The current state of sports is such that A-Rod brings a pleasant diversion to the day. Who knew? But the long wait is over. What started as a hot story and is now about 12th on the list thanks to Favre and others has come to fruition. Alex Rodriguez is a member of the exclusive 600 home run club. Only six others have eclipsed that mark: Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755), Babe Ruth (714), Willie Mays (660), Ken Griffey Jr. (630) and Sammy Sosa (609). [Side note: Remember in your youth when you could rattle off 755, 714 and 660?]
A-Rod reached the mark early the Yankees' afternoon game today against Toronto -- fitting, some might say, for a man who has a reputation for hitting a lot of his home runs when nobody was watching or the game was out of reach.
But the question -- one that isn't really tied to 600, even if it does give us occasion to talk about it -- is this: how will history remember A-Rod? Is he a sure-fire Hall of Famer? Will he be remembered as one of the PED cheats, therefore making enshrinement much tougher (if not impossible), or will people believe his use was relatively brief and give him higher marks for admitting it during his career?
There's obviously no doubt he has the numbers; and he just turned 35, meaning he could have a run at 762 in him. Will the final totals simply be too staggering to keep him out?
