Make 61 the real record

It was 45 years ago this week, and Roger Maris’ hair had not yet begun to fall out. A bigger milestone awaited, but on Aug. 22, 1961, Maris hit a home run off of Ken McBride of the Los Angeles Angels that had its own place in history.

It came in an unlikely place, a Wrigley Field that was in Los Angeles, not Chicago. It’s not likely many people remember, but the home run made Maris the first player to reach 50 in August.

I know because I was at the Roger Maris museum in Fargo, N.D., a few weeks ago, sitting in one of the old seats taken from Yankee Stadium, and watching grainy black and white films from that year.

Actually, museum isn’t exactly the word for the tribute to Maris tucked away next to a pet store in the West Acres Shopping Center. Exhibit case might come closer to describing it, though it’s more than you see anyone building for Mark McGwire these days.

The people who run the mall say 7 million shoppers visit every year. On this summer afternoon, none of them seemed to have any interest in Fargo’s hometown hero. The little museum was empty and quiet, save for the frenzied announcer in the video that kept running in a loop on a big screen TV.

Maybe the crowds are bigger in the winter when no one wants to be outside. Or maybe 61 just doesn’t mean that much anymore.

The record, of course, was shattered by sluggers bulked up on who knows what. During a stretch of four years it was broken six times, and now 73 stands almost obscenely on top of the single-season home run list.

Barry Bonds may have a giant asterisk placed next to his record, but it’s one home run mark that will likely never be broken. Baseball is testing for steroids, and home run totals are shrinking more than McGwire did after he retired.

The post-juicing era is beginning to look like 1960 all over again.

A glance at baseball’s home run leaders in the last week of August said a lot about whether Major League Baseball’s testing program is working. It must be, because these are the kind of numbers your grandfather’s favorite sluggers were putting up.

Fifty home runs by August used to be the defining line of whether to take any player’s chances of beating Ruth’s record of 60 seriously. Maris had 51 when the month ended, and 61 when his magical season was over.

McGwire had 55 by the end of August on his way to 70 in 1998. Barry Bonds had 57 when he hit 73 in 2001.

Those guys make Big Papi seem downright puny. David Ortiz has only 46 home runs so far this year, and the end of August is approaching fast.

At least he has an outside shot at 50. No one else in the American League has hit 40, and things aren’t much better in the National League where Ryan Howard (45) and Alfonso Soriano (41) are the only ones over that mark.

The fact is, no one is hitting home runs anywhere near like they did in a five-year stretch from 1998 to 2002 when a handful of players with Incredible Hulk physiques made a mockery of one of baseball’s most hallowed marks.

Andruw Jones is the only player in the last three years to hit more than 50 home runs and he barely did it, finishing with 51. Two years ago, Adrian Beltre led all players with 48 home runs, 25 less than Bonds hit only a few years earlier.

The ballparks didn’t suddenly get bigger. The pitching didn’t suddenly get better.

The interesting part, in fact, is that the average home runs hit per game has been fairly constant over the years. There’s no huge difference between 1998 and 2006 when it comes to total home runs hit in the major leagues.

The huge individual numbers, though, haven’t been seen since Alex Rodriguez threatened the old Maris mark with 57 home runs for the Texas Rangers in 2002.

Baseball players don’t look nearly so bloated anymore, and neither do their home run totals.

Unfortunately, the records remain to remind us that chemistry in the clubhouse isn’t always such a good thing. The numbers may be suspect, but as long as they’re allowed to stay in the record books, clean players won’t have a chance of matching them and fans won’t have a chance to enjoy a home run race.

So maybe it’s time 61 means something again.

Let’s begin by taking the bulked-up records and wrapping them in a giant asterisk. Maris had to live the rest of his life with the stigma of one, even though it was never actually in the record book.

Treat the records as the aberration they are, and make 61 the gold standard once again. Restore Maris to his rightful spot on top of the single-season home run list, and let a new generation of players take their crack at his home run mark.

Bud Selig and his multimillionaire owners should lead the way. They owe it to baseball to restore order because they looked the other way and pretended everything was fair and square when they knew that it wasn’t.

The folks in Fargo would certainly be happy. Business would pick up at the Roger Maris museum.

And, who knows? There might be a real home run race once again.