Upon Further Review: Not every record should fall
Watching sporting events is a pastime many of us can’t live with out.
Some are strictly baseball fans, while others are football fans. But if you’re like me, you enjoy watching everything from baseball to ping pong.
For me it’s all about competition. There’s nothing like facing off against a tough opponent and playing your heart out — no matter what the outcome might be.
Some you win, and some you lose. But it’s the thrill of competition that keeps fans in their seats and players stretching their abilities to the limit.
Competition has built this great country, and competition has made sporting events the reason fans enjoy the games so much. We all have our favorite players and teams. Watching them win is just a small part of what brings us back time and time again.
And watching history being made when records are broken is one of the most satisfying moments of all. Some records we want to see fall and others we want to see last forever.
Just about any record that has been broken in the last 10-15 years — especially in baseball — can be argued over for decades.
Now some of you may have already picked up on where I’m going with this.
Monday night Barry Bonds hit home run 666, and is currently third on the all-time home run list. He passed Willie Mays last week, and is quickly making a run at Babe Ruth — who, for you that don’t know, hit 714 homers.
If he stays healthy over the next two years. Bonds will pass my boyhood hero, Hank Aaron. Aaron smacked 755 balls over the fence and for me that’s one record I don’t want to see broken.
Now the question for the future is should there be two separate record books?
When Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa broke Roger Maris’ single-season home run record, the question was already being asked because of steroid accusations.
As a fan, I have to somehow think there should be. Bonds, who is in the middle of a steroid scandal, is slapping balls over the fence like a horse’s tail slapping flies.
Would the game be defaced if you put an asterisk beside Bonds’ name in the record book?
Maybe we need to ask ourselves if Ruth, Reggie Jackson (563) or even Mike Schmidt (548) could have used some type of muscle enhancement supplement. No, I didn’t put Aaron’s name on that list because I know he didn’t use anything.
But seriously, what is the correct thing to do? Do we do a DNA test on Jackson, Schmidt and Aaron and test for muscle enhancement drugs? Would we have to dig up Ruth’s body and test it as well?
Maybe there should be two sets of records. But the fact is records are made to be broken and that keeps us going to the ballparks.
If you’re a fan of the player who is going to break a record, then you like to see it happen. But if you’re a fan of the man who holds that record, then you don’t. It’s as simple as that.