Right now….the real home run champ is Barry Bonds. Not Hank Aaron.

Look, I don’t like the fact that Bonds took steroids. But it isn’t his fault….Major League Baseball is to blame. The leadership in the Major League Baseball commissioner’s office turned a blind eye to performance enhancing drugs in favor of a surge in the popularity of the game on the heels of towering homers, home run races, and shattered records.

This is a fact.

Baseball spans more history than any other popular sport. And with the passage of time, comes change. It’s a generational game – and always will be. There was a dead ball era, an era where pitchers reined, the steroid era, and there will be many more eras to follow.

Should we put an asterisk next to hall of fame pitchers whose careers were saved by Tommy John surgery? Well, maybe those pitchers wouldn’t have had HOF worthy careers if the surgery wasn’t performed. Since the surgery wasn’t invented when the game began – it simply isn’t fair. It’s a slippery slope…

  • Medical, nutritional, training advances: Would Mickey Mantle have been on the field more often if he played today?
  • How many players in the 1930s would have benefited from a pair of contact lenses?
  • TV/video analysis: Would Babe Ruth have hit 150 home runs in a single season if he could memorize the delivery and approach of all the pitchers he faced (which, by the way, would have been far fewer than the number of pitchers playing today) or study his swing?
  • Better equipment: What would Joe Dimaggio have done with a modern glove or today’s bats that are as dense as the core of the sun? How about some Adidas cleats?
  • What about the playing surfaces, batter’s eye, and smaller ballparks?
  • What about the body armor and lighter, more comfortable uniforms?
  • What about all the statistics? All the spreadsheets, databases, the provide information to pitching and hitting coaches to better inform their players?

What’s next?

  • Bionic limbs? Why should the 8 year old kid who lost his leg in a freak accident in the year 2025 be allowed to play the game and break the stolen base record?
  • What about the new contact lenses they invented in the year 2031 the give people the vision of a bald eagle?