The Home Run Hang-up

We knew it would happen sooner or later. A curtain of innocence can only hang for so long while the light of evidence pokes its ugly head around it.

Mark McGwire admitted through a statement to the Associated Press today that he did in fact use steroids off and on over the course of a decade, including during his tremendous 1998 season that saw him break Roger Maris's single-season home run record. While it doesn't shock anybody at this stage, especially in McGwire's case, as everyone had either assumed it or taken his testimony before Congress as an admission to guilt anyway, it still stands as another black day in baseball to know that memories of the past are tainted forever and completely.

However, today's debate isn't centered on how you feel about steroids and their place in the history of the game. We're not going to judge the character of the players who took them, nor are we going to argue about their place in the Hall of Fame. Rather, we're going to look at another man who sat outside of the steroid era and judge his place in history, or rather his return to it.

See if you recognize these numbers:

Batting Average - .269

Runs Scored - 132

Home Runs - 61

Runs Batted In - 142

Yes, those statistics belong to Roger Maris, a man whose family proudly handed over the mantle of "Home Run King" to Mark McGwire in 1998. Given that both McGwire and Barry Bonds, his eventual successor, have been irrevocably linked to steroids, doesn't it just seem fitting that the record books be rewritten to return the title to its rightful holder?

Now, the reason this is even a debate is because there is still one name I have yet to mention; Sammy Sosa.

Sammy Sosa passed Maris's magical season total on three separate occasions, hitting 66 home runs in 1998, 63 in 1999, and another 64 in 2001. Sosa was not mentioned on the Mitchell Report, but was listed in a June 2009 by the New York Times as having tested positive for a performance enhancing substance in 2003 when Major League Baseball conducted anonymous testing. Sosa has continuously denied the report and nothing has proven otherwise.

That said, today's debate is a simple question; "who is baseball's rightful single season home run king?"