Power and Glory

By LANCE PUGMIRE

July 9, 2002 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

When Ted Williams ended his career in 1960 by hitting a home run into Fenway Park’s right-field seats in his final at-bat, the “Splendid Splinter” stood third on the all-time home run list, and his total of 512 made him one of only four members of the 500 home run club.

Nearly 42 seasons later, membership in the group has climbed to 17, and the latest additions, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds, have maintained the exclusive feel of the club.

But that distinction appears temporary. In this homer-happy era, when fan interest in the All-Star home run derby has come to rival the popularity of the All-Star game, baseball is undergoing an unquestionable power transformation.

Statistics of baseball legends are being surpassed with unprecedented quickness and several never-before-seen developments have left the game’s historians struggling for explanations, such as how to interpret the fact that four players--Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, Fred McGriff and Ken Griffey Jr.--are on pace to join the 500-homer club within a year.

What’s going on? That’s a loaded question, with an answer shrouded by innuendo attached to the allegations and admissions of steroid use and obscured by multiple theories.

Has the quality of pitching been depleted too severely by expansion? Are new, small ballparks to blame for big, warped numbers? Is someone doctoring the baseballs or bats?

“Historically, strange things are happening,” said Seymour Siwoff, the president and a 40-year employee of the official major league statistician company, Elias Sports Bureau Inc. “The story here is, what has happened to baseball? How did this suddenly happen? I have no answer. There is conjecture about many things, but not one of them is conclusive.”

Siwoff speculates the ball is being manufactured differently and, in the absence of steroid testing, says it is unfair to disparage players such as Bonds and Sosa with unfounded accusations while failing to appreciate their magnificent hand-eye coordination.

But Siwoff, one of baseball’s most respected number-crunchers, admits baseball’s statistics reveal a mighty story.

Last week, a new major league record was established when 62 home runs were hit in one day.

The number of players who’ve produced 30-homer seasons bulged from 13 players in 1986 to 47 in 2000.

Of the top 100 home run hitters of all time, 20 are active players.

When Bonds was 29, he led the NL with 46 homers in 1993. At 37, he established the single-season record with 73 homers last year.

“The game has certainly been affected by home runs. There are more long home runs and guys are certainly moving up the all-time list faster,” said Jerome Holtzman, Major League Baseball’s historian and a Hall of Fame baseball writer from Chicago.

“But I don’t care if guys are taking steroids or not. The numbers are genuine. You can’t eliminate them. You can’t put an asterisk next to them, can you? More hitters are bigger and stronger these days. If they are taking these drugs and if they want to risk their bodies so they can hit 20 more homers a year, that’s their decision.”

Spokespersons for several members of the 500-homer club, including Hank Aaron, Harmon Killebrew, Frank Robinson and Reggie Jackson, said those players are refusing to answer questions about the presence of steroids in baseball and if they believe their legacies are being diminished by this power surge.

One member’s spokesman explained: “If they’re not banning it, there’s really nothing he can say about it. He’s not pleased that it’s going on. He didn’t do it.

“But for him to say anything about it would make him look like he was crying about it, and he refuses to do that.”

Siwoff said Williams deserves to be eternally regarded as a great of the game, regardless of his drop from No. 3 to No. 12 on the home run list since his retirement.

“This is a guy who was so superior to so many others,” Siwoff said. “It’s unfair to number them one, two or three. Just call him a great hitter, the greatest student of the game and the art of hitting ever. He was a virtuoso. Not only was he great, he understood why he was great.

“In my lifetime, Mickey Mantle hit a ball farther than any player I’ve seen and Jimmie Foxx could hit the ball a mile too. Those guys like that will remain legendary.”

The 60-home run barrier, untouched for nearly 37 years after Roger Maris hit his record 61 in 1961, has been eclipsed six times since 1998--three times by Sosa, twice by McGwire and Bonds’ 73.

In 1977, Cincinnati Red outfielder George Foster hit 52 homers. No one hit 50 again until Detroit first baseman Cecil Fielder in 1990. There have been 15 50-homer seasons since 1995 and three players, Dodger outfielder Shawn Green, Colorado first baseman Todd Helton and Cleveland first baseman Jim Thome, hit 49 homers last year.

Siwoff points to 1987 as the beginning of the power era. In 1986, there were 18,545 runs scored and 3,813 home runs hit. In 1987, runs increased to 19,883 and homers spiked to 4,456.

Rumors of an altered baseball, wound tighter to allow greater distance, permeated the ’87 season.

