Roger Maris, Big Mac, Sosa, Bonds or Howard?

So how bout it sports fans, after watching this exciting labor day weekend of baseball and the Phils hanging on to their playoff hopes, I turned to ESPN.com today only to see an interesting question on the front page. If Ryan Howard hits 62 home runs (currently 53)this year would you consider him the all time single season home run leader. I voted No. But after checking the results... all 22,000+ results... turns out 52% of people say yes. Wow. Really? I was very very surprised by that. Not only has McGwire hit 70 and Bonds hit 73, but Sosa has hit more than 61 twice. I guess the fans are really taking this steroid thing seriously, I mean I understand why they might say that but to have more than half of the baseball population say that they still consider the record to be 61 is pretty amazing. The steroid use really appears that it was out of control and while I have no problem saying yeah those guys probably did steroids, Baseball is the one to blame here. They sat back and watched the McGwire/Sosa chase of 61 in 1998 and just rolled in the dough as the fans' hearts were won back. But now there are so many questions about Bonds in what has enduced all but an outright confession from him, and you think... last night he hit his 730th HomeRun and does anyone care that he is 25 away from Hammerin' Hank besides San Francisco?? At least 90 if not 100% of fans believe that Bonds took steriods and delibrately cheated the game of baseball for a long time. So why should we count that record?? Well I guess we can ask ourselves the same about 73 in a season, or 70 or even 66 or 65. Could you imagine how different we'd all feel now, if we were sitting here saying "Ryan Howard; 24 games left and only 8 HomeRuns away from tying Roger Maris record?" Imagine the aura of baseball now... As Howard chases Maris the Phils chase the Wild Card. How different would we really be? So here's to Howard and his 9 HRs in his last 11 games and here's to the Phils who are desperately trying to "one-up" the Padres to get in. Good luck to you guys and maybe come October we'll all be talking about the new single season HR record holder... Ryan Howard.