Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle
When I was a kid, I loved to play and watch baseball.
That love was stoked in the Summer of 1961 when – at age 11 – I watched Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris of the New York Yankees try to break the immortal Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record of 60 set in 1927.
It was an amazing baseball year, as both Mantle and Maris kept slugging them out of the park right up till the end of the season. Maris eventually did break Ruth’s record, hitting 61 but with the help of a season that was 10 games longer than Ruth’s 1927 season.
Be that as it may, Maris’ new home run record stood for 37 years until Cardinals player Mark McGwire hit 70 HRs in 1998, narrowly beating out Cubs player Sammy Sosa, who hit 66 that same exciting year.
Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire
While baseball fans were thrilled with the finish of the 1998 season, what few knew was that both McGwire and Sosa were “juicing” – taking performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) and other substances to physically enhance their bodies.
While PEDs had been banned in the Major Leagues since 1991, there was little enforcement and team owners turned a blind eye to their use as long as their players were turning in phenomenal performances and winning games.
The late 90s and early 2000s were the heyday of PED use, as home run counts kept rising – culminating in Giants player Barry Bonds hitting 73 homers in 2001.
That was 24 more than he hit the previous year.
But finally – in 2005 – one of baseball’s biggest hitters, Jose Canseco, published his tell-all book “Juiced,” which detailed his insider knowledge of PED abuse. This revelation was followed by Congressional hearings on PED use, resulting in Major League Baseball seriously toughening its steroid use policies.
Giancarlo Stanton
And it appears to have worked. The number of players continuously hitting incredible numbers of home runs dramatically decreased, with only one player – Yankee Giancarlo Stanton – hitting 59 HRs in 2017 under the stricter drug-testing rules.
Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa have been the poster boys for PED abuse.
Barry Bonds
Bonds, for example, – although a consistent long-ball hitter during his career – never hit more than 49 home runs in a single year until pounding 73 in 2001.
With the 2022 season just getting underway, it will be interesting to see if any player can catch fire like Stanton – still today only 32 – did in 2017 and maybe join the 60-plus club.
That kind of excitement would certainly go a long way in reviving fan interest in "America’s Favorite Pastime," which had been in steady attendance decline even before the 2020-2021 pandemic seasons.
With this year's removal of COVID restrictions, it remains to be seen if America’s 100-plus-year love affair with baseball will rise up again.
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