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Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Baseball's Numbers Game: One For the Record

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By Josh Frank

Seven hundred and fifty-five. Sixty-one. Five hundred and eleven.

These numbers are some of the most well-known numbers in America, known because of their association and place in the baseball record books. Most baseball fans can associate the numbers above with their accompanying records, more so than hockey fans can tell you Wayne Gretzky's career goals mark (894) or basketball fans can repeat Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's career points tally (38,387). Baseball treats its numbers and its record books with ultimate reverence and veneration, more so than any other sport.

Now, in the midst of the latest steroid scandals, baseball has found its record books being threatened. But this isn't the first time that baseball's record books have come under assault by a changing game.

In the 1920s, Babe Ruth led an assault on the offensive record books, putting up power numbers that eclipsed those of baseball's previous all-time leaders. Whether attributable to smaller parks, the use of more easily seen white baseballs after the death of Ray Chapman by a pitched ball, the banning of the spitball, or the most common suspect, a lively "rabbit" ball instituted to increase attendance after the Black Sox scandal of 1919, records were shattered.

Ruth took only 2,108 at bats to pass the career home run record of Roger Connor, who did it in 7,794 at bats. But then, despite investigation into whether a doctored baseball was increasing offense exponentially, no one seriously questioned whether the records should be official or kept separate from the "dead ball" records.

In 1961, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle battled to break the Babe's hallowed single-season home run record of 60, set in 1927. Maris eventually did, establishing a new record of 61. There were complications with this, however. In an expansion season that saw the addition of the Los Angeles Angels and the new Washington Senators (after the previous incarnation of the franchise had moved to Minnesota), the American League began to play a 162 game season.

Commissioner Ford Frick, a former ghostwriter for Ruth, ruled that any record broken in more than 154 games, the previous season length, would be held as a distinct and separate record. When Maris failed to break the record in 154 games, his record was entered into the books separately, leading many people to believe his 61 home runs was marked with an asterisk. A 1991 ruling by then-Commissioner Fay Vincent abolished the separate records, giving sole possession of the mark to Maris, who had passed away six years prior.

It's always been hard to compare baseball across eras. Hitting records are not the same from the dead-ball era to the lively ball era, from expansion days to the 1968 season where Carl Yastrzemski led the American League with a .301 average, to the inflated numbers of the 1990s. Pitching numbers vary wildly with the development of the five-man rotation and relief specialists. The game as a whole has changed due to cross-country travel, night games, the changing size of ballparks, and the changing height of outfield fences. Players have increased pressure from the media spotlight, but also no longer have to work a job in the offseason to support their families.

For every era, there are dozens of artificial, circumstantial changes that make it difficult to compare the numbers that are put up in 1998 to those put up in 1961 or 1927. We know this. So why do we care?

In the American public's mind, it's cheating. Whether steroids were against the baseball rulebook at the time, anabolic steroids have been outlawed without a prescription for years. Other supplements and steroids that guys have even admitted to taking have been perceived as unkosher assistance, because they were banned by the other major sports leagues at the time. Just because you can get away with something doesn't mean you should, if you respect the history or tradition of the game.

There are some who might say baseball has always embraced cheaters. Gaylord Perry is a Hall of Famer and celebrated member of the 300-win club, despite brazenly throwing outlawed Vaseline balls and earning a suspension in 1982. Fellow Hall of Famers Whitey Ford and Don Sutton admitted to scuffing the ball with sandpaper and other devices later in their career, once they had lost some of the zip off their fastball.

Additionally, two of baseball's favorite anecdotes involve the "hilarious" cheating efforts of former all-stars Graig Nettles and Albert Belle. Nettles was once suspended when his bat broke, revealing Superballs that bounced all over the infield, while Belle had a corked bat confiscated and replaced by teammate Jason Grimsley, who crawled through the heating ducts and into the umpires' room (replacing Belle's bat with a Paul Sorrento model). Neither Nettles nor Belle (or Grimsley, for that matter) were ever ostracized for their deception, merely facing a short suspension before they went back to making a living.

Many people simply don't consider this cheating to be that egregious. Using little tricks and advantages on the field do not affect the integrity of the game as much as getting an injection off the field does. In some respects, people who say this are right. Baseball should be more trusting of its umpires and players to police the game in between the white lines than it should of doctors policing it from a lab. If a player gets caught on the field, it's gamesmanship caught by an umpire. If his urine sample is detected in a lab, it's by a guy in a white coat with a diploma on his wall. It doesn't make that sort of cheating any more correct or right, but it does make it different.

So what can baseball do, since it's obvious that from casual fans to SABR members, people care about these numbers? The answer, right now, might be nothing. Short of rendering all of the "meaningful" numbers useless by moving to statistics based on complex formulas like OPS+ and ERA+, there's no real meaningful way to compare players across eras, leagues, and sometimes across needle tracks.

During the steroid hearings in March, Commissioner Bud Selig made the comment that he could not even consider altering the record book because "there have been no players convicted of anything." He added, "That's a question that if there's a necessity I'll look at something in the future."

Rafael Palmeiro, one of only four players to amass 3,000 hits and 500 home runs, has been caught. Others will be with rumors of a natural athlete and shoo-in for the Hall of Fame having tested positive, as well. It's time for Bud to step up and save baseball and its record books from itself.

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