But now, as the great Irish designated hitter, W. B. Yeats, put it in a different context, a terrible beauty is being born. The boys of the summer of 1994 have launched an assault on several of baseball’s most hallowed single-season records – among them batting average, home runs and runs batted in. This onslaught is particularly jarring because in recent years virtually all these marks had begun to appear unattainable. Batters now confront a host of disadvantages that didn’t exist in the game of yore: night baseball, cross-country travel, relief specialists, ESPN and the distractions of uncertain Wall Street portfolios.
Is it just a coincidence that a year after the game was pronounced mortally ill, when it was becoming the pause between pro basketball’s finals and pro football’s preseason, suddenly a burst of offense has ignited fan interest? What’s happened here? There are almost as many explanations as there are columnists, but most boil down to the suspicion that someone has tampered with the baseball. ““I think the ball is hot,’’ says Oakland Athletics manager Tony LaRussa. Baseball denies it, but in the time it takes to read this sentence, another no-name just up from the minor leagues will have hit another home run, so something is going on. Any machinations by baseball officialdom – could those jokers conspire on anything without getting caught? – have been compounded by other trends: umpires, whose increasingly narrow interpretation of the strike zone is a boon to batters; expansion, which has seriously depleted the game’s already thin pitching ranks, and new ballparks, where intimate, fan-pleasing designs delight no one as much as the hitters.
Of the hitters, Ken Griffey Jr. is the one who seemed destined to joust with the immortals. At the age of 24, already in his sixth major-league season, Griffey entered baseball with impeccable pedigree (his father, Ken, hit .296 in a 19-year career) and Hall of Fame predictions. He has done nothing to disappoint, stroking more than 150 home runs for the Seattle Mariners. In the first two months of this season, he hit 22, a pace that if maintained would give him a colossal 70 by October. Right behind Griffey is Frank Thomas of the Chicago White Sox, who was on pace to hit 66 home runs and break Babe Ruth’s record for runs scored in a season: 177.
““Kenny would be a great ballplayer whatever era you put him in,’’ says his manager, Lou Piniella. His only failing is occasionally making it all look too easy. ““I just go up there and hit,’’ says Griffey with studied nonchalance. ““I don’t worry about anything.’’ Except losing. The Mariners aren’t even playing .500 ball.
Joe Carter of the Toronto Blue Jays knows about winning. He sports two World Series rings, the most recent courtesy of his own ninth-inning home run against the Phillies last October. Until his series heroics, however, Carter was stuck on lousy teams – he averaged 31 home runs and 112 RBIs the past eight years for perennial doormat franchises, Cleveland and San Diego. So he takes little comfort in his extraordinary start. Despite a broken thumb and a bout of vertigo, he drove in more runs in April than any player in history, on pace to exceed 200. But the Jays are in an unaccustomed spot near the bottom of the American League’s new Eastern Division. ““I’m not a selfish player,’’ he says. ““Records don’t mean that much to me.''
The most unlikely of the 1994 hitting heroes is New York Yankee Paul O’Neill, a lifetime .268 hitter. For much of this season he has batted closer to .500 than .400, a remarkable feat in a game that hasn’t had a .400 hitter since Ted Williams finished 1941 at .406. Too bad O’Neill doesn’t seem to be enjoying it. ““I wouldn’t even think about it until you guys show up,’’ he says, showing surprising reticence for the kid brother of a New York Times writer. O’Neill says he has no explanation for his newfound prowess: ““I have no idea. The ball looks and acts the same to me.’’ Except he’s hitting it where they ain’t.
O’Neill is a modern prototype, the platooned star – one whose manager benches him against tough left-handers, like last week against White Sox ace Wilson Alvarez. Thus it is hard to consider him in the same breath with the legendary Williams – the man called Teddy Ballgame – who would no more have sat down against Lefty Gomez than he would have considered bunting for a base hit.
Better to consider the Baltimore Orioles’ Cal Ripken Jr., who also has refused to sit down and is now within striking distance of Lou Gehrig’s extraordinary streak of 2,130 consecutive games. Ripken has not done so without controversy. His critics, who seem sadly devoid of a sense of baseball history, insist that by refusing to take a day off for rejuvenation, Ripken has placed himself above the team. Never mind that he’s hitting a solid .280, on pace to drive in 100 runs and playing an almost errorless shortstop. And if nothing goes amiss, next June – amid a league populated by too many guys who’ll take a day off for the proverbial hangnail – he will pass Gehrig and establish one of the most inspiring records in all of sports.
Talking real baseball is a welcome respite from the season’s other themes – brawlball and management’s failure to deal with it, or realignment and the possibility that a sub-.500 team could play in the World Series. Relish the streaks now, lest they falter in the dog days of summer or under the equally hot glare of the media hordes. ““The pitchers are going to get tired of being the victims, and they’ll get tougher and better,’’ says LaRussa. If not, baseball can only hope that it avoids a truly worst-case scenario: one player closing in on a Hall of Fame record only to be stopped by what is now a likely prospect – that other variety of baseball strike.
Records are set to be broken. Here are several in jeopardy:
In 1930 Hack Wilson batted in 190 runs for the Chicago Cubs. The season is about one-third old, and Toronto’s Joe Carter has 56 RBIs.
In 1924 Rogers Hornsby had a .424 batting average while playing for the Cardinals. The Yankees’ Paul O’Neill is hovering at .425.
In 1961 Roger Maris passed Babe Ruth with 61 homers. Seattle’s Ken Griffey Jr. has already hit @@ homers.
Lou Gehrig played 2,130 consecutive games during his 17 years with the Yankees. Baltimore Orioles’ Cal Ripken Jr. is catching up with 1,948.
