Commissioner Bud Selig and George Mitchell, the former Senate Majority leader he appointed to get a handle on the breadth of baseball’s drug problem, aren’t laughing, though. Nor is the commissioner planning any celebrations should Howard collect the nine homers he needs to pass Maris in the two dozen games Philadelphia has left.

Maybe that’s because the big kid hasn’t been the only slugger picking up his pace, and Selig can’t bring himself to call the party planners and prepare for the day when Bonds goes by Henry Aaron and his record of 755 career home runs. But the Maris family has no such reservations.

“If he breaks it, it’s legit,” Rich said.

“With the McGwire thing and the Bonds thing, everybody thought the record was so far out there, it’s not even attainable. My dad’s pretty much an afterthought. All of a sudden,” he added, “it’s like everyone has this new perspective, like the heck with McGwire and Bonds.”

Fellow Associated Press columnist Tim Dahlberg arrived at the same conclusion 10 days ago, not long after visiting the Roger Maris museum in Fargo, N.D., and recalling that 45 years earlier, he sat in the stands in old Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, not Chicago, and saw the home run that made Maris the first player to reach 50 in August. Nice idea.

But like a few other signposts, it’s been passed too many times to pretend it’s a frontier again. Then think about all the other places that would have to be wiped off the map, all the interrelated stats that would have to be amended, and you know why Selig is paralyzed by inertia.

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Howard isn’t the first guy to get hosed this way, and he won’t be the last. Everybody playing the game is under suspicion. What makes his case notable, so far at least, is that he appears to have done everything right.

He won Rookie of the Year honors last year, with basically a half-season’s worth of games and his march toward one of the best all-around seasons any player has had should be generating a world of buzz. He’s lifted the Phillies, almost single-handedly, into wild-card contention and forced his way into every discussion worth having about who should get the National League Most Valuable Player award.

But in a fitting rebuke to baseball, all those conversations don’t amount to much. There won’t be cut-ins during the broadcasts to follow Howard’s at-bats or fireworks to mark the moment he gets to 62. Take note when it happens; Howard deserves that much, at least. Then cross your fingers and hope.

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