March 17, 2005: Congress vs. Baseball's Steroid Cheats

Rafael Palmeiro: Slugger, Cheater, Perjurer

March 17, 2005, 20 years ago: The Government Reform Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives holds a hearing on the topic of performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball.

A few weeks earlier, former Oakland Athletics slugger Jose Canseco published a book titled Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big. In addition to details about his career and his personal life, he named names, revealing that some of the biggest stars in the game -- some already having been suspected as having done so, some not yet widely suspected -- used steroids.

He also gave the opinions that steroid use is not in and of itself a bad thing, as long as the person using them is being monitored by a physician and the dosages are small; that steroids cannot only improve the game of baseball, but also improve and lengthen lives; and that more research needs to be done on the topic.

Canseco himself testified before the Committee, and asserted that his opinions on steroids were sincere, and that the facts he had given in the book were true. Among the other players who were called to testify were 3 players that Canseco named in the book as having used PEDs: Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro.

McGwire had been Canseco's teammate on the Oakland Athletics' American League Pennant winners of 1988, 1989 and 1990. Palmeiro had been his teammate with the Texas Rangers in 1992 and 1993. He was never a teammate of Sosa.

In the 1998 season, McGwire and Sosa both surpassed Roger Maris' single-season record of 61 home runs, with McGwire finishing with 70 and Sosa with 66. In 1999, they both surpassed Maris again, with McGwire hitting 65 and Sosa 63.

Palmeiro, like Canseco born in Cuba and taken to Miami by his family as a boy, had twice hit 47 in a season, hardly an outrageous total, and never topped that. But, entering the 2005 season, he had 551 career home runs, while Sosa had 574, and McGwire had retired after the 2001 season with 583. Even with the advantage of steroids, Canseco last played in 2001, and had "only" 462 homers, hitting 46 in that homer-happy season of 1998.

In his testimony, Sosa, a native of the Dominican Republic, played dumb, pretending that his ability to speak proper English had declined. His attorney read a statement: "To be clear, I have never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs. I have never injected myself, or had anyone inject me, with anything. I have not broken the laws of the United States, or the laws of the Dominican Republic. I have been tested as recently as 2004, and I am clean."

McGwire avoided the question as best he could: "My lawyers have advised me that I cannot answer these questions without jeopardizing my friends, my family, and myself. I will say, however, that it remains a fact in this country that a man, any man, should be regarded as innocent unless proven guilty." He added, "I'm not here to talk about the past. I'm here to be positive about this subject."

Except the Committee was there to talk about the past.

Palmeiro did not avoid the question the way McGwire and Sosa did. He pointed his finger at the Committee members, and said, "Let me start by telling you this: I have never used steroids, period. I don't know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never."

Not called to testify at that time was Barry Bonds, who had already broken McGwire's record by hitting 73 home runs in 2001, and was on his way to surpassing Hank Aaron's career record, finishing with 762 after the 2007 season.

On July 15, 2005, playing for the Baltimore Orioles, Palmeiro collected his 3,000th career hit. At the time, the only players to have previously achieved that milestone and 500 home runs were Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Eddie Murray.

But on August 1, it was revealed that Palmeiro had tested positive for steroids, and he was suspended for 10 games. Upon his return, he was heavily booed by the Baltimore fans, and was held out of the lineup after August 30, and was released after the season. He was just short of turning 41, and was still a productive player. But he was now unhireable, and never played in the major leagues again. He was never charged with perjury for lying to Congress under oath.

In 2009, by then retired with 609 home runs, Sosa was exposed as having failed a steroid test in 2003. He was not prosecuted for perjury, either.

In 2010, offered a coaching position, McGwire knew he had to finally come clean, and talk about the past: "I wish I had never touched steroids. It was foolish, and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during the Steroid Era."

Major League Baseball cracked down on steroids more heavily after 2005. Nevertheless, some exposed steroid cheats were allowed to continue to play. In 2022, David Ortiz was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro, Alex Rodriguez, and Gary Sheffield -- like Ortiz, all members of the 500 Home Run Club who were caught using performance-enhancing drugs -- have not been.

