Baseball

Aaron can't be the once-and-future HR king

Changing records, adding an asterisk to erase Bonds won't change history

Rogers Photo Archive / Getty Images

Should Hank Aaron's 755 homers become the Major League record again? No, writes NBCSports.com contributor Mike Celizic.

So the biggest problem is the fundamental unfairness of singling out a few players who have been more or less positively linked to steroids, while ignoring hundreds of others who never got caught. And what are the criteria? Mark McGwire never tested positive because baseball didn’t test for steroids and didn’t have a rule against them. Does Selig wipe out McGwire’s home run totals simply because everybody “knows” Big Mac stuck needles in his butt?

What about Roger Clemens? He didn’t test positive, either. There aren’t many people who think the Rocket pitched clean while he was rolling to 354 career wins, and a former trainer has said he gave Clemens steroids. But what do you do with the pitcher's records? Do you put an asterisk by his name and a note saying that Bud Selig is pretty sure Clemens cheated?

Beyond that, how are Clemens’ 354 wins dirtier than the 324 won by Don Sutton, perhaps the most skillful ball doctor of all time? How are they less honorable than the 314 Gaylord Perry won throwing illegal spitballs?

This is why you can’t start slapping asterisks and notes on everything and making the record book conform to the way you believe things should be instead of the way they are. If you do that, you’d also better note that Denny McLain’s 31 wins and Bob Gibson’s 1.12 ERA were accomplished with the aid of a 17-inch high juiced mound in 1968.

Bonds set his records under the rules baseball handed him. So did McGwire and Clemens and A-Rod. The numbers are absolute, accomplished with the approval and applause of all. To go back and decide you no longer approve is worse than wrong. It’s hypocritical.

Mike Celizic writes regularly for NBCSports.com and is a freelance writer based in New York.

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