Ryan Howard's prodigious and prolific home run hitting is beginning to draw national attention. The clear majority of it is praise, however, some of the attention -- sometimes subtly, sometimes bluntly -- questions whether or not Howard is natural or chemically enhanced. It says here that the only pharmaceuticals related to Howard's home runs are the anti-depressants rightfully prescribed to pitchers forced to face him.
In April, an essay by Chuck Klosterman on Barry Bonds and the impact of steroids in baseball appeared in ESPN the Magazine. Klosterman wrote:
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the maximum number of home runs an organic, free-range, unenhanced baseball player can hit in a 162-game schedule is 65. Perhaps a 65-homer season is the limit of human potential and as close to power-hitting perfection as any normal person can achieve. If someone were to do this in 2016, would anyone even care? It's hard to imagine how 65 legitimate home runs could ever seem as stunning as the 73 semi-fake ones we've already seen.
At the time, I felt Klosterman had a good point, but now, in 2006, after 53-and-counting by Ryan Howard, I couldn't disagree more.
There was the homerun into Ashburn Alley. There were the three homeruns in his first three at-bats in a game. There was the one he hit to the upper deck of RFK stadium in late August to surpass Mike Schmidt's Phillies single-season record and there were the two he hit in Cincinnati to win the game after having spent the previous night in an emergency room with food poisoning. There are high, towering moon-shots and there are stung liners that scream over the top of the outfield fence. They go out of right field, left field and center field.
However, none of these home runs are what make me believe Howard is a "free-range" hitter. Nor are the ones he hit last year, nor the ones he hit in the minor leagues or in college. No, the one that makes me believe Howard is au naturel is the one he hit as a twelve year-old in Missouri.
Google Earth is an amazing thing, you can find anything with it. My most recent find is the Red Lobster in Ballwin, Missouri. I went searching for it after I read a column by Rich Hofmann in the Daily News which mentioned that when Howard was twelve, he hit a home run off of a Red Lobster in a little league game. Using Google's satellite images and cyber tape measure, it appears as if that home run went somewhere around 440 feet, a measurement in agreement with the 430 feet that Hofmann paced off in person.
That seemingly inconsequential at the time [apologies to those children and parents who played in the game] home run is what makes me believe in my heart of hearts that Howard and everything he does is legit. Twelve year-olds don't juice.
Others who defend Howard will point to his physique and how it is pretty much the same as it has always been (less than sculpted, shall we say), how his head is the same size it has always been, how unblemished his skin appears to be, and how over six years of professional baseball Howard has never tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. And those are all good points too.
But when your little league home runs send young Jennifer the, like, hostess at Red Lobster diving for cover, causing her to forget to mention the Endless Shrimp special, you know you are on the path to greatness.
In other words, all Ryan Howard is doing now is what he has always done, hit the cover off the ball.
