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Alex Rodriguez’s final home run total will not hold the same reverence among baseball fans as those of past greats like Babe Ruth and Willie Mays.

On Aug. 11, 2001, Mark McGwire extended his Popeye forearms for a fastball from the Mets’ Glendon Rusch at Shea Stadium. He ripped the pitch 390 feet, out near the home bullpen and altered baseball history forever.

“The one thing we never do is take him for granted,” St. Louis Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa said that day. “When you’re watching greatness, you should know what greatness is.”

For more than 25 years, we had a pretty good idea. Since Hank Aaron’s last home run — on July 20, 1976 — the top five on the career list had been frozen in the record books, fixed in the minds of fans.

Aaron was first at 755, followed by Babe Ruth at 714, Willie Mays at 660, Frank Robinson at 586 and Harmon Killebrew at 573.

McGwire’s blast off Rusch was his 574th home run, muscling him past Killebrew and beginning the modern generation’s relentless push up the leader board. The Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez seems destined to finish on top.

“At this point, he’d be unlucky if he didn’t,” said Kevin Long, the Yankees’ hitting coach. “The way he goes about his business, he’s got a good chance to be the all-time home run king.”

Rodriguez, who went 0 for 5 in Wednesday’s 10-6 victory over the Los Angeles Angels, has 598 home runs. The Yankees play their next four games at home against the Kansas City Royals, whose Saturday starter, Kyle Davies, allowed Rodriguez’s 500th home run — also on a Saturday in the Bronx — in 2007.

Celebrating Rodriguez’s 600th homer will be awkward because he used steroids for three years with the Texas Rangers. Three others in the new top 10 — Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and McGwire — also have been linked with steroids, and their final totals lack the resonance of old.

If Rodriguez slams his 600th in New York, fans will cheer. He finally won their respect last season with clutch hits that led to a World Series championship, but he probably forfeited their emotional investment because of his steroid use.

“I think a lot of fans are disappointed, and you have a lot of different perceptions,” the Angels’ Hideki Matsui said through an interpreter.

“For me personally, knowing Alex and playing with him for so long, knowing what he goes through every day to prepare for a game and how he approaches it, I don’t think that would really affect the record he’s about to reach. He’s someone that works really hard and has exceptional talent.”

Rodriguez made his major league debut 19 days before his 19th birthday with the Seattle Mariners in 1994. Matsui made his Japan League debut about six months after his 19th birthday, with the Yomiuri Giants in 1993. Both players quickly became home run prodigies.

Matsui signed with the Yankees after 10 seasons and 332 home runs.

Only seven players have reached 500 homers in Japan, and if Matsui had stayed and continued to hit about 35 homers a year, he would also be close to 600. He homered twice against the Yankees this week and has 484 between Japan and the United States.

Only two players have hit 600 homers in Japan — Katsuya Nomura, who hit 657, mostly for the Nankai Hawks from 1954 to 1980, and Sadaharu Oh, who hit 868 for the Giants from 1959 to 1980.

Rodriguez, who turns 35 next week, is signed through 2017. He would probably need to average about 36 homers a year to finish with more than Oh, whose standing as the world’s home run leader still matters to Matsui.

“There’s no doubt about that,” Matsui said. “When he played, he had breaking Babe Ruth’s home run record in his mind, and he’s a former Giant. That’s something we’re all very proud of, not just for the Giants, but also for everybody in Japan.”

It is hard to imagine Rodriguez will be regarded the same way as he ascends the home run chart. That is part of his penance for his role in the steroids era, and there is nothing he can do about it now.

“That’s a chapter of his life I think he’s turned the page on,” Long said. “Whatever way people come up with to judge him, he has to accept that, and he’s willing to do that. The milestone, 600, it’s a big number.”

However Rodriguez achieved it, 600 home runs will be part of baseball history. Sometimes history is complicated.


The New York Times