In case you haven't heard, live under a rock, hate baseball, etc., etc., Jim Thome blasted two home runs against the Tigers last night, giving him 600 total for his career. He is the 8th man in a sea of thousands to pull this off. In the baseball world, the number 600 carries shock-and-awe status with it.
Yet.
Let's not kid ourselves. Thome is not one of the top 10 players of his era (as a matter of fact FanGraphs has him 11th in WAR from 1991-2011, with 71.0). He wasn't the most feared hitter on the Indians (Belle, Ramirez), Phillies (Howard, Utley), or Twins (Mauer, Morneau), and he shared the spotlight with Paul Konerko in Chicago. Still, the numbers don't lie. I might, but the numbers do not, and 600 is a hard one to overlook. He will absolutely get into Cooperstown.
But one of the questions on the table, put nicely today on ESPN.com's homepage, is the following:
"How much is Jim Thome's accomplishment in hitting 600 home runs diminished by the era in which he played?"
Clearly, the implications here are with steroids. Not with Thome specifically, but with the time period in general. And the answer is: a lot. In any other era, this would be the crowning achievement on one of the greatest careers in baseball history. But now? Thome, even though his name never appeared on a positive PED list, was just a little better at doing what everyone else was able to do during which the time he played. It's terrible, but it's the truth. As silly as it may be, as long as we have reports and rumors of players using deer antler spray and other substances, no one will believe the game is played on the same level it once was, and the numbers will not mean anything.
So, congratulations Jim, you're a hall-of-famer, and deservedly so, but I just can't get that excited anymore.
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