From: Christopher Hutson (crhutson@salisbury.net)
Date: Wed Sep 09 1998 - 10:08:42 EDT
Carl gave us this snippet from the Times:
> Here, however, is what the NYTimes
>article by Murray Chass this morning said:
>
>"McGwire's record-tying home run came two days after another
first-inning
>home run tied him with Babe Ruth at 60. McGwire's 61st came in his
team's
>144th game (including one tie), whereas it took Maris 163 games (also
one
>tie) to surpass Ruth. Because he broke Ruth's total well before his
team's
>154th game - the length of the season when Ruth played - McGwire
should not
>face any talk of an asterisk in regards to surpassing Ruth, an issue
that
>bedeviled Maris."
>
I think all this hair splitting about the number of Games is silly.
Why pick out that one criterion of comparison and ignore all others?
It's not just a matter of saying how many games Babe, Maris, McGwire
played to set the record. How many at-bats did each player get? How
many times was each intentionally walked? What was the median ERA of
the pitchers each faced over the course of the season? We could go on
and on searching for reasons to rationalize away an impressive feat.
The fact is that Maris beat the Babe. How do we know that Maris was a
giant? Because it took 37 years of big beefy boys slugging away in
162-game seasons before anyone else touched the record. 'nuff said.
The Babe was the Babe. May he rest in peace. Maris should go
directly to the Hall of Fame, and McGwire and Sosa should follow him
there in a few years. :-)
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
XPIC
------------------------------------
Christopher R. Hutson
Hood Theological Seminary
Salisbury, NC 28144
crhutson@salisbury.net
------------------------------------
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