COMMENTARY

By Ken Rosenthal

updated 4:35 p.m. ET May 9, 2006

Ken Rosenthal

Say Alex Rodriguez hits 800 home runs.

I doubt he would receive the adulation Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa did during their home run race in 1998. Such records no longer will inspire unabashed reverence, even if they are set by a player as untainted as Rodriguez.

This is the legacy of the Steroids Era, and the indifference toward Barry Bonds' pursuit of Babe Ruth on the all-time home run list is a sign of things to come.

The euphoria that stemmed from Cal Ripken breaking Lou Gehrig's consecutive-games record in 1995 never will be duplicated.

Fans, media and baseball people have grown understandably more skeptical after being exposed as naive, ignorant and plain blind.

Perhaps the reaction to Bonds isn't a fair gauge of the future; his reported steroids use and distasteful personality leave him with little support outside of the Bay area.

But the greater issue is trust.

Major League Baseball has implemented the harshest penalties for steroids use in professional sports, but only a fool would proclaim the sport is clean. In every sport, the cheaters develop new ways to stay ahead of the testers.

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Investing emotionally in any future baseball accomplishment will require, at some level, a suspension of disbelief. And though baseball is reaching new levels of popularity by virtually every measure, the damage to the sport is more significant than the powers that be care to admit.

The numbers are that warped.

Ten years ago, the pursuit of Ruth would have been a national showstopper. No, 714 is not the record, and commissioner Bud Selig is correct -- Bonds should not be commemorated for passing Ruth when Hank Aaron's 755 is the all-time mark. But in the game's mythology, 714 is a big deal, an emotional touchstone. Bonds, at 713 after his upper-deck blast at Philadelphia on May 7, is evoking curiosity but little passion.

It is different, of course, in San Francisco, where Bonds is revered for his accomplishments, for the electricity he brings to the park. Fans in any other city would react the same if Bonds were their own, and even now -- in the middle of a pursuit that is more of a limp than a chase -- Bonds is capable of creating a stir in the cities he visits.

Still, fans aren't scrambling to snap up seats in the right field stands the way they did during Bonds' 73-homer season in 2001. Heck, MLB didn't even mark the balls used for Bonds' at-bats until last weekend, even though -- at the very least -- he is on the verge of passing Ruth for the most home runs by a lefthanded hitter.

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Everything is devalued now -- the player, the era, the home run. And it remains difficult to evaluate where this all goes.

Perhaps the excesses of the era will grow less offensive over time. Perhaps the next wave of stars will be justly celebrated for whatever milestones they reach. Though asterisks would be inappropriate, the record book should include a qualifier: MLB did not test for performance-enhancing drugs until 2003.

Bonds is the biggest name, the slugger trying to make history, but this isn't just about him, it's about the entire sport -- a sport that has lost a measure of innocence, not just for the moment but for good.

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