Bob Loblaws Law Blog said:

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Bonds was using steriods. Maris was using greenies. Ruth didn't play against the black man. The real record is Mays with 52 in 1965 or Griffey with 56 in 97 and 98.

This is a joke - 73 is the record.

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I think you're onto something.

That means the HR champion is...



Nevermind. 73 it is.

While the care factor is lessening as each year goes by (significantly for baseball, but for all major sports really), the reason we still cut away for things like Judge chasing the AL title is summed up pretty well by James Earl Jones.




Not a ton of people remember where they were when Gretzky scored #92. Not a ton of people could even tell you what year Peyton threw 55 TD's. Wilt Chamberlain was so much better than his peers I don't think anyone not a die hard NBA fan could tell you whose single season scoring record he broke.

But in 1961 any male interested in sports was paying attention to Mantle/Maris. It was just a different era with limited television, news outlets, etc. and therefore is a record that is significant to a large % of the population not just that are Yankees fans but that are over the age of 50. My dad is interested in seeing if Judge can break the record, and he's not a Yankees fan. He's just a baseball fan that grew up in the 50s/60s.

Last week the radio was discussing certain numbers, milestones that are "most known".

As you alluded, 61 was THE number for ever, and in some ways, still is.

- 100 points NBA single game
- 18 golf majors
- 56 game hit streak
- 2000 rush yards NFL season


Those are the only ones I could really come up with that rivaled "61"

Well, Judge hit 62. Most in AL history.

The Porkchop Express said:

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Another historical moment at the hand of the Texas Rangers!

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FIFY

Ragnar Danneskjoldd said:

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you'll never convince me Judge and Pujols aren't getting special balls.

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This Judge has 62 & Yordon has 37 & Stanton has 31....

TRL-Ag said:

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Ragnar Danneskjoldd said:

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you'll never convince me Judge and Pujols aren't getting special balls.

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This Judge has 62 & Yordon has 37 & Stanton has 31....

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Judge had nearly 700 plate appearances and a previous career high of 52

Yordan had 560 PA and Stanton had 450

I've been saying this! Albert his more HRs in the second half than he had in 2 years combined!

AggieEP said:

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Lol, so some random dude named Jared gets to decide the record is 73, but what Roger Maris Jr says doesn't matter.

I'm glad that Maris Jr had the courage to actually say what he did. The easy answer is just to say "oh everyone was cheating so what can we do."

Maris' family has gone out of their way to be gracious to anyone that has broken their dad's record, but at this point 20 years after the McGwire and Bonds nonsense, you can tell the family is fed up with the cowards who won't just do the right thing. No reason that Maris Jr should feel like he had to speak for all of baseball, the commissioner needed to address this one way or another in the past.

My position is clear, 73 is an asinine number put up by a man who went way beyond disrespecting the game. Baseball might be full of cheating throughout it's history, but even the cheaters themselves usually try and respect the game to some extent. Bonds just threw it all out the window to put up numbers for himself. If you remember, Bonds was even a dick about the chase when he was chasing these numbers. I used to work as a sports reporter and actually interviewed Bonds once (briefly as part of a group interview in Houston) and he was unlike any other I'd interviewed. Most ball players are down to earth, and know they are part of the game, Bonds believed he was on another level. He would give one word answers, sometimes he just stared at the reporters he didn't like. He was above even acknowledging that fans would want to know what he was thinking.

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Barry Bonds was on a different level.
It seems like people in the media love to ignore Bonds greatness because he wasn't nice to them.

These are the MLB Records that Barry Bonds owns:
I've bolded the ones that wow me.

Bonds also won the Gold Glove Award for best defensive player at his position 8 different times. He won the award in 1990, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97 & 98
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progression_of_the_single-season_MLB_home_run_record][/url]

Quote:

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• Home runs in a single season (73), 2001
• Home runs in a career (762)
• Home runs against different pitchers (449)
• Home runs since turning 40 years old (74)
• Home runs in the year he turned 43 years old (28)
• Consecutive seasons with 30 or more home runs (13), 1992-2004
• Slugging percentage in a single season (.863), 2001
• Slugging percentage in a World Series (1.294), 2002
• Consecutive seasons with .600 slugging percentage or higher (8), 1998-2005
• On-base percentage in a single season (.609), 2004
• Walks in a single season (232), 2004
• Intentional walks in a single season (120), 2004
• Consecutive games with a walk (18)
• Consecutive games with an intentional walk (6)[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Bonds#cite_note-226][226][/url]
• MVP awards (7 closest competitors trail with 3), 1990, 1992-93, 2001-2004
• Consecutive MVP awards (4), 2001-2004
• National League Player of the Month selections (13) (2nd place, either league, Frank Thomas, 8; 2nd place, N.L., George Foster, Pete Rose, and Dale Murphy, 6)
• Oldest player (age 38) to win the National League batting title (.370) for the first time, 2002
• Putouts as a left fielder (5,226)

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Bonds#Records_held

Kellso said:

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JeffBagwell said:

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Aggies2009 said:

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With Aaron Judge speeding towards 62 home runs, people have been debating what the "real" home run record is.

Some say Bonds and his 73.
Some say Maris with 61 because he didn't use steroids.
A few say Babe Ruth because he hit 60 in 154 games and Maris hit 61 in 162.

If Judge hits 62, where do you see it? Is that the "real" record? Or just the AL record?

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How do you know judge hasn't used steroids or hgh?

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Great point.

I love how we are supposed to ignore that a 6'7 280 pound athlete that looks to be almost all muscle........... has obviously never juiced or took performing enhancing drugs.

This is all because the media likes Aaron Judge.

73 is the record. Barry Bonds is without a doubt the best MLB player I've ever seen in my life.

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For a number of seasons, Bonds was absolutely the best ever; no argument whatsoever. Before he cheated, he was definitely top 50 of all time, but after cheating, he was arguably better than Ruth, Williams, Mays and Aaron in their best seasons.

All that said, career wise, Willie Mays was the best ever. But these are subjective arguments!

How many home runs would Bonds have hit if he got Goldilocks balls?

PatAg said:

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The real trick is, if you dont count Bonds for potential steroid use, there are a lot of other records/stats from other players you'd have to expunge.

Im also not convinced current players arent on anything either

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1988PA-Aggie said:

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So the ball boy who brings balls out to the ump, probably 14 yrs old, is in on the conspiracy that he must take balls, from a specific box, that are only distributed to the games that J and P are playing, at the time that they are coming to the plate...?

Do you know that the home team supplies the balls...

So they would have to be in on your theory of allowing those two to possibly hit home runs against them in their own ballpark...

wow...

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Narrator: They were getting special balls.



https://www.insider.com/mlb-used-two-balls-again-this-year-and-evidence-points-to-a-third-2022-12