September 8, 1998: Mark McGwire Hits His 62nd Home Run

September 8, 1998, 25 years ago: The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 6-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Ray Lankford and Ron Gant hit home runs for the Cardinals. Nobody remembers those. What they remember is the home run hit by Mark McGwire. It is his 62nd of the season, setting a new single-season record.

Babe Ruth had raised the record to 29 in 1919, 54 in 1920, 59 in 1921 and 60 in 1927. Another right fielder for the New York Yankees, Roger Maris, raised it to 61 in 1961. In spite of the media, especially in New York, seeming to not want Maris to break the record, he ended up holding it longer than Ruth did: 37 years to 34.

While there were serious challenges to Ruth's 60 before Maris' 61 -- Hack Wilson hit 56 in 1930, Jimmie Foxx 58 in 1932, and Hank Greenberg 58 in 1938 -- challenges to Maris' 61 were fewer. In 1969, Reggie Jackson, in his 2nd full season with the Oakland Athletics, had 41 home runs through August 2, and, in his memoir, said, "People were now saying I was dating a lady named Ruth Maris." But he only hit 6 more the rest of the way, and didn't even lead the American League: Harmon Killebrew topped him, 49 to 47.

Willie Mays hit 52 in 1965, but no other National Leaguer hit 50 again until George Foster hit 52 in 1977. And no American Leaguer hit 50 after Maris until 1990, when Cecil Fielder hit 51. When the Strike of '94 hit, Matt Williams was leading the majors with 43, and Ken Griffey Jr. led the AL with 40. Both were thought to have a chance at 61, but that went out the window.

And despite accusations of a "juiced ball" in 1987, no player hit 50 that season. Each League's leader hit 49: Andre Dawson of the Chicago Cubs and... Mark McGwire of the Athletics. McGwire thus set a record for home runs in a season by a rookie.

The 1st baseman was 6-foot-5 and 215 pounds, and had an even taller younger brother, Dan McGwire, who played quarterback for 5 seasons in the NFL, mostly as a backup for the Seattle Seahawks. Still, at the time, Mark was seen as big and solidly built, but not out of regular human proportions. He didn't look like a superhero, or a bodybuilder such as Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He and Jose Canseco became known as the Bash Brothers, helping the A's win 3 straight Pennants and the 1989 World Series. Through the 1992 season, he was 29 years old, and had hit 220 home runs, making 6 All-Star Games, and had even won a Gold Glove. He looked like he was headed for the Hall of Fame. So did Canseco, who was 28 and already had 231 home runs.

But between the A's perennial cash flow problems and his bad attitude, Canseco became expendable, and was traded after that season. McGwire wasn't, falling victim to injuries, making only 279 plate appearances in '93 and '94 combined.

The fact that Canseco used steroids wasn't publicly known, but it was one of the worst-kept secrets in baseball. McGwire found out that a steroid called androstendione, or "andro" for short, could make it easier to return from injury and regrow lost muscle. He came back with a bang in 1995 -- 39 bangs, in fact, and made the All-Star Game again.

In 1996, now with a goatee and his arms bulging like the cartoon character Popeye's, he led the AL with 52 home runs, the most any AL player had hit since Maris. And he was doing this while playing his home games at the Oakland Coliseum, a pitcher's park. Suddenly, the idea that Maris' record could fall was taken seriously for the 1st time.

But, again, A's management was losing money, and on July 31, 1997, with McGwire having hit 34 home runs already, he was traded to the Cardinals for pitchers Eric Ludwick, T.J. Mathews and Blake Stein. Ludwick won just 1 game for the A's, and was traded after the season. Stein did poorly, and was traded in 1999. Mathews pitched well in relief for them, but they traded him in 2001. None of these men appeared in a major league game after the 2002 season. Still, the A's had Jason Giambi coming up, and he replaced McGwire at 1st base, so the trade was pretty much a wash for them.

