Bond's the Home Run King

No matter how hard I try, I'll have to accept the fact that Barry Bond will be breaking the all time career home run mark this week. Actually, I'd be a little remiss if I didn't address it in this forum. Thinking about Bonds soon-to-be record has led me down a path of the meaning of records in baseball. Of course it is the historical value of these records that has kept my interest in the game over the years. But can you simply judge a player's place in history based on holding great numbers in one of many categories? It is now common place to examine a player's performance based on the performance of his counterparts at that time (Rob Neyer uses statistical principals such as standard deviation and Pythagorean method to compare great teams in his book, Baseball Dynasties). This identifies the averages, means and outliers to statistically represent the value of say Mark McGwire's 70 home runs in 1998. Over the four season spanning from McGwire's 70 in '98 to Bonds 73 in 2001, Roger Maris's record of 61 was broken six times by three different player (Sammy Sosa being the third). So are home runs as valued in today's game as they were in Hank Aaron's or Babe Ruth's era?

Munging through the numbers it can be determined that it was more difficult to hit a home run during Ruth's era than during Aaron's day or today's game. Some talking heads discount Ruth because he was playing in a time of segregation and complete games. However, if the talking heads think it was so easy, why were there so few players achieving the same feats as Ruth? There were a few that were awfully close. Ruth's teammate Lou Gehrig lead the league in homers three times with 49. Hack Wilson batted 56 one season. However, Wilson never hit more than 40 in another season. Jimmy Fox hit 58 and 50 at different times in his career.
Even though I applaud the efforts of Bonds, McGwire, Sosa and the 10 other players in the past 5 years who have achieved or are currently going to achieve 500 home runs, I have to say the feat of hitting the ball over the fence has been diminished, much like the slam-dunk in basketball. It can be said that Ruth popularized the home run. Other players started belting them. But never to the same plateau as Ruth. That is why his numbers of 60 and 714 will always be ingrained into the baseball lexicon no matter how many others approach and break those milestones.

Home runs are now so much an expected part of the game it seems anything but a homer is a failure. However, the value of the homer hasn't changes over the years. It is still worth one run.

Single Season Home Run Leaders: http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/HR_leagues.shtml

Career Home Run Leaders:http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/HR_career.shtml