| Local Content |
| Written by Robin |
| Wednesday, 20 January 2010 08:51 |
|
Thanks, Mark McGwire. No, I don’t mean for finally coming clean several years after the steroid scandal broke. You didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. Besides, it’s pretty obvious your “confession” was self-serving, intended to avoid having to deal with all this steroid talk during spring training when you begin your new job as hitting coach with the Cardinals. I don’t mean thanks for your contributions to baseball because, frankly, you and your fellow cheaters have given the game its biggest black eye since the Black Sox scandal when members of the Chicago White Sox conspired to throw the 1919 World Series. You’ve also helped turn baseball’s record book into a useless collection of steroid-bloated statistics. But, ironically, it’s for that reason that I owe you a certain amount of gratitude. You see, I’ve always been a statistics nut and baseball’s numbers, along with those in other sports, were always very important to me. Some of baseball’s hallowed numbers — from Babe Ruth’s 60 home runs in a season and 714 lifetime to Roger Maris’s 61 in ’61 and Hammerin’ Hank Aaron’s 755 career total — were sacred. Then, you and the other steroid-fuelled bashers rewrote the record book, overtaking respected fellows like Maris and Aaron. But it was all done artificially. Better hitting through chemistry. All of a sudden, baseball’s treasured numbers didn’t mean much. I realized recently, while flipping through a list of National Football League statistical leaders, that numbers are becoming less useful in comparing players from different eras. Pro football has changed too much over the decades. My favourite NFL receiver of all-time, former Baltimore Colts great Raymond Berry, retired after the 1967 season as the league’s career reception leader with 631. He now ranks 44th, having been overtaken by players who couldn’t carry his cleats. But it’s a different game. Berry played more than half of his career with a 12-game schedule. Today, it’s a 16-game schedule. The same goes for hockey. Rocket Richard retired as the National Hockey League’s greatest goal scorer, totalling 544 in his remarkable career. Today, he sits in 28th spot, having been surpassed by a number of scorers who were fine players, to be sure, but not in the Rocket’s league. It’s no different in baseball. The statistics I had relied on to help in comparing the game’s greats over the span of 140 years really weren’t a valid way of judging talent. Baseball has had many eras, each different from the others. The superstars of the game’s various eras are no less great, no matter how the numbers compare. And sports fans such as myself can still treasure the legacy of baseball’s stars, even if some modern players have smudged the game by cheating. Sports has always had its cheaters and it always will. But the numbers never were what is important about sports anyway. I realize that now. Thanks, Mark McGwire, for helping drive that point home. Perhaps now I can forget what you and others have done to baseball and we can all move on, as you urged in your Sunday news conference. Perhaps now I can get back to enjoying what’s good about baseball. |
How to upload a photo
- Login or Register (Click the "Create an Account" link under the Login button to register a new account)
- Complete the registration
- Click the "My Alberta Vacation Photo Upload" link in the "User Menu Field"
- Submit your photo by clicking the "Browse" to locate the photo file from your computer
- Click the "Upload" button to upload the file
*NOTE: Please allow 24 hours before photos are uploaded for rating
How to rate a photo
- Login or Register (Click the "Create an Account" link under the Login button to register a new account)
- Click the picture you would like to rate
- Click the number of stars to rate the photo
Polls
Please Login
| Performance to help provide funds for film project 01/09/2010 | Richard Amery for the Sun Times Average Joe’s/Joe’s Garage has a busy week, beginning on Thursday, Sept. 2, with Lethbridge’s own version of Said the Whale — Jesse and the Dandelions — who are pla [ ... ] |
| Thanks for the memories 18/08/2010 | Dave Sulz, Sun Times It was a night of Montreal Expos nostalgia last Wednesday at the Lethbridge Lodge. |