McGwire was warmly embraced by Cardinal fans. He seemed just the kind of wholesome player that fit in with the Midwest, and "the Best Baseball City in America." He finished the season with 58 homers, while Griffey, with the Seattle Mariners, finished with 56. Now, the national media seemed to treat the breaking of Maris' record no longer as an "if," but as a "when." In cheering on McGwire, and to a lesser extent (because he was black, of course) Griffey, it was as if the media was once again rooting against Maris, who died in 1985, and could not speak up on his own behalf.

And it wasn't just that McGwire and Griffey were hitting so many home runs, it was how far they were going. Griffey was the only batter who ever reached the upper deck of the Kingdome in Seattle, and he had now done it a few times. McGwire was hitting balls 500 feet. Not since Mickey Mantle -- not even Killebrew or Jackson -- had a guy hit the ball that far that often. McGwire may have been a righthanded batter, playing outside New York, and hadn't pitched since he was at USC, but he really was treated as if he was the closest thing to Ruth since Ruth. He was a folk hero.

As it turned out, 1998 became not only "The Year of the Home Run," but it was a 3-way race: McGwire and Griffey were joined by Sammy Sosa of the Cubs. A Dominican, Sosa had never hit more than 40 in a season, and had made just 1 All-Star Game by age 29. But he kept pace with McGwire and Griffey. In June, he topped both of them, and everybody else, too: He hit 20 home runs, still a record for a single player in a single month. When June was over, it was McGwire 37, Sosa 33, Griffey 33.

Neither McGwire nor Sosa added any homers by the All-Star Break on July 7, while Griffey had overtaken Sosa with 35. But all 3 got going after the Break: July ended with McGwire 45, Sosa 42, Griffey 41. McGwire got to 50 on August 20, Sosa on August 23. Griffey went into a slump, so, when August ended, it was McGwire 55, Sosa 55, Griffey 47.

August was also the month that the scandal surrounding President Bill Clinton and his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky got more serious, with Special Counsel Kenneth Starr and the Republican-controlled Congress amping up the pressure. The general consensus was that Clinton had done something immoral, but there didn't appear to be anything illegal, and that Starr and Congress were going too far in trying to prove it. The home run race provided a distraction, much as Hank Aaron's pursuit of Babe Ruth's career record of 714 helped to distract from Richard Nixon and Watergate in 1973 and '74.

By this point, the scoreboard at Busch Memorial Stadium was keeping a running total of McGwire's and Sosa's totals -- but not Griffey's. Also by now, Steve Wilstein, a reporter for the Associated Press, had made public the fact that he had seen a bottle of andro in McGwire's locker. McGwire said it was legal -- which, at the time, it was. He said it was no big deal -- which, at the time, the public accepted.

Indeed, fans turned on Wilstein for reporting it: How dare he ruin this wonderful story with an accusation that "Big Mac" was cheating! What next? Was "Slammin' Sammy" also cheating? Was Junior cheating?

On September 5, McGwire hit his 60th, Sosa hit his 58th, and Griffey hit his 48th. Griffey was having a historic season, and yet was hopelessly behind the Southern Californian and the Dominican. On September 7, Griffey hit Numbers 49 and 50. That same day, McGwire hit Number 61, and Cardinal broadcaster Jack Buck said, "Flight 61, now leaving for Planet Maris!"

Fox Sports broadcast the September 8 Cardinals-Cubs game at Busch live, figuring that it would be the night that the record was broken. The Cardinals, for whom Maris had played his last 2 seasons, 1967 and '68, invited his widow, Pat Maris, and their 5 now-grown children to attend. Pat felt ill and couldn't go, but the kids all did.

McGwire grounded to short in the 2nd inning. With 2 out in the 4th, he again came up against Cub pitcher Steve Trachsel. He hit a screaming liner down the left-field line. Joe Buck, Jack's son, had the call: "Down the left field line! Is it enough? Gone! Number 62! Touch first, Mark: You've made history!" In his excitement, McGwire rounded 1st base without touching it, and had to go back to do so. At 341 feet, it was his shortest home run of the season.

