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What Does 600 Home Runs Mean Anymore?

In baseball, unlike almost any sport or game, numbers define a player, define a team, and define an era. Some numbers in baseball are hallowed, consecutive games with a hit, starting consecutive games, a .400 batting average, and once upon a time the most hallowed numbers were home run totals. Perhaps only a game like poker, where Internet players parse online stats to a hair-thin percentage when they play Texas Hold’em Poker can compare to baseball and the importance of numbers. The players that hold those immutable baseball records say Cal Ripken (most games started) or the last to accomplish something like Ted Williams (to hit. 400) become baseball gods. And until this decade the guys that held the home run records were the Gods of Gods.

Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, and Hank Aarron for a long time where the home run kings and in a way the kings of baseball. Ruth at one point was the only man to hit 60 home runs in a season. Maris came along and in a summer of transcendence eclipsed the mark by one in 1961 and that record held firm for 37 years. Ruth’s career total held until Hank Aaron came along 40 years later to best it. For a while, 61 and 755 used to mean something.

Still, even as guys like Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Sammy Sosa chipped away at those marks and before they blew past them those numbers still meant something. At the time, people thought maybe Major League Baseball in an effort to recapture fans turned off by work stoppages had made the ball livelier in the late 90s and the numbers were artificial. Oh well, chicks loved the long ball and it wasn’t like the whole league was breaking 61, so fans accepted it.

Then word leaked that the balls weren’t juiced the players were and now a whole slew of numbers have to be turned upside down. 500 home runs at one point meant you were a great home run hitter, one of the best in a small group of men to play the game professionally. 600 home runs over a career meant you were on the all star team of homerun hitters. 700 home runs was at one point the rarified air of just two men: Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron.

Now, Alex Rodriquez is on 600 home runs for his career and he has been fingered as a player padding his stats by padding his supplements with Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDS). Suddenly, 600 loses its luster a bit. Then you examine the 600 club and it’s safe to say the number like the players has become a fraud. At the top there is Barry Bonds with 762 home runs for his career. He hasn’t admitted to juicing but he’s one professional player whose head literally grew in concord with his ego. His body changes and late career strength aren’t just anomalies, doctors will tell you they are virtual impossibilities. Of course, Bonds was a great home run hitter, so who knows how many taters he would have hit had he not juiced. Maybe 600? Probably 600? Maybe not? Who really knows? Used to be those numbers meant something, now who knows?

Hank Aaron, a model of consistency in his career, and the great Babe Ruth, whose PEDs were hotdogs and beers, stand at 755 and 714 in lifetime dingers. Those numbers are pure as the driven snow. Willie Mays all the way back at 660 is next in the group, and the closest he got to PEDs was being the mentor to Bonds. Next is the lone modern player who experts believe didn’t juice, and that’s Ken Griffey Jr. His career arc matches that of guys that played the game for decades without PEDs. His body broke down like it was supposed to, and though a great home run hitter, his 630 is testament to just how hard it is to hit 700 over a career.

The next guys on the list are Sammy Sosa and ARod both juicers, with Mark McGwire just outside of 600. Meaning of the seven guys to hit 600 career home runs four of them played in steroid era, and public (if not medical) opinion holds that three of them were juicers. All that means is 600 no longer means anything.

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