Collecting Stuff Is Fun
THE MAN, THE YEAR, THE CARD …
FITSNews – February 2, 2008 – As far as we’re concerned, Hank Aaron is still the all-time home run king. And former New York Yankee great Roger Maris remains the single season home run champion. How come? It’s simple, really. Steroid records don’t count, people. At least not to us.
Anyway, our founding editor Sic Willie picked up Maris’ 1961 Topps baseball card today, which is the year he broke Babe Ruth’s record of sixty home runs in a season. Maris’ record stood until 1998, when it was broken by a couple of steroid users. Of course, those records were shattered a few years later by the biggest steroid user of them all, who apparently got jealous of all the attention his rivals were getting and decided to beef up in his quest to outdo them.
Sad, sad, sad. In a winning-is-everything world of instant gratification, of compromised ethics, disgraced heroes and “the clean and the clear,” it’s nice to hold something in your hands that’s truly authentic.
Comments
By SJ Reidhead on February 2nd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I think one of the few advantages (the way I saw it) of living in Fair Play and Seneca growing up in the mid-1960s on was the proximity to the Braves. As you probably well remember they were so horribly bad they were forced to do old-fashioned community outreach barn-storming starting in mid-Jan or so. They would come into Anderson (closest to me) and out would come Hank Aaron, Phil Niekro, Orlando Cepada, and of course Cletis Boyer (arguably the best fielding 3rd baseman in the game at that time – he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn).
Little did a kid like me realize we were ‘hanging’ with future HOFers. I have a book that reached legendary status because of the autographs. They were real players who became legends because of talent, not chemicals.
I feel our pain. Right by my front door I have a photo of Hank Aaron given to me by the then sports ed. of the Anderson Independent. It was the very first photo of Aaron in the new Braves uniform (that horrible one) in 1972. It is hand signed, by pen.
That’s authentic.
SJR
The Pink Flamingo
By MacGyver on February 3rd, 2008 at 12:04 am
I grew up in Atlanta and my Dad took me the Braves games. Was fortunate to be there on the night Aaron hit 715. I share SJR’s thoughts, sports heroes did seem to be more authentic and approachable then. Any “records” made with chemical assistance certainly are not authentic and should not be considered records established. The experience I had and the lessons I learned growing up watching real sports heroes would not be the same if they were accomplished by taking steriods and I wonder what we are teaching kids today by allowing those records to be considered when it is clear steriods were involved?
Trackbacks