Greeting him at home plate was his 11-year-old son Matt, a Cardinal batboy, whom he gave a huge hug. Sosa had run in from right field, and he hugged McGwire as well. McGwire then went over to where the Marises were sitting, and hugged them, too. With those andro-boosted arms.

But the home run race wasn't over: There was no guarantee that McGwire would even end up leading the NL in homers. Sosa hit his 59th on September 11 and his 60th on September 12. A week earlier, in the entire history of Major League Baseball, there had been only 2 men ever to hit 60 home runs in a season. Now, that total had doubled. On September 13, Sosa hit his 61st and his 62nd. He and McGwire were now tied. Griffey was at 51.

McGwire hit his 63rd on September 15, Sosa his the next day. McGwire hit his 64th on September 18, and his 65th on September 20. On September 23, Sosa hit his 64th and 65th. Griffey was up to 55. On September 25, against José Lima of the Houston Astros at the Astrodome, Sosa hit his 66th, making him the all-time single-season leader -- for a few minutes. This was shortly followed by McGwire's 66th.

Nobody knew it yet, but Sosa wouldn't hit another homer that season, finishing with 66. Griffey would finish with 56. On September 26, the next-to-last day of the season, back at Busch, McGwire hit his 67th off Dustin Hermanson, giving him the lead for good; and hit his 68th later in the game. On the last day, September 27, he hit his 69th, and finally, he cracked a barrier that nobody thought was possible, hitting Number 70 off Carl Pavano, then a rookie with the Montreal Expos. Joe Buck had the call: "Into left field! Number 70! How much more can you give us, Big Mac?"

The answer, at least for that season, was, "No more." The Cardinals finished 73-89, and were nowhere near the NL Pennant race. But the Cubs had finished in a tie with the San Francisco Giants for the NL's Wild Card berth, and won a Playoff at Wrigley Field. Sosa did not hit a homer, which, since this was officially a regular-season game, would have counted as his 67th. But the starting and winning pitcher for the Cubs? Steve Trachsel. That, not giving up McGwire's 62nd, was his most important moment of the year.

And, since the Cubs made the Playoffs, and the Cardinals didn't, Sosa was named the NL's Most Valuable Player, not McGwire. Nevertheless, Sports Illustrated named them joint Sportsmen of the Year -- not their first retroactively problematic choice for that title, and not their last.

In 1999, McGwire hit 65 home runs, while Sosa hit 63. Griffey led the AL with 48. Both McGwire and Sosa had, by comparison, off-seasons in 2000: Sosa 50, still enough to lead the NL; McGwire, 32. Griffey had been traded to the Cincinnati Reds, and hit 40. In 2001, Sosa hit 64. But McGwire battled injuries, hit 29 homers, and retired after the season, with 583 for his career. Griffey also faced injuries, and was limited to 22 homers.

In 2001, the Fox TV show Dark Angel, set in a dystopian future of 2020 -- the dystopia being due to an electromagnetic pulse in 2009 having led to an economic depression and a fascist government, not an epidemic and a nearly-fascist government, as actually happened -- had a story about the theft of the ball that Sosa hit for his 756th home run, breaking Hank Aaron's career record.

Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants hit 37 home runs in 1998, having reached a career high, to that point, of 46 in 1993. He became intensely jealous of the attention heaped on McGwire, Sosa and Griffey, and knowing he was a better all-around player than any of them (well, maybe not Griffey), and began using steroids after the 1998 season.

In 1999, he hit 34 homers. In 2000, he hit a new career high, 49. In 2001, he set a new single-season record, with 73. That record still stands. Sosa, who again led the NL in 2002, with 49, would end up with 609. Griffey would finish with 630, and, as far as is publicly known, he did that without ever using steroids. Bonds would be the one to break Aaron's record, finishing with 762 in 2007.

