You're Ryan Howard ...

True dat.

 

Make that 53. Anything Albert can do, Ryan can do better. Pujols homered earlier, so Howard matched him.

 

Well, except for the fact that McGwire only hit nine home runs in <a href="http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/Imcgwm0010021987.htm">September 1987</a> and Justice only hit nine homers in <a href="http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/Ijustd0010021990.htm">September 1990</a> and Tony Clark only hit nine in <a href="http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/Iclart0020021996.htm">September 1996</a>. (Can't look up Ted Williams splits yet.)

If you want to get technical, Pete Incaviglia only hit nine in September 1986 (although he did add another on Oct. 5. ... None of the previous three hit any October homers in those years.)

Where did you get that stat?

 

Man, buckw, you must have some time on your hands if you went to the trouble of bird-dogging those stats. What prompted you to want to disprove him?

 

Actually, it took about 2 minutes. Retrosheet is god!

And my first thought was about Shane Spencer -- I wasn't sure if he was on the list, too. Turns out no. (Spencer hit 8 in Sept. '98). Then it turned out that Justice didn't hit 10, either. And so on ...

No biggie.

 

If I'm Howard I'm a little miffed that my chase of 61 is lost because of McGuire, Sosa, Bonds, but then I cheer up because I know My bank account iis about to grow by millions, and millions, and millions.

 

That does seriously suck (the chase being lost, not the millions). I saw he had 52 homers and thought, "Wow, he's having a heck of a nice season." Then I thought about the fact that he was 10 away from 62 and realized how big of a deal this would be if not for the FRAUDS! who came before him.

 

\

That's kind of awesome. Pretty creative idea.

 

The one thing I would caution though, is that these are the same frauds many have credited with saving baseball. and although they may have been aided by chemicals, that is what they did.

 

They didn't save shit. Baseball never needed "saving." It needed a PR boost, sure, but it didn't need "saving." I've never understood that premise.

(No offense to you, Beef. You said "many have credited." I just hate the "many" who make that argument.)

 

Beef, I understand your point, but you're basically saying the ends justify the means. That's not an argument I agree with in regards to performance enhancers.

 

I believe the premise comes from the fact Major League Baseball had never come close to bouncing back to pre-strike levels prior to 1998. Although tainted now, it was hard not to get caught up in the magic that the chase caused. The chase made baseball front page news again across the country, especially during the fall when the NFL usually starts to dominate once again.

I don't think baseball was ever going to die, but it certainly did breathe new life into the league, it made it exciting again for Joe Q Public.