Praise for a Former Seattle Mariner

I usually refuse to talk or write about steroids in baseball, mainly because I find it extremely depressing.  Thinking about how many of the players I grew up watching, imitating and idolizing were cheating always makes me feel like the victim of a con man; naive, gullible and used.  In addition to the players I know were using (Roger Clemens, Manny Ramirez, Barry Bonds, etc.), there are the ones I've always suspected.  It seems every statistic from the 1990s or early 2000s has to be scrutinized and questioned, with nothing taken at face value.

I have tickets to Saturday afternoon's Yankee game against Kansas City, which may end up being the game in which known PED-user Alex Rodriguez hit's his 600th home run (he's currently at 599).  Knowing that I might be at Yankee Stadium to witness history in person has forced me to think about what A-Rod's accomplishment actually "means."  I know that, when Rodriguez breaks the record, Yankee fans in the stadium and many baseball fans across the globe will lavish him with praise, all too willing to forget his blatant violations of the rules of baseball and unabashedly put his name alongside those of Aaron, Ruth, Mays and Griffey Jr. (let's not even get into Bonds and Sosa . . .)

The name in the above 600 home run club list that sticks out, of course, is Griffey.  While Aaron, Ruth and Mays are unquestioned baseball icons and Bonds and Sosa are unquestioned pastime pariahs, Griffey is somewhat of a question mark.  Most baseball fans and experts believe that he was clean throughout his career, which likely attributed to his body's breakdown in the early 2000s, which robbed him of countless career home runs.  Looking at Griffey's season-by-season statistics on Baseball Reference always facinates me; after averaging exactly 40 homers per season from 1991-2000 (including 1995, when he hit only 17 due to injury and 1994, when the strike shortened season limited him to 40 home runs in just 111 games), Junior averaged just over 19 long balls per year from 2001 through his retirement earlier in 2010.

Griffey Jr.'s untainted swing truly was a work of art.

Griffey finished his career with 630 career home runs.  If he was indeed clean, and we assume that steroids would have helped his power numbers and longevity throughout his career (as they undoubtedly did for Bonds and Sosa), how many home runs could a tainted Griffey have hit?  We've seen A-Rod transform from a 45-50 home run per season guy into a 30 homer per season guy since he was punished for violating baseball's drug policy.  If steroids could have increased Griffey's annual home run average from 2001-2010 from 19 to about 35, that another 160 long balls added to his career total.  That puts Junior at close to 800 career home runs, putting him over Bonds for the "Tainted Home Run King" title - not to mention the fact that steroids in the 1990s could have had him routinely hitting 60 homers each year.

But, as far as we know, Griffey isn't tainted, and as a result he doesn't have close to 800 home runs.  But what he does have (until proven otherwise) is his pride and dignity, something that Bonds, Sosa and, yes, A-Rod will never be able to get back.  When Rodriguez joins the 600 home run club in the near future, whether or not I'm there in person to witness it, I'll respectfully applaud and acknowledge that, even taking into account his PED use, Alex Rodriguez is one of the best hitters of my generation.  But rather than spending all my time praising A-Rod's 600 milestone, I'll save most of my admiration for Ken Griffey Jr., the man who legitimately and honestly challenged the records held by Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays.  Griffey may have come up short in the end, but in my mind he's more of a home run king than Rodriguez or Bonds will ever be.