By then, McGwire and Sosa had already irreparably damaged their reputations: The 2005 Congressional hearings into steroid use in baseball had made them both look foolish. Sosa has never confessed to using steroids. McGwire has, and this admission allowed him to get back into baseball's good graces, as he has served as a hitting instructor for the Cardinals and the San Diego Padres. However, the section of Interstate 70 -- a convenient number -- running through St. Louis had been named the Mark McGwire Highway. In 2010, the signs were changed to honor an earlier local hero, who was a baseball fan: It became the Mark Twain Highway.

Through the 2022 election, neither McGwire, nor Sosa, nor Bonds has ever been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Griffey was elected in his 1st year of eligibility. However, with known steroid cheats David Ortiz, Mike Piazza and Iván Rodríguez already in, keeping McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and any other player known to have used steroids -- or, like Roger Clemens, widely believed to have used them -- out of the Hall on the basis of steroid use seems stupid: Either cheating matters, or it doesn't. If it doesn't bother you, let all of them in; if it does, keep all of them out. Be consistent.

Jose Canseco would finish his career with 462 home runs. In other words, he's a borderline candidate for the Hall of Fame even with his admission of cheating.

The Summer of '98 has been called baseball's best season, for all the home run heroics. Certainly, Yankee Fans, getting to watch a team go 114-48 in the regular season and 11-2 in the postseason, loved it. But the knowledge that McGwire and Sosa cheated to reach and pass 61 home runs taints it, irrevocably. The U.S. Senate may have acquitted Clinton, but history has convicted McGwire, Sosa and Bonds.

2007 Winners & Losers: Around Here, More the Latter

Winners and Losers in sports for 2007:

Winners: New England fans. Can't sugar-coat this. They wanted a World Series "just once in our lifetime." They now have two. And they got off scot-free in the Mitchell Report. They got an undefeated NFL regular season, and no real punishment for that team's cheating, either. They got "their Celtics" back. Boston College had a pretty good season. Harvard won the Ivy League. Even the Bruins look competent for the first time in about a dozen years.

Sickening.

Losers: New York Tri-State Area fans. Not one of the area's major league teams lived up to expectations. The Giants came closest, making the Playoffs. But the Yankees fell short. The Nets fell short. The Devils fell short. The Rangers probably got as far as their talent would let them, but with their big start, bigger things were expected from hockey's most overpriced and most overrated team.

At least those teams made the Playoffs. The Islanders missed. The Jets dissolved into injury. The Mets had the most calamitous collapse any local team ever had, blowing a seven-game division lead with 17 games to play and not even making the Playoffs -- when this was supposed to be THE YEAR.

The Knicks? Let's be honest here: If the problems that any of the other eight big-league teams in the area had were all that Knick fans had to worry about, it would be a vast improvement. The Knicks stunk on the basketball court, and they stunk in civil court. They stunk on the boards, and they stunk in the boardroom. Any Yankee Fan who wants to say the Mets are a "disgrace," or any Giant fan who wants to say the Jets are a "disgrace," Met or Jet fans can say, No, you want a true disgrace, look at the Knickerbockers.

Even the Tri-State Area's auxiliary teams disappointed. The Liberty made a quick exit from the WNBA Playoffs. The New York Cosmos... I mean, the New York Arrows... I mean, the New York-New Jersey MetroStars... I mean, Red Bull New York, also made their ridiculous league's playoffs but made a quick exit.

Local college sports? Rutgers, which thrilled so many with a run to the National Championship game in women's basketball, saw their men's basketball team tank, and their football team, which was supposed to make a run at the Big East title, finished the regular season 7-5. Seton Hall and St. John's didn't make the NCAA Tournament, either. The days when New York City (even including its suburbs) was the center of the basketball universe are long gone.

Winners: Rutgers University. It tells you how far Coach Greg Schiano has brought this team when they can win seven regular-season games, contend for the Big East title, and go to a bowl game played in January... and the season is considered a disappointment. Ray Rice, please: One more year! And the Lady Knights did go almost all the way, and there's no shame in losing to Pat Summitt's Tennessee juggernaut. The shame came afterward, but did not fall on Rutgers:

Loser: Don Imus. Like he has the right to joke about anyone's hair. Shame on WABC for letting Curtis Sliwa and Ron Kuby go and hiring the old bastard. (You'll notice I didn't use my usual euphemism "b@$+@rd" this time.) The real shame is that this bigoted bully wasn't fired decades ago for things much worse.

