Should the current Home Record have an asterix?

[Moonax]

The point about Andro is that it is a synthetic substance and was created and therefore wasn't available to Ruth or to Maris.

OK, so because Maris played more games than Ruth he recieved an asterix but as ct2k pointed out, Bonds, McGwire et al all played more games than Ruth did when they broke the record.

Does the fact that Andro has since been made illegal because of its effects (both health and sports related) mean that McGwire's record should acknowledge that fact.

So to break this down into two separate issues. The first is the more games argument, the second is the drugs argument.

[BCWWF]

Andro was banned because people have died because they used it, not because it helped McGuire hit an extra home run or two. Big Mac has also said that he wasn't using it at the time of his record breaking year.

[ct2k]

Then why the hell did he use it at all?

[BCWWF]

Its just like creotine or any of the other supplements that just about every athlete uses.

[Moonax]

If you recall Andro was banned in other sports first and it was only after Steve Belcher died that baseball caught up with it.

Andro is not like Cretine. Andro stimulates the production of testosterone which in turn gives athletes bigger muscles faster.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/03/11/andro.crackdown/

[ct2k]

So it didn't help McGwire hit a few more homers?

[Moonax]

Did a substance that artificially produces testosterone and gives you larger muscles help to make a few warning track fly balls into Home Runs?

[BCWWF]

It may have helped him hit a few more home runs, but its not the only supplement out there. If you don't think that every athlete is pumped up on various boosts then you are naive. It was banned because of what it does to your health not because of the it is a supplement. You should be arguing that baseball players should not be able to take anything, not pick and choose the drugs that you want to look down on.

[BCWWF]

Go look around this website:

http://www.gnc.com/category.aspx?id=25&lang=en

Then tell me that those don't do essentially the same thing as Andro and that those were all available to Maris and Ruth. Your argument is going nowhere.

[Moonax]

I suspect that none of those were being used by either Maris or Ruth when they hit their home runs.

Also, none of those things cause the body to prodyuce testosterone which is what Andro does and why it is banned.

[BCWWF]

They make you stronger, the exact same thing that andro does, but they use methods safer to the body. Andro was banned because it is bad for you, these are not banned because they aren't bad for you (generally). Its that simple, you keep bringing up how Andro makes you stronger when thats not whats in question. If you are going to throw one product down for making you stronger, why not throw them both down?

[ct2k]

I actually still have a little faith in sports. I don't think everyone is packed to the rafters with suppliments at all.

[Moonax]

Originally Posted by BCWWF They make you stronger, the exact same thing that andro does, but they use methods safer to the body. Andro was banned because it is bad for you, these are not banned because they aren't bad for you (generally). Its that simple, you keep bringing up how Andro makes you stronger when thats not whats in question. If you are going to throw one product down for making you stronger, why not throw them both down?

Why has TGH been banned then? It has been banned because it enhances the persons performance artificially. Andro was banned for the same reason. Caffine is also banned in athletics because it is a simulant.

Andro artificially enhanced McGwire's muscles which enabled him to hit 70 home runs.

Hence and therefore there should be an acknowledgement of this fact by his record.

[YOUR Hero]

Originally Posted by Supreme So Barry had one extremely productive year hitting home runs. Look at Maris Maris' home run totals: 19 28 16 39 61 33 23 26 8 13 9 5 Maris only had 275 career homers

And this is why the astericks.

It pissed of the baseball writers that a guy, that never had 40 HRs in one season, should be given the record that was considered unbreakable, without some sort of stipulation.

[Moonax]

As I say there are three points at which you can argue that if maris is going to have an asterix then so should Bonds and McGwire.

i) Additional Games

ii) Post expansion and the dilution of pitching

iii) the question of steriods/andro.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5329890/

Did McGwire deserve an asterisk?

Slugger broke Maris' mark while on andro, which has since been banned by baseball



Mark McGwire, has slimmed down noticeably since his playing days.

COMMENTARY
By Tim Dahlberg
The Associated Press

Updated: 4:01 p.m. ET July 1, 2004

Roger Maris’ home run record was tainted simply because he played a few more games in 1961 than Babe Ruth did a few decades earlier. At least that’s what the Bud Selig of his time, Ford Frick, wanted everyone to believe.



Maris’ big crime, of course, wasn’t that he got a few more at-bats than the Babe when he hit 61 home runs. He had taken the record of a national icon, and Frick wasn’t about to let Ruth’s legacy be diminished.

So Maris got his asterisk, Ruth remained the beloved Babe, and baseball went on its merry way.

If only it were that simple today.

Baseball’s home run records are a joke, shattered by hulking men with biceps that bulge suspiciously every time they’re jammed on a pitch and the ensuing popup finds its way over the fence.