Travis Gessley, the public relations manager for St. Louis-based Rawlings Sporting Goods, said his company has made only two changes to the official major league baseball since it started making it in 1977.

One change was cosmetic, altering the stamp on the surface from the signatures of the NL and AL presidents to that of Commissioner Bud Selig.

In 1990, Rawlings, which manufactures the parts and pieces of the baseballs in the U.S., relocated its baseball sewing facility from Haiti to Costa Rica.

“The humidity may be a little different, but we still test balls the same way we have, with the same standards,” Gessley said.

In a 2000 study, University of Rhode Island scientists analyzing baseballs from the 1963, 1970, 1989, 1995 and 2000 seasons concluded there was a greater concentration of rubber in the cores of the 1995 and 2000 balls and that the windings in those balls were made with synthetic materials, not wool.

Major League Baseball commissioned a study of 1999 and 2000 baseballs led by James Sherwood last year. Sherwood found no significant differences in those balls, although he said specifications should be tightened by Rawlings because two balls deemed legal traveled as differently as 49 feet.

The addition of four teams since 1993 through expansion has predictably resulted in bloated earned-run averages, from 3.51 in the NL in 1992 to 4.63 in 2000.

And since 1982, 17 new ballparks have been built. The architects have been kind to hitters. Only four of those 17 parks require a home run to dead center field to carry more than 410 feet. Two of those are homer-mad Coors Field in Colorado and Houston’s Minute Maid Park, which offers a left-field wall that’s only 315 feet from home plate.

Siwoff said it’s also important to note the introduction of hard maple bats in 1998 and more emphasis from managers on homers and less on disciplines such as bunting, the hit and run and stolen bases.

“You also have to look at the idea that has always been out there: that guys come into their own,” Siwoff said. “I’ve read stories about McGwire spending a lot of time sitting with scouts when he was injured [during the mid-1990s] and how that might have helped him against pitchers. I saw something about [Arizona Diamondback outfielder] Luis Gonzalez [who hit 57 homers last year] and how learning to pull the ball really helped him in that park.

“You can’t condemn guys until you know all the facts.”

Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully, who has called the team’s games since 1950 and was a 1982 Hall of Fame inductee, said: “That’s all part of it.”

“The fans like home runs, the fans like action. I can remember those games in the ‘60s when the pitching mound was so high ... there were just so many low-scoring games. I can remember walking out of the stadium so many nights and thinking, ‘Did the fans really get their money’s worth tonight?’ Unless you were fans of Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson, I don’t know if that was the case.”

Now, the average game has more than 10 runs and, on a night like last week, nearly four homers.

“I don’t really know if what we’re seeing now is better,” Scully said. “It’s like beauty--it’s all in the eye of the beholder--but I’ve always thought the best score possible was 6-5, with the home team scoring two runs in the bottom of the ninth to win.

“You can’t compare eras in this game. All you can do is appreciate what you have in the era you are in.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

*--* 500 Home Run Club 1. Hank Aaron 755 2. Babe Ruth 714 3. Willie Mays 660 4. Barry Bonds * 594 5. Frank Robinson 586 6. Mark McGwire 583 7. Harmon Killebrew 573 8. Reggie Jackson 563 9. Mike Schmidt 548 10. Mickey Mantle 536 11. Jimmie Foxx 534 12. Willie McCovey 521 Ted Williams 521 14. Ernie Banks 512 Eddie Mathews 512 16. Mel Ott 511 17. Eddie Murray 504 Active players closing in: Sammy Sosa 478 Rafael Palmeiro 468 Fred McGriff 465 Ken Griffey Jr 462 Juan Gonzalez 403 * active

*--*

*--* Batting Order American League Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle, RF Shea Hillenbrand, Boston, 3B Alex Rodriguez, Texas, SS Jason Giambi, New York, 1B Manny Ramirez, Boston, LF Jorge Posada, New York, C Torii Hunter, Minnesota, CF Alfonso Soriano, New York, 2B Starting pitcher Derek Lowe, Boston, RHP National League Jose Vidro, Montreal, 2B Todd Helton, Colorado, 1B Barry Bonds, San Francisco, LF Sammy Sosa, Chicago, RF Vladimir Guerrero, Montreal, CF Mike Piazza, New York, C Scott Rolen, Philadelphia, 3B Jimmy Rollins, Philadelphia, SS Starting pitcher Curt Schilling, Arizona, RHP

*--*

Power Surge

The seasons with the most home runs per team:

Season...Home Runs

2000...189.8

1999...184.3

2001...181.9

1996...177.2

1987...171.5

1998...168.8

1997...165.7

1993...155.0