Winners: Roger Maris and Hank Aaron. They still hold the records, respectively for home runs in a single season and in a career. Anybody who says otherwise is lying. That includes Bud Selig.

Losers: Mark McGwire. Sammy Sosa. Barry Bonds. And, to a lesser extent, the other players named in the Mitchell Report -- to a lesser extent because they were confronted with allegations but not proof.

Yeah, I know, we don't have the proof on McGwire or Sosa, but we also didn't have Roger Clemens or anyone else named in the Report looking ridiculous or guilty (or outright making themselves guilty, like Rafael Palmeiro) under oath in front of Congress.

Winners: The University of Florida. Few schools have ever won National Championships in both football and basketball. By winning the 2007 title in football, the Gators are the first to do it in the same schoolyear. By winning the 2007 title in basketball, the Gators are the first to do it in the same calendar year. And the first basketball team to do it since Mike Shuhshefski and Duke did it in 1991-92.

I'll start spelling his name right when he starts pronouncing it right. If your name begins with a K, it's not pronounced with a "shuh."

Losers: The guys behind the Bowl Championship Series. Never mind that Louisiana State is probably still the best team in the country. Never mind that LSU's only two losses were in triple overtime. There are two teams in Division I-A (or whatever the college football equivalent of "major league" is being officially called now) who have one loss or less: One-loss THE... Ohio State University and undefeated Hawaii.

If the only two teams with less than two losses aren't facing each other in the National Championship game, then, at least this season, the BCS has failed.

It's simple, really. First, tell every independent -- this means you, Notre Dame, you cowards -- that either they join one of the following eight leagues: Big East, ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-10, a merged Conference USA and MAC and a re-merged WAC and Mountain West, or they are automatically disqualified from the National Championship. Then split each league into two divisions.

There you go: The Division Champions are thus entered into a 16-team playoff. They play for the Conference Championships at neutral sites in their region, and then the Conference Champions move on to a round of eight. Then bring in the bowls. Big 10 vs. Pac-10 in the Rose Bowl, as God intended it. Big East vs. ACC in the Orange Bowl. SEC vs. C-USA/MAC in the Sugar Bowl. And Big 12 vs. WAC/MWC in the Cotton Bowl. (You do remember the Cotton Bowl, don't you?) Now you've got four teams.

Then you put the two easternmost remaining teams in one semifinal and the two westernmost in the other. Then you have a National Championship Game on the Saturday between the NFL Conference Championships and the Super Bowl. (This season, January 26.) Or, if you prefer, move the minor bowls to the week after the conference title games (December 8), then the major bowls the next week (December 15), the semis the next week (December 22), and the National Championship on New Year's Day as in days of old.

It's so simple, a caveman could do it. But the NCAA, the college presidents and the TV networks won't. Why? Because that would make sense, and they won't have that.

Winners: The San Antonio Spurs. It's not just that they won their 4th World Championship in the last 9 seasons. It's that they have definitively taken away from the Shaq/Kobe Lakers the title of best NBA team in the post-Jordan era.

Loser: Kobe Bryant. He has never been the best player in the NBA. In fact, when he's been the best player on his own team, his team has stunk. And with Shaquille O'Neal having excelled in Miami (when healthy), that argument is over, in Shaq's favor.

Winner: All those people who rooted against the Cheatriots this year.

Loser: Bill Belichick. Even if he does make it to 19-0*.

Winner: Craig Biggio, for joining the 3,000 Hit Club.

Loser: Pete Rose. Forever. Shut up about steroids, you lying, gambling, womanizing, tax-cheating schmuck.

