a hangover, threw four straight balls, then got tossed out of the game for arguing with the ump. Shore picked the runner off first and retired the next 26 batters. The starting pitcher? Babe Ruth, of course (why did the Red Sox sell him to the Yankees, again?)
