In reality, all Roger Maris Jr. had to do was congratulate Aaron Judge for hitting his 61st home run on Wednesday.
Instead, he’s added an extra layer of controversy to the big slugger’s outstanding season.
Maris held a press conference in Toronto, where Judge pulled even with his father Roger Maris’ then-record-setting total from 1961. And he certainly let it be known how he feels about Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa’s prodigious power of the 1990s.
“He should be revered for being the actual single-season home run champ,” Maris said. “I mean, that’s really who he is if he hits 62, and I think that’s what needs to happen. I think baseball needs to look at the records and I think baseball should do something.”
Further asked whether he considers the home run totals of McGwire and Bonds (and, by extension, Sosa) to be illegitimate, Maris answered yes.
“I do,” he said. “I think most people do.”
With the statement, Maris publicly joins a long list of baseball writers, pundits and fans from around the country and world who have freely portrayed their own hypocrisy with the home run record. After all, it was Maris himself who said he “couldn’t be happier” for McGwire when the then-Cardinals slugger hit his 62nd homer in 1998, one year after leaving the A’s at the trade deadline.
61 years since 61.
Aaron Judge has written his name alongside Roger Maris in baseball's record books. pic.twitter.com/1V4Gums34C
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) September 29, 2022
Now, let me be clear: It is perfectly reasonable to change your own opinion over time. If Maris could admit to why he felt McGwire’s record was alright then and explain why his opinion changed, he’s welcome to do so.
But the “actual single-season home run champ” part? That’s just tired, man.
I can readily admit where I stand on this, in part because of where I was standing on Oct. 5, 2001. I was on the arcade at Pacific Bell Park, one section over from the right field foul pole, watching Bonds hit No. 71 in the first inning — and, two innings after that, No. 72, for good measure.
My family has had Giants season tickets for decades and a healthy chunk of my childhood memories are from watching Bonds, who will almost assuredly be the greatest hitter I will ever see.
The anticipation that has happened around Judge at-bats during the recent run of Yankee games? That was four (or more) times a night with Bonds, especially once teams started to willingly avoid pitching to him at all. It made it all the more remarkable that Bonds continued to hit so many home runs.
And yes, there are many who didn’t have that feeling with Bonds chasing the single-season home run record in 2001 or as he broke Henry Aaron’s career home run record on Aug. 7, 2007 (which I was fortunate enough to also be in attendance for). But Maris and so many others had those feelings in 1998, at the height of the McGwire-Sosa chase.
Now, I don’t want to come across as naive. McGwire has admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs, and while Bonds and Sosa have not done so himself, it isn’t exactly rocket science to figure they did, too.
Those things can certainly be contextualized when discussing that trio — who currently hold the top six single-season home run totals in history (Bonds with one, McGwire two and Sosa three). But Major League Baseball didn’t have rules against PED use at the time and has not changed its record books in any way to discredit their records.
But even if Maris got what he wanted and those records were stricken from the books, I suspect it would have the opposite effect from what he’s going for.
Records are numbers in books, yes. But they serve the purpose of memories. They allow all of us to place ourselves back in the time they happened and feel the same feelings all over again. The disbelief at what we were witnessing, the joy of the moment, the celebration of an achievement we aren’t sure we’ll ever see again.
Those are all real, whether Bonds’ home run records are in the books or removed from them. And telling people to ignore the thing that we all witnessed would only make those feelings stronger.
And you know who agrees with me and so many others on this? Judge himself.
“Seventy-three is the record,” Judge recently told Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci. “In my book. No matter what people want to say about that era of baseball, for me, they went out there and hit 73 homers and 70 homers, and that to me is what the record is.”
But now, thanks to Maris’ claims, Judge will almost assuredly have to address the controversy before his next game on Friday night, at Yankee Stadium against the Orioles. And Maris has already called his shot – or Judge’s – by saying he believes Judge will hit 62 on Saturday, Oct. 1, the same date his father hit No. 61 back in 1961.
The most ironic part? Maris said he hadn’t met Judge before the Linden native hit No. 61 on Wednesday night because he “didn’t want to be a distraction.”
This most certainly is distracting folks now.