Winner: Brett Favre. No, he isn't really, as Sports Illustrated said, the Sportsman of the Year. Once again, as they did for Stan Musial in 1957, John Wooden in '72, Jack Nicklaus in '78, Joe Paterno in '86, Arthur Ashe in '92, Don Shula in '93, Cal Ripken in '95 and Dean Smith in '97, SI gave that distinction as a lifetime achievement award, rather than for what he did in the calendar year. (At least Wooden and Paterno actually won National Championships in the seasons in question, but had previously won them, so why wait that long?)

But Favre now holds the NFL career records for completions, passing yards and touchdown passes. And, unlike the guy who held each of those records before him, Dan Marino, Favre has won a Super Bowl. Favre also broke John Elway's record for most wins by an NFL quarterback. And he did this when a lot of us thought he should've retired a year (or two) ago.

Loser: O.J. Simpson. Forever. I'll bet he likes to look in the mirror. Maybe "if he did it," he would find "the real killer."

Winners: Tony Romo and Eli Manning. They could've crumbled under various pressures. (Romo: The goof in last year's Playoffs, dealing with Terrell Owens, explaining to Jessica Simpson the difference between the silver screen and a screen pass. Eli: The New York media ripping him for being not as good a quarterback as brother Peyton, or even Walter Payton.) But both got teams that are only good, not great, into the Playoffs.

Loser: Michael Vick. It doesn't have to be forever.

Winner: Rich Rodriguez. No, he didn't get West Virginia to the National Championship, but he took a good program and made it a great one, and now he gets to go to Michigan, and try to take a once-great program and make it great again.

Losers: Bobby Petrino and Nick Saban. I could tell you why, but I got a better offer from a blog in the SEC.

Winners: New Jersey Devils fans. No more Meadowlands Arena/Brendan Byrne Arena/Continental Airlines Arena/Izod Center. No more changing buses at Port Authority, no more having to go from New Jersey to New York to New Jersey to see New Jersey's hockey team. No more vicious wind whipping off the Hackensack River across that treeless parking lot. No more of that creepy pedestrian overpass between the Giants Stadium and arena parking lots. No more one level of concourse for two levels of seats, clearly patterned after the Nassau Coliseum, which is not the model to choose. And no more sharing an arena with the lame-duck Nets.

And while we're at it...

Winner: The City of Newark. Brick City is back, and the Prudential Center, modeled after the Bell Centre in Montreal and the Whatever Bank It Is This Season Center in Philly (it is still Wachovia, right?), is as good as any arena in the league. And the team... well, we'll see. One game, they look ready to have a Cup parade down Broad Street (the new Broad Street Bullies?); the next, they look like they're hoping for a lucky shot while Marty Brodeur holds everyone off. But at least we don't have to deal with the Meadowlands anymore. Unless we wanna go see the Nets. Or the Giants. Or the Jets.

Losers: The New York Rangers and their fans. They both suck, no matter how the team is doing.

Losers: The Yankees and their fans. How can a team that made the Playoffs be losers? Well, there was the most obvious loss: Phil Rizzuto. We lost other legends from the World Championship teams of the black-and-white era: Tommy Byrne, Hank Bauer, Clete Boyer. Then there's the loss that isn't here yet, but we can all see it coming: Yankee Stadium.

The whole year looked like a struggle just to make the Playoffs. And then the way we went out -- BUGS! -- no, as I said before, don't blame the bugs, the Yanks just didn't hit. Alex Rodriguez had one of the best years any hitter's ever had, but he's still a loser for how his personal life got splattered on the front pages, not just the back ones; and for how he failed in the Playoffs... again! And then screwed up the contract talks... How can a guy who got a $275 million contract be a loser? That's how.

Joe Torre gone in a dubious way. Hey, at least he took Don Mattingly with him, so the Curse of Donnie Baseball moves to a team that really does deserve to be cursed, the putrid progeny of Walter O'Malley. And Joe gets his pal Scott Proctor back.

But it got worse: Just this week, we learned the sad story of Jim Leyritz's drunken crash. Of course, on came the Mitchell Report, casting doubt on the 1996-2003 title era, giving Met fans, Red Sox fans, and all Yankee-haters the chance to say it's all illegitimate. Never mind that the Report also fingered some Mets, including Lenny Dykstra of the sainted sinners of 1986. And that it let the Red Sox off without so much as a tsk-tsk.

