It's Never Too Late to Insert an Asterisk

When Roger Maris surpassed Babe Ruth's single season Major League homerun record on the final day of the season in 1961, then-Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick ruled that an asterisk be attached to Maris' feat. The decision was based on the fact that Maris hit 61 homers over an expanded 162-game schedule, while Ruth hit his 60 in 1927 when the season was only 154 games. Since Maris' 60th and 61st homeruns both came after game 154 in the schedule, Frick decided that the new mark needed a qualifier. In essence, Frick ruled, if not for the extra games, Ruth's record would not have been broken. (This decision became a moot point when Mark McGwire hit 70 taters in 1998. Ruth and Maris fell even further down the totem poll this year, as Barry Bonds surpassed McGwire with 73.)

The purpose for the asterisk, then and now, is to say, "Yes, this is the record, but due to extenuating circumstances, it's does not quite stand up on its own." In other words, the record holder benefited from extra opportunities not available to others. Based on this criterion, former Yomiuri Giants great Sadaharu Oh, who set the Japanese single season record by belting 55 homeruns in 1964, should have an asterisk retroactively and immediately attached to his 37-year-old record. Tuffy Rhodes tied the record this year, and Randy Bass came up one short when he hit 54 homers in 1985. However, the discrepancy has nothing to do with the scheduled number of games. It does, however, have everything to do with sportsmanship and fair play, in this case a lack thereof, having a direct impact in the number of games fairly played.

To understand why an asterisk is warranted, lets first go back to 1985. That year, Hanshin Tigers slugger Randy Bass was closing in on Oh's single season homerun record. Bass had 54 homeruns heading into the final two games of the season. Unfortunately for him, those games were played against the Yomiuri Giants, who were then managed by none other than Sadaharu Oh. During those two games, Bass batted nine times, and received six walks. And he would have had nine walks if he didn't swing at pitches clearly out of the strike zone in a desperate attempt to at least tie the record. The Giants pitchers gave him absolutely nothing hittable. On one pitch, the clearly frustrated Bass held his bat upside down in disdain as the pitch came in two feet wide of the plate. Keep in mind that the decision to pitch around Bass had nothing to do with strategy, since by this time the Tigers had already clinched the league title. It was obvious that the Oh-led Giants deliberately deprived Randy Bass of the chance to tie or break the record. There were loud grumblings from the Tiger side of course, but in general, the rest of the league and the press accepted this as SOP.

Fast forward to 2001 when another foreigner, Tuffy Rhodes of the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes, posed a new challenge to Oh's single season record. By the last week of the season, Rhodes had one-upped Randy Bass by tying Oh's mark of 55 homeruns. Things seemed different this year too. Even as Rhodes approached the record, pitchers chose fight over flight. They of course pitched him carefully and walked him when strategy dictated, but the pitchers threw strikes when they were warranted as well. Fans of opposing teams even cheered him whenever he came to bat. This competitive integrity and sportsmanship seemed to suggest that the era of protectionism in Japanese baseball had finally passed. Unfortunately, one team, the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks, apparently hasn't yet signed onto the pact.

Rhodes, still tied with Oh with 55 homeruns, traveled to Fukuoka last Sunday to face the Hawks in the third-to-last game of the year. As with the Tigers in 1985, the Buffaloes had already clinched the league title, once again removing strategy as a concern. There was every expectation that the matter of the homerun record would be decided on the field of play. In the game, however, Rhodes saw 18 pitches, and only two were strikes. And those two strikes were borderline at best, and could easily have been called balls. And considering that the catcher held his glove a foot or more outside the plate, they probably weren't supposed to be even that close. Rhodes walked twice, and in his other two times at bat, he swung at pitches over his head in a futile (Randy) Bassian effort to break the record. Once again, protectionism had reared its ugly head in Japanese baseball. The Hawks, if you haven't guessed already, happen to be managed by Sadaharu Oh.

The still reigning homerun champ claimed to be "out of the loop," and said that it was up to his pitchers to decide for themselves how to pitch Rhodes. Pitching coach Yoshiharu Wakana took the heat for Oh by saying that he (Wakana) ordered his pitcher not to throw strikes. Wakana said, "If Rhodes broke the record I would have felt sorry for Oh.'' (Wakana also demonstrated why he didn't pursue a profession in rocket science or diplomacy by adding this zinger: ``I just didn't want a foreign player to break Oh's record.") It should be noted the Hawks pitcher, Keizaburo Tanoue, said that he didn't want to walk Rhodes, and that he "felt really bad about the situation."

Oh's George Bush (the elder)-like claim of being out of the loop clearly does not wash. Unless he was standing in the beer lines every time Rhodes came up, Oh clearly knew that Rhodes was being pitched around. He also knew that the decision was coming from the bench since the catcher looked over there for a signal before every pitch. As the manager, he had the authority to say to the pitcher and the pitching coach, "Read my lips, no new farces," and to order that they pitch Rhodes straight up. In the spirit of sportsmanship and integrity, he had the obligation to do so. Oh's decision to stand idly by is equally as complicit as if he had ordered the pitchouts himself.

Even the league office took notice. The commissioner, Hiromori Kawashima, said ``Rhodes was robbed of a chance to achieve the record and it was not the way teams are supposed to play." He went on to say that the walks were "completely divorced from the essence of baseball, which values the supremacy of fair play." This comment was unprecedented and showed that the Hawks bad form is no longer acceptable practice.

As it turned out, Rhodes ended the season tied with Oh. He didn't hit any homeruns in the final two games against the Oryx Blue Wave, but he did have his chances though. The Blue Wave pitchers did not pitch around him. In fact, outside of one Sunday afternoon in Fukuoka, Tuffy Rhodes was given every fair chance to break the record. Those four lost at bats may have been the difference, however. Rhodes, on average, homered once every 10 at bats. So, statistically, there was a 40% chance of him hitting a homerun that day, had the Hawks not dealt from the bottom of the deck.

Oh's tacit approval of events in 1985 and 2001 diminishes his still standing homerun record, and, worse, sullies his reputation. Twice now, teams he has managed have essentially taken the bat out of the hands of challengers to his record. If any record deserves an asterisk, this is it. In our opinion, the record book should read as follows:

Single Season Homerun Record
1964, Sadaharu Oh, 55*
2001, Tuffy Rhodes, 55**
1985, Randy Bass, 54***
* Full 140 game season
** Lost one game due to the Oh Factor
*** Lost two games due to the Oh Factor

-- Jeff Roah