This one was supposed to be different. Something would be missing. No steroids, fewer home runs. That's what everybody thought, maybe what some cynics even hoped for as proof that all those home runs of the last decade were tainted.
And Monday's home run derby was different. Something was missing. Steroids. And that was it. Home runs were alive and well. That was the difference. Lots and lots of home runs.
So many in fact that this won't be remembered as the first home run derby since new steroid testing took effect, the first officially steroid-free home run derby. It'll be remembered as one of the best.
Bobby Abreu made sure of that. The oft-underrated Phillies slugger put on the most unreal show in home run derby history when he belted 24 first-round homers. The previous record for one round was 15. Abreu got that far without breaking a sweat. He backed off the pace in the second round, but got enough to advance to the finals. Then, for good measure, he broke the final round mark by hitting 11 into the seats. His home run total for the night — 41. The previous record was 27.
And even though Abreu beat out Detroit's Ivan Rodriquez, the hometown crowd's favorite, he still got a well-deserved standing ovation.
And thankfully, nobody was really talking about steroids or a lack of steroids. Everybody was talking about what they saw.
It was the first home run derby with real international flavor. In an effort to promote the first-ever World Baseball Classic, set for next March, baseball instituted a new format where each of the eight participants represented his home country. The Latin-Americans — who always seem to have a hell of a lot more fun playing beisbol than anybody else — stole the show. Abreu's fellow Venezuelans wrapped themselves in their country's flag and, seemingly, in pure giddiness during his first-round display. The Dominican contingent and their ringleader, Miguel Tejada, were equally boisterous and patriotic, cheering on David Ortiz to a first-round total of 17, a total that on any other night would have been monumental.
And when it was over, we were left with a barrel full of good memories. It was perhaps nice to know that this wasn't tainted in anyway, that nobody involved had rubbed a little of the cream or the clear on beforehand. But steroids or not, it's the memories that matter. It's the memories that always mattered.
And maybe that's why this home run derby didn't really feel any different, why the only real difference was that more home runs left the park. The home run derby is always a time to look back on long ball days gone by. On Ken Griffey, Jr. hitting the warehouse in Baltimore. On Mark McGwire launching balls over the Green Monster. On Sammy Sosa sending moon-shots out of Turner Field. I don't look back and wonder if steroids played a role. It was fun and that's all that mattered.
Of course, it's easy to say that when we're talking about sluggers taking glorified batting practice in an exhibition with no real impact. But maybe we'd all be better served if we could say that about the whole of the steroid scandal. If we could look back on the great home run races of recent years and know it was tainted but smile anyway.
Mark McGwire took a lot of heat in the media about his remarks during steroid testimony to Congress. He was crucified for not standing up and taking it like a man, for being evasive. His vague answers amounted to non-answers in the eyes of many. They didn't hear what they wanted to hear, so they didn't hear anything at all. And while nobody should be lauded for ducking questions in a congressional hearing, what McGwire did say — and what nobody seemed to hear — made a lot of sense.
“Asking me or any other player to answer questions about who took steroids in front of television cameras will not solve the problem,” he said. “I'm not here to discuss the past.”
McGwire's motives in saying such things probably fell more into the category of not wanting to incriminate himself than into any noble expression of hope. And people jumped on that. Since McGwire was dodging the questions, clearly he was guilty. So who cares what he said? And maybe he was guilty.
But what seems to get lost in the entire discussion is how much that really matters. To some, it matters a lot. Records should be erased, asterisks should be tacked on, legacies should be tarnished, the guilty ones should be forever shunned. But if you look back, if you just try to feel those memories, who's guilty and who's not might not matter near as much.
Even the most righteous critics, still aboard their high horses, can't deny that the 1998 home run race was awesomely incredible. And the memories capture that. If people choose to let steroids taint those memories, that's their fault.
People often point to the records. It's not fair, they say, that Roger Maris is no longer the home run king when the current kings were alleged steroid users. And they're right. It's not fair.
But in reality, records are a lot like memories. They mean individual things to individual people. The number in a book is just a number. The record lives in the people who accomplished it and the people who watched it. This modern-day outcry about the single-season home run record isn't all that different than the one that raged when Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's record. Maris, of course, had played in more games. And so there is an asterisk.
But people — fans, media, players — will believe whatever they want to believe. Some believe Ruth was the record-holder all along. Some side with Maris in that debate. Some will never give McGwire, Sosa, and Barry Bonds any credit. In their hearts, in their memories, their home run king is their home run king.
And that's sort of all that matters. When I think of the home run record, my mind flashes back to McGwire and Sosa and how they resurrected baseball for many, including me. Bonds? He's sort of an afterthought in my mind. Probably not so in the minds of anybody who watched number 71 cut through the chilly September night in San Francisco.
It's funny that baseball, for all it's reliance on numbers, isn't really about numbers. It never was. It's always been about stories and memories and feelings. Records and numbers are an anchor. They give context. But the feelings make the game what it is.
And that's why it felt so good Monday night to feel exactly the same way as I always felt when Chris Berman started throwing out names of Michigan cities as landing spots for home run balls, when fans who caught the long balls went nuts, when the game's greatest superstars sprawled out on the ground and watched in awe, like little kids, as Abreu shattered records.
Steroids are history, or at least on their way to being history. But even this new policy is too lenient. If steroids are illegal, then baseball should make them really illegal and set up far harsher penalties. Steroids have disastrous effects on the people who use them, and when baseball's best are known steroid users, the trickle down effect into younger generations of players is even more disastrous.
That's why steroids need to go. That's the future we need to focus on. Dwelling on the past isn't any better for the game than steroids themselves. Nothing changes when the past is the only thing people talk about.
We get too caught up in arguing about who cheated and what records should stand and we get too caught up in ridiculing and criticizing. And we miss the feelings. Luckily, we are not running baseball. In that regard, baseball is bigger even than the people who do run it. And baseball has a unique ability to heal itself. The ebbs and flows of a long baseball season can wash away the remnants of a bad era. But it won't wash away any memories. That's how baseball survives.
And now, I have a new memory to add: of Bobby Abreu doing something nobody's ever seen before. It won't go in the no-steroid era file folder. I don't have any file folders like that. This one's going right next to all the rest.
Leave a Comment