Did I mention the Red Sox? We now have to listen to their inebriated reprobate fans spew out foul-mouthed mentions of two World Championships since our last.

And finally...

Winners: The Yankees and their fans. Of course. And I'm not just talking about the 26 World Championships. I'm talking about hope for 2008. Joe Girardi in as a kick-starter of a manager. No more Mattingly. No more Proctor. No more Carl Pavano. Hank Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman decided to keep the young talent rather than roll the dice on the overrated Johan Santana. Said young talent has another year under its belt. The Red Sox are a year older, and Josh Beckett really doesn't do well in even-numbered years. So there is reason to hope.

Even if there are only 81 more games scheduled for the one and only Yankee Stadium we ever really wanted. (Or 82, if you count the All-Star Game.) Nothing left to do but see to it that a few more games are scheduled. For October.

Rewriting the Record Book *

Note: The following was written before it was revealed that Alex Rodriguez had used steroids while with the Texas Rangers from 2001 to 2003.

The following are baseball home run records. They do not require asterisks.

Most home runs, single-season: 61, Roger Maris, 1961.

Most home runs, single-season, right-handed hitter: 58, Jimmie Foxx, 1932, also Hank Greenberg, 1938.

Most home runs, single-season, National League: 56, Hack Wilson, 1930.

Most home runs, single-season, National League, left-handed hitter: 58, Ryan Howard, 2006.

Most home runs, career: 755, Hank Aaron.

Most home runs, career, left-handed hitter: 714, Babe Ruth.

Most home runs, single-season, San Francisco Giants: 52, Willie Mays, 1965.

Most home runs, single-season, St. Louis Cardinals: 49, Albert Pujols, 2006.

Most home runs, single-season, Chicago Cubs: 56, Hack Wilson, 1930.

Most home runs, single-season, Arizona Diamondbacks: 38, Jay Bell, 1999.

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The entire list of players who have hit 40 home runs and stolen 40 bases in the same season:

Alex Rodriguez, 1998 Seattle Mariners
Alfonso Soriano, 2006 Washington Nationals

That's it. Only two.

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American League Most Valuable Player, 1988: Mike Greenwell, Boston Red Sox.
National League Most Valuable Player, 1996: Mike Piazza, Los Angeles Dodgers.
National League Most Valuable Player, 1998: Moises Alou, Houston Astros.
National League Most Valuable Player, 2001: Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals.
National League Most Valuable Player, 2002: Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals.
National League Most Valuable Player, 2003: Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals.
National League Most Valuable Player, 2004: Adrian Beltre, Los Angeles Dodgers.

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Of course, these are neither officially recognized by Major League Baseball nor capable of being enforced by me. And there may be others who will have to be stripped of records and awards, just as B---- B----, M--- M------, S---- S---, J--- C------, R----- P-------, L--- G------- and K-- C------- have been.

But those players whose names I have obscured above did not deserve those awards, and should be stripped of their records.

"When the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name
he marks not that you won or lost, but how you played the game."
-- Grantland Rice (1880-1954)

OK, that flies in the face of things I've said about Alex Rodriguez. But he is now miles ahead of those others, regardless of whether he ever hits 62 homers in a season, or 74; or 756 home runs in his career, or 763.

But after being indicted yesterday on four counts of perjury and one charge of obstruction of justice, charges that would bring, if convicted on all, a maximum of 30 years in prison -- and they wouldn't have indicted if they weren't pretty sure of a conviction -- we can be pretty sure that B---- B---- will remain stuck on 762. Even if he's acquitted (fat chance), who would risk the radioactive publicity they'd get by signing him?

2007: Perhaps the strangest year baseball has ever had, from the home run record chase to "As the A-Rod Turns"; from the Mets blowing a big lead to the Phillies taking advantage of it, instead of the historical other way around; from the Rockies winning 21 out of 22 to the Red Sox violating the once-every-86 years rule.

I'm glad I went through it, but I hope we never go through a year like it again.