Steroid-Free Ryan Howard To Have Asterisk Next To His Name If He Passes Roger Maris

PHILADELPHIA--Phillies slugger Ryan Howard, who has 58 home runs with 6 games remaining in the season, is looking to become the first player in baseball history to surpass Roger Maris’s record of 61 home runs without the help of performance enhancing drugs. If he pulls it off, Major League Baseball plans to place an asterisk next to his name in the record book.

“Roger Maris’s home run record has been surpassed a mind-numbing 6 times by 3 different people since 1998,” said commissioner Bud Selig. “If Ryan Howard surpasses it, it will mark the first time in history it was done without the assistance of steroids. That’s quite a distinction. It certainly puts him in a different class than people like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds. Therefore, we’re giving him an asterisk. It would be dishonest if we didn’t. There are extenuating circumstances here.”

Still, many are questioning why Howard should get an asterisk when the players who cheated do not. For Selig, the answer is simple.

“Why would we put an asterisk next to the three guys who cheated instead of the one guy who didn’t cheat?” he asked. “It doesn’t even make any sense. The asterisk doesn’t denote that he’s a bad guy or that he did anything wrong. It just says that his accomplishment was an aberration and will probably never happen again. Breaking the home run record without steroids is like beating Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak without a bat.”

Howard said he was angered by the commissioner’s statements at first, but felt better after he spent some time pondering the implications.

“I guess it’s okay,” said Howard. “I mean, I always dreamed of breaking the record and being alone at the top of the list, but now that there are so many people up there, it’s kind of cool to have an asterisk next to my name. It distinguishes me from the other guys. I hope this is a lesson to all the kids out there: You don’t have to cheat to be successful, especially when you’re naturally gigantic and play in a ballpark the size of a phone booth.”

Howard won’t count his chickens before they hatch, however. He knows there are still 6 games to go and there’s no guarantee he’s going to hit four more home runs.

“There’s a real good chance I won’t even get this record, so the whole thing could be moot,” said Howard. “That’s why I try real hard not to think about it. I just go out there and play my game and try to help the team win. If I get it, great. If not, hey, no problem. I'd rather have 58 home runs clean than have 66 home runs on steroids. Unless, of course, they come up with some magic new steroid that can't be detected in urine samples. They haven't invented that yet, have they?”

Maris’s single season home run record was once considered the holy grail of sports milestones, but the steroid era has devalued it considerably. Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa all shattered the record, with Sosa doing it three times and McGwire twice. Some say that if Howard hits 62, he will be the only true home run champion.

“Based on everything we know about the steroid era, I think that Ryan should be considered the true home run champ if he passes 61,” said Phillies hall of famer Mike Schmidt. “I don’t even think Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa should count. This kid is doing it the old fashioned way, by getting up there, seeing the ball, and hitting it. No drugs, no needles, no creams, nothing. Sure, he drinks those energy drinks and protein shakes, but that’s only because the league, as a whole, is significantly gayer than it was when I played.”

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