The Record Chasers

 

Since no one has mentioned Alex Rodriguez in the last 10 minutes, I might as well. I really don’t care about his use of performance enhancing drugs that’s a personal issue that should be given the same respect of patient/doctor privilege; or, in this case: cheater/slime ball chemist privilege. It must be hard for anyone to pass up the opportunity to become better in their profession and reap greater financial rewards if all you had to do was put a substance into your body. But maybe the biggest lure in doing so is the dream of immortality.

A pattern seems to have emerged from this last A-Rod revelation. The people who are chasing personal records will go to any length to achieve those goals at the expense of their team, their sport and, in A-Rod’s case, his dignity.

For me these latest developments in baseball have cast more light on the past than the present.

Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds have tainted the most coveted records in baseball. Who among us respect these hybrid records? The only intrinsic value of tainted records is to make the original achievements more impressive.

McGwire and Sosa chased Roger Maris’ single season home run record in 1998 with McGwire winning out, compiling 70 to eclipse Maris’ record of 61. Bonds then went on to surpass that record with 73 in 2001; then Hank Aaron’s all-time home run career mark of 755 with 762 homers in 2007. But to baseball purists these two records are universally panned and rightfully so.

The list of suspected and outed users has increased over the last few years but except for Alex no one is close to surpassing a major milestone.

Alex has an outside shot at both the all-time home run and RBI records. Chances of breaking them now are slim, however, and will depend on the dispensation of his case and his eroding skills.

Record chasers invariably put themselves before the team and that’s the most egregious sacrilege of all. While Pete Rose was playing and chasing Ty Cobb’s all-time hit record, he gambled on baseball – the most sacrosanct rule in the game (See Black Sox Scandal 1919). He has been excluded from entering the Hall of Fame by former Commissioner Bart Giamatti for that infraction. Rose now claims, arguably so, that PED users are tarnishing the game far worse than he ever did. Does he have a point? Maybe. But given our steadily growing permissive society I wouldn’t be surprised if Rose’s exclusionary edict is overturned down the line.

One record chaser, though, who will never be restored to the saintly stature he once held is Joe Paterno. And this one’s the hardest to swallow for me, having been a graduate assistant at Penn State and, having met him. He was a good man who let unspeakable atrocities continue while he focused solely on besting Grambling Coach Eddie Robinson’s all-time victory mark. Had he retired when the university begged him to many years earlier, his statue might still be in the rarified air of Beaver Stadium instead of it having been unceremoniously deracinated and heaped somewhere in the Hades of sports history.