Friday, December 28, 2007

 

The Marini Report



The Mitchell Report has initiated a lot of discussion about what should happen to records and awards given to players who are mentioned in the report. Perhaps that smacks of McCarthyism: if they were mentioned then they must be guilty, so punish them! Confiscate their awards. Put an asterisk next to their names in the record books. That’s a bad idea just on the grounds that we’d have to constantly hear people mispronounce the word as “asterik.”

I have a better idea.

Rather then punish anyone for taking steroids, let’s reward those who didn’t! I have a modest example here of how it could work. Look at the best homerun hitters over the years before the “Roid Age” began (as best we can tell the late 1980’s). Let’s add to their best season homerun totals, figuring if they took steroids they’d have had even better production in their best year. I propose a system that gives fifteen more homeruns in a given year for those who hit over fifty homeruns in a year twice in their careers. I give twelve homeruns to the others. This is my attempt at leveling the field. Using this system, look at who is number one. Surprise!

Here’s a table showing my top ten.

Name

Ave*

Hi

Bonus Pts

Projected Hi

1

Babe Ruth

46

60

+15

75

2

Jimmy Foxx

37

58

+15

73

3

Roger Maris

30

61

+12

73

4

Hank Greenberg

38

58

+12

70

5

Ralph Kiner

41

54

+15

69

6

Mickey Mantle

36

54

+15

69

7

Willie Mays

36

52

+15

67

8

George Foster

29

52

+12

64

9

Cecil Fielder

35

51

+12

63

10

Harmon Killebrew

38

49

+12

61

10

Lou Gehrig

37

49

+12

61

10

Frank Robinson

34

49

+12

61

10

Andre Dawson

27

49

+12

61

10

Ted Kluzewski

26

49

+12

61

* From BaseballReference.com

Compare my list to the actual list.

1.

Barry Bonds

73

2001

L

2.

Mark McGwire

70

1998

R

3.

Sammy Sosa

66

1998

R

4.

Mark McGwire

65

1999

R

5.

Sammy Sosa

64

2001

R

6.

Sammy Sosa

63

1999

R

7.

Roger Maris

61

1961

L

8.

Babe Ruth+

60

1927

L

9.

Babe Ruth+

59

1921

L

10.

Jimmie Foxx+

58

1932

R

Hank Greenberg

58

1938

R

Ryan Howard

58

2006

L

Mark McGwire

58

1997

R

Putting them together gives us this revised list of the top ten single season homerun leaders.

1

Babe Ruth

75

2

Jimmy Fox

73

3

Roger Maris

73

4

Barry Bonds

73

5

Hank Greenberg

70

6

Mark McGuire

70

7

Ralph Kiner

69

8

Mickey Mantle

69

9

Willie Mays

67

10

Sammy Sosa

66

There it is, a totally fair, honest and objective assessment of the top ten single season homerun leaders (tee hee). Punishment and asteriskism is negative thinking. This is positive thinking. Yeah! Think positive, Sen. Mitchell!






This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?