Posted on 09/20/2007 10:39:44 AM PDT by JZelle
The ho-hum aspect of Jim Thome's 500th home run is yet another example of the damage the steroids scandal has done to baseball. You did hear about it, didn't you? The feat kind of got lost Sunday between Tiger Woods' clinching of the FedEx Cup and the Patriots' clobbering of the Chargers in their first post-Spygate game.
Indeed, there wasn't much buildup to it at all — which says something, too, about the state of sports coverage in this country. Michael Vick plea hearings and O.J. Simpson perp walks are deemed much more newsworthy these days than a man hitting 500 balls over major league fences.
Not so long ago, such an accomplishment was accorded much attention and respect. Of course, in the mid-'90s, there were only 15 names on the 500 Homer List, legendary names like Ruth, Williams, Aaron, Mays and Jackson. Since 1999, though, when Mark "I'm Not Here To Talk About The Past" McGwire belted No. 500, seven more members have joined the club — and two others, Manny Ramirez (490) and Gary Sheffield (480) are pacing in the lobby.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
well they wanted more offense to make it exciting...and that’s what they got. Now it’s no longer exciting when someone puts up big numbers.
The sad thing is that I’ve always heard that Jim Thome is just an all-around class act. Yes, his feat is tarnished by steroids in baseball . . . but, as far as I know, he’s never been accused of using them himself.
Fer Christ’s sake we are up to 25 hitters in the club with 3 entering this year alone. Not exactly major news anymore.
I was happy and excited to see Thome (and Big Frank as well) although I find Thome to be somewhat of a phony.
Nowadays, people come and go and most of 'em seem like jerks. I attend minor league ballgames and have a fine time. The major teams of professional sports don't get my attention. I don't think they're worth my time.
I don’t think it’s steroids, I think it’s the baseball schedule and the relative anonymity of the player. Thanks to MLB’s 162 game schedule it’s hard to get excited about any 1 game. Then on the other side who the heck is Jim Thome, how many national headlines has he made? I’m admittedly only mildly connected to baseball but honestly I never heard of he guy before this week. Can’t really expect the world to jump up and down yelling “woohoo some guy I never heard of before hit a milestone that isn’t even a record in 1 out of 162 games this season”, it’s just not that exciting.
I don’t think Thome would have gotten much attention even in the pre-steroids era. He’s never been a real superstar-type in baseball, and he kind of crept up on this 500 number pretty quietly over the last 15 years. He reminds me a lot of Rafael Palmeiro and Frank Thomas — players who ran up some big career offensive numbers while playing almost exclusively as designated hitters for much of their careers (though Thome has been a first baseman for most of his career).
That’s it exactly. 500 HRs isn’t a big deal because after about 100 years of baseball, we’re getting a lot more people in that club.
The parks are smaller, the equipment better and players healthier. Even without steroids (which don’t improve timing or technique, the two biggest components of HR hitting) you’d still be getting a lot more players.
Congrats to Thome, but it’s not something we should be interrupting TV programming for.
Thome is generally a good guy, but his act when leaving Cleveland was anything but class. Thome wanted 6 years, the Indians offered 5. The Phillies offered 6. The money per year was the same, if I recall. So here’s Big Jim, married a Cleveland girl, spouted off how he wanted to stay in Cleveland, at a news conference crying like a baby about how he had to go, “for his family”. WTF?!?!
The guy was going to make around $17 million/year no matter where he went. Guaranteed $17 mil/year for 5 years and he can’t make it on that? So he goes to the Phillies, a crappy organization, with astroturf and Thome has a bad back. Not to mention no DH in the NL.
If Big Jim would have been stand up and said: You know, I’m in this to make money, and I have to go where I can get the most, he wouldn’t be booed in Cleveland to this day.
Sorry Jim, don’t care.
This White Sox fan was very angry with the trades that brought Thome to the White Sox. We let Frank Thomas go and traded away an all star center fielder. grrrrrrrrrrrrr
“This White Sox fan was very angry with the trades that brought Thome to the White Sox.”
Your GM has made some good moves, that’s not one of them. Thome is a decent DH but not worth giving up Rowand. Thome caved in to the union. If he had stayed in Cleveland, he’d own the city by now. He was very well liked here, and at his 500th, they probably would have had a Jim Thome day.
Griffy Jr has 7 to go for 600 and that will probably pass with little fanfare, like Sosa.
Look at #10: Rafael Palmeiro.
#34, Dave Kingman used to hit majestic home runs out of Wrigley. I used to live in the Lincoln Park area and took in about 40 games a year at Wrigley. I saw Canseco hit his 100th at the old Comisky and this year saw 476 for Griffy Jr in AABP.
#17, A-Rod, with 516 (and 52 so far this year) has the best chance of surpassing Bonds, currently at 762. A-Rod will soon match the greatest hitter in the history of baseball when he hits 521 (and no, it's not McCovey).
That vitamin B-12 is good stuff.
I never, until your explanation, knew why they booed him in Cleveland. The Rowand deal has been brutal on the White Sox. They have yet to recover from it.
Williams (the GM) really blew it when he let the Big Hurt go. The man gave the city a lot to cheer for. Letting Thomas go when his foot was injured was a classless thing to do. There was bad blood between Williams and big Frank. He should have been willing to finish his years in Chicago. Rowand was well loved in Chicago too. My team finally won the World Series, but afterwards the management made the same stupid mistakes Comisky made after they faced the Dodgers in '59. They broke up the team and messed with team chemistry.
Actually, baseball brought it on us.
How close is John Kerry’s favorite baseball player, Manny Ortiz?
“I never, until your explanation, knew why they booed him in Cleveland.”
Cleveland fans are usually pretty fair. We don’t boo Manny, we know the deal with Manny. We didn’t boo Lofton, now he’s back. We’d cheer Vizquel on return visits, our management screwed up there.
Thome earned what he gets from Cleveland fans, but I’m sure his accountant tells him that he could not care less.
If baseball wants to eliminate the “steroid” image, there are many things the sport can do.
First: Raise the pitching mound back up to fifteen inches.
Second: Go back to ash bats (as opposed to the maple ones used today), because ash bats are very difficult to break/splinter.
Third: Eliminate the designated hitter in the American League. The game is known as baseball, not home-run ball. The American League is really missing the most important element of baseball—STRATEGY!!!
Fourth: Reinstate the bond fide strike zone. Pitches six inches ABOVE the letters needs to be called a strike. Umpires—when in doubt call the pitch a strike as oposed to a ball.
Last but not least: Increase the dimensions of the fields (as opposed to “cozy parks”). Every Major League field should have a 500-foot dimension somewhere between left-center and right-center fields. The two most exciting offensive moments in baseball are the triple and the inside-the-park home run. These have been eliminated because of the sissified dimensions of modern ball “parks.”
—By the way, “(Ignorant) Chicks may dig the long ball;” however, (real) women (and men, like myself, for that matter) who have any sophistication concerning this great game do not.
Any constructive criticisms and/or other suggestions on improving a great piece of Americana are welcomed. Thank you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.