<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=581 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD>Asterisks? Where do we begin?
Put one next to any record set before 1947
by Mike Bauman
MLB.com
</TD><TD align=right><!-- * -->
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>You want asterisks? I'll give you asterisks: ****
There has been much rumbling recently about the need to place asterisks next to the records of players who might have used steroids, knew someone who used steroids, knew someone who used steroids but lied about it, etc.
It's an interesting concept. And maybe later, when we have, you know, something resembling proof in all of these cases, we can all sit down and have a rational conversation, as long as we're sure nobody in our conversational group is having 'roid rage.
But while we're on the subject of the asterisk in the record book, there are some records that I would like to see accompanied by asterisks. Those records would include every one set before the year 1947.
This is how the asterisk would go in the record book:
*This record was set when only a portion of the population was allowed to play Major League Baseball.
I like that. It's clean, it's crisp, it makes the point. While we're going over the records of anybody and everybody who might have juiced, we ought to take a longer look at an era when injustice was an everyday occurrence. For instance:
Ty Cobb, highest career batting average in the history of the game. But did he ever have to face a Bob Gibson? Did he ever have to face a Juan Marichal? He very pointedly did not.
Ty Cobb*
*This record was set when only a portion of the population was allowed to play Major League Baseball.
Cy Young, won more games than anybody in the history of the game, only man to win 500 games. But did he ever have to face a Willie Mays? Did he ever have to face a Henry Aaron? Did he ever have to look over to first and worry that a Lou Brock or a Rickey Henderson was about to steal second? Sadly, he did not.
Cy Young*
*This record was set when only a portion of the population was allowed to play Major League Baseball.
We could go like this for a very long time, but the point is made. Whenever there is a controversy regarding current players, there is almost invariably all of this simultaneous gushing about how pure and pristine the game used to be. Utter garbage. The game used to be just like the rest of American society -- segregated. Couldn't get in unless you were a card-carrying Caucasian.
Now we all congratulate Major League Baseball and Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey and the Brooklyn Dodgers for being pioneers in 1947, for breaking racial barriers, for actually being ahead of the rest of society by making the point that at least all baseball players were created equal.
But before that? Baseball was not a better game then. It was a smaller game. It was played by a segment of the population -- a large segment, but still just one part of the melting pot that supposedly separates our American republic from the rest of the globe.
This is where the asterisks in the record books belong. These old records were set in many cases by some great ballplayers, but we need to note that these records were set when white guys were merely playing other white guys.
We need to put the asterisk to good use, to denote the basic difference between baseball then and baseball in the last 58 years. Now, now we have seen the magnificence of a game that is not only open to racial minorities in America, but open to talented players from all over the globe.
This is baseball; multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-talented. In this way, it is much broader and it is much better than it used to be, not to mention being more just.
So we need to put those old records in some kind of perspective.
Everything before 1947*
*This record was set when only a portion of the population was allowed to play Major League Baseball.
This would be using the asterisk in its most noble form, setting off baseball today from baseball way back when, in the times when it was a smaller, narrower, less inclusive and just-plain-not-nearly-as-good-as-it-is-now game.
Mike Bauman is a national columnist for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
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Put one next to any record set before 1947
by Mike Bauman
MLB.com
</TD><TD align=right><!-- * -->
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>You want asterisks? I'll give you asterisks: ****
There has been much rumbling recently about the need to place asterisks next to the records of players who might have used steroids, knew someone who used steroids, knew someone who used steroids but lied about it, etc.
It's an interesting concept. And maybe later, when we have, you know, something resembling proof in all of these cases, we can all sit down and have a rational conversation, as long as we're sure nobody in our conversational group is having 'roid rage.
But while we're on the subject of the asterisk in the record book, there are some records that I would like to see accompanied by asterisks. Those records would include every one set before the year 1947.
This is how the asterisk would go in the record book:
*This record was set when only a portion of the population was allowed to play Major League Baseball.
I like that. It's clean, it's crisp, it makes the point. While we're going over the records of anybody and everybody who might have juiced, we ought to take a longer look at an era when injustice was an everyday occurrence. For instance:
Ty Cobb, highest career batting average in the history of the game. But did he ever have to face a Bob Gibson? Did he ever have to face a Juan Marichal? He very pointedly did not.
Ty Cobb*
*This record was set when only a portion of the population was allowed to play Major League Baseball.
Cy Young, won more games than anybody in the history of the game, only man to win 500 games. But did he ever have to face a Willie Mays? Did he ever have to face a Henry Aaron? Did he ever have to look over to first and worry that a Lou Brock or a Rickey Henderson was about to steal second? Sadly, he did not.
Cy Young*
*This record was set when only a portion of the population was allowed to play Major League Baseball.
We could go like this for a very long time, but the point is made. Whenever there is a controversy regarding current players, there is almost invariably all of this simultaneous gushing about how pure and pristine the game used to be. Utter garbage. The game used to be just like the rest of American society -- segregated. Couldn't get in unless you were a card-carrying Caucasian.
Now we all congratulate Major League Baseball and Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey and the Brooklyn Dodgers for being pioneers in 1947, for breaking racial barriers, for actually being ahead of the rest of society by making the point that at least all baseball players were created equal.
But before that? Baseball was not a better game then. It was a smaller game. It was played by a segment of the population -- a large segment, but still just one part of the melting pot that supposedly separates our American republic from the rest of the globe.
This is where the asterisks in the record books belong. These old records were set in many cases by some great ballplayers, but we need to note that these records were set when white guys were merely playing other white guys.
We need to put the asterisk to good use, to denote the basic difference between baseball then and baseball in the last 58 years. Now, now we have seen the magnificence of a game that is not only open to racial minorities in America, but open to talented players from all over the globe.
This is baseball; multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-talented. In this way, it is much broader and it is much better than it used to be, not to mention being more just.
So we need to put those old records in some kind of perspective.
Everything before 1947*
*This record was set when only a portion of the population was allowed to play Major League Baseball.
This would be using the asterisk in its most noble form, setting off baseball today from baseball way back when, in the times when it was a smaller, narrower, less inclusive and just-plain-not-nearly-as-good-as-it-is-now game.
Mike Bauman is a national columnist for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
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