A question of mistrust

Is Ryan Howard juiced?

Don't blame me for wondering. It might not be fair, but it isn't my (or your) fault for asking before plunging headlong into another home run chase.

Blame baseball, blame society, blame a summer that has given us Floyd Landis, Justin Gatlin, Marion Jones, Barry Bonds and a host of other drug cheats who can make a cynic out of anyone.

The Philadelphia Phillies first baseman knocked home runs 50, 51 and 52 out of the park Sunday. So here on Labor Day he is within striking distance of Roger Maris' single-season home run record of 61, which means the attention, and the debate, will become sharper now.

There is no reason, no whisper, no allegation that suggests Howard is cheating. In fact, there is plenty of talk that he is clean. But how can you blindly trust anyone anymore?

And by the way, yes, it's Maris' record. Or, if you want to get technical, the162-game record for players free from performance-enhancing drugs, which any intelligent, rational person agrees disqualifies Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Bonds, who all hit more.

But then again, who's willing to guarantee Ryan Howard is clean, too?

"With Howard, what he hits is legit, and everything about it is because he's totally dedicated to his hard work," Philadelphia manager Charlie Manuel told the Bucks County Times Friday.

It would be nice to take Manuel at his word, but haven't we heard these coach testimonials before?

All of this provides the backdrop for what could be the most bizarre home run chase in baseball history – and that's saying something.

The 26-year-old out of Southwest Missouri State is a likable star, and during a season when baseball finally began testing for some performance-enhancing drugs, a fresh faced and honest home run king would be perfect.

It would be like a bookend to the steroid era.

But only if you want to believe the steroid era is really over.

The reality is that while Major League Baseball is doing some testing, it isn't doing enough. It still isn't getting after human growth hormones, which the spring arrest of journeyman pitcher Jason Grimsley showed is the new drug of choice. And, as history has taught us, there is always a new concoction we don't know about.

Testing alone isn't enough of a deterrent to stop the natural motivation to cheat. There are still millions to be made and glory to be had by cutting corners. Human nature hasn't changed.

No reasonable person can believe baseball is out of the drug business, which means no reasonable person can believe the steroid era is over. The truth is that it will probably never end.

This brings us to Ryan Howard. At 6-foot-4 and 252 pounds, he has a booming, beautiful swing. He very well may be a natural. After all, he won the National League Rookie of the Year award last season despite playing just 88 games (he hit 22 home runs). He has already hit more homers in his second full season than anyone, ever.

So does that make him easier to believe than a proven slugger such as Albert Pujols or David Ortiz sitting on 52? Or is everyone under suspicion these days?

It would be a joy to watch Howard club 62, renewing the condemnation for McGwire, Sosa and Bonds. But even so, there is a spoiling effect here.

First, what does MLB do? The people and the press will celebrate it, but Bud Selig still recognizes Bonds' 73-home run charade in 2001. If Howard hits No. 62, do you hold a ceremony for what is, officially, the seventh-best single season total?

Meanwhile, the specter of suspicion means people probably won't get swept up in the excitement the way they did back in the summer of 1998, when McGwire, Sosa and their chemists originally passed Maris.

It is said that those two saved baseball after the 1994 strike that canceled the World Series. While their exploits didn't hurt, and certainly motivated the national media to focus on the sport, baseball was always coming back. The game itself is too compelling to wilt away.

More important to baseball were the late 1990s dynasty of the New York Yankees, which returned baseball to supremacy in influential Manhattan, and the Camden Yard-inspired stadium building boom, which made parks family destinations again. But the most important thing, as Salon.com's King Kaufman has pointed out, was the rise of fantasy baseball which the Internet made increasingly simpler and more popular, generating millions of die-hard fanatics.

McGwire and Sosa (and later Bonds) were quick fixes, shots across the sky. They couldn't, and won't, stand the test of time.

Whether Ryan Howard eventually can is a more important question for baseball. Virtually everyone would love to see this kid provide a September to remember – a chase for history powered by nothing more than Wheaties.

But baseball's decades of inaction and a long, hot summer of sporting scandal has to make you pause.

Ten dingers from the record and with 25 games to play, you want to believe, you really do. But you have to ask: Is this Ryan Howard guy for real?