Ask most fans, and they’ll tell you baseball players are juiced. Some most assuredly are, as the first wave of steroid tests last year proved when 5 to 7 percent of the 1,438 anonymous tests turned out positive.

Barry Bonds, the single-season homer champion, is linked almost daily to the BALCO steroid probe, even as he closes in on the career hallowed home run record held by Hank Aaron. Though Bonds angrily denies everything, sprinter Tim Montgomery reportedly testified that BALCO’s founder told him Bonds switched to a clear steroid last season to avoid being caught in baseball’s new tests.

While Bonds proclaims his innocence, he’s not going to win this one in the court of public opinion. With every look at his muscle-bound body and every blast into McCovey Cove, fans wink knowingly at each other about the source of his power that enabled him to eclipse McGwire’s single-season homer mark when he hit 73 in 2001.

Even a former slugger with some pedigree of his own questioned how Bonds could do it.

“Somebody definitely is guilty of taking steroids. You can’t be breaking records hitting 200 home runs in three or four seasons,” Reggie Jackson said a few months ago. “The greatest hitters in the history of the game didn’t do that.”

Despite the suspicions, there’s no asterisk beside Bonds’ name — at least yet.

But maybe it’s time for baseball historians to take another look at the slugger who preceded him into the record books.

Mark McGwire hit a then astonishing 70 home runs in 1998, the last two on his final two swings of the season. He did it with a jar of andro in his locker, which under baseball’s policy of see no evil, hear no evil, was perfectly legal at the time.

Times have changed, though, as baseball’s chief operating officer almost casually revealed last Friday. No one knew it then, but baseball banned androstenedione on April 12, the same day the Food and Drug Administration banned the sale of the steroidlike substance.

For some reason, the commissioner’s office never announced the ban at the time. The guess is baseball was embarrassed it took so long to prohibit a substance already banned in the Olympics, NFL and NCAA.

Regardless, the action puts baseball into a bind. McGwire, who broke Maris’ record and for a few years was the single season home run king, admits to bulking up on the junk when he did it.

Yes, McGwire was always a big home run hitter, hitting 49 in his first full season with Oakland. But how many of those 70 home runs in 1998 might have been warning track fly balls if McGwire hadn’t used something to make himself bigger and stronger?

Maybe, just maybe, Maris’ record wouldn’t have been broken then.

If there’s any doubt what andro did for McGwire, just take a look at him now. You’ll find him slimmed down and playing golf, a sport where bulging muscles aren’t encouraged.

Just don’t ask him about andro or steroids because he wants no part of the conversation, as was made clear when he attended Mark McGwire Day in April in St. Louis.

His former manager, though, doesn’t mind doing the talking for him.

“When’s the last time something legal affected anybody? He didn’t do anything illegal,” Tony La Russa said Tuesday. “It was an over the counter drug, he displayed it there (in his locker). It’s tying it with the steroid thing, but Mac did nothing illegal. He hit 49 as a kid, and he hit 65 the next year (after he hit 70).”

Former teammate Jim Edmonds agreed. He suggests baseball went too far to even ban the substance.

“Everybody’s trying to get bigger and stronger in whatever way they can do it, if they can get it over the counter, by all means,” Edmonds said. “Are they going to close down GNC because they sell things that help your body get better?”

Edmonds misses the point. McGwire himself said he gave up the substance in 1999 because he didn’t want kids using andro. And even though you could once walk into a nutrition store and buy the stuff, other sports had already realized its dangers.

McGwire won’t be taken out of the record books because he used andro. Baseball actually owes him and Sammy Sosa a debt for their thrilling home run duel that drew attention back to the beleaguered game.

But if Roger Maris can get a mythical asterisk for playing a few more games than Babe Ruth, then maybe McGwire’s substance-aided season should have one attached, too.

© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[YOUR Hero]

If I remember correctly, when McGwire was going after the record for HR's in a season, not only did they monitor the #61, they monitored the games played to get to #61. Mark, did get his 61st in less games than babe did in getting his 60th.

Therefore that would negate one "*"

The effects of andro, IMO, are more physcological than physical. Although it could be argued, as Yogi put it, the game is 90% mental and the other 50% is physical.

[YOUR Hero]

Roger Maris’ home run record was tainted simply because he played a few more games in 1961 than Babe Ruth did a few decades earlier. At least that’s what the Bud Selig of his time, Ford Frick, wanted everyone to believe. Maris’ big crime, of course, wasn’t that he got a few more at-bats than the Babe when he hit 61 home runs. He had taken the record of a national icon, and Frick wasn’t about to let Ruth’s legacy be diminished.

That's what I was talking about. But also keep in mind, that when Maris was going for the record, he wasn't supported. People were actually against him doing it. That in itself made it a remarkable feat and should (IMO) negate the "*".