Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa...and now, Jim Thome. Those are the only eight members of baseball's 600 home run club. It's not necessarily the most elite record there is. After all, there are only two members of the 4,000 hit club (Pete Rose and Ty Cobb), only two members of the 2,000 RBI club (Aaron and Ruth), and only one member of the 1,000 stolen base club (Rickey Henderson with 1,406). But when it comes to records in baseball, there has always been something special about those involving the long-ball.
Thome hit home runs number 599 and 600 on Monday night, to very little fanfare leading up to the feat. When Derek Jeter got hit number 3,000 a few weeks ago, MLB Network cut into their programming to show every Jeter at-bat from 2,998 through 3,000. ESPN ran story after story about what Jeter's accomplishment would mean, given no one had ever achieved 3,000 hits with the New York Yankees. Even HBO got into the mix, airing a special only one week after Jeter reached the milestone about his quest to get there.
Yet, it seemed only fans of the Minnesota Twins were aware of how close Thome was to joining the "Elite Eight". Some would say that the lack of emphasis on the 600 milestone had to do with the Twins' struggles this season. Others would say that it's because Thome is playing in Minnesota, a smaller market, and as a result, Jeter playing in New York brought more attention. A third suggestion is that the home run has lost its luster now that we're in the post-steroid era.
Regardless of the reason for such little hype, the baseball media, and fans alike, need to understand the significance of the accomplishment because it's conceivable we may not see such an accomplishment again.
Looking through the list of eight, we know that three have been directly tied to steroid use (Bonds, Rodriguez, and Sosa). Taking that into account, that leaves only five considered to be "genuine" members of the club. Suddenly, the club seems more elite. Now, looking to the future, only one active player in the top 50 has a legitimate chance to reach the 600 milestone, and that player is Albert Pujols (currently with 437 homers). Pujols, like Thome, is widely regarded as a guy who's "done it right" throughout his career. Given his age (31) and the average number of home runs he's hit in each of his first 11 seasons (39.7 per year), it's assumed that Pujols will reach the 600 milestone sometime around the end of the 2015 season. He would be 35 at that time, and would have a reasonable chance to overtake Bonds as the all-time home run leader by the time he's 40.
It's possible that Thome could be the second-to-last person to ever achieve that magical milestone, yet, the accomplishment seemed to fall by the wayside. Looking at it all, it truly seems a shame that one of the true "good guys" in the game became one of the greatest sluggers of all time, and some people are still questioning whether or not he belongs in the Hall of Fame. I think he deserves a little more respect than that.
With talk of realignment, the possible shortening of schedules to prevent November baseball, and cleaning up the game of performance-enhancing drugs, these types of records and accomplishments shouldn't be taken for granted. There's nothing certain about Albert Pujols reaching the 600 club, albeit likely. There's nothing to say that a young, up-an-coming slugger might not reach that mark in 15 more seasons. However, as with anything in life, we just don't know.
Make sure Thome is getting the credit he's due. More so than anything, he's earned it!
No comments:
Post a Comment