Can anyone believe stats?
According to the survey, conducted by USA TODAY and The Sports Xchange, a significant minority of players is concerned about the effects of steroid use on the sport’s record book. To fans, statistics are a source of endless barstool arguments and time-consuming fantasy league games. Stats also are important to players because they play a major role in determining salaries. So perhaps it’s not surprising that 35% of players surveyed said if a player is found to be using steroids, his records should be stripped or denoted with an asterisk. That presumably includes pitchers who suspect they’ve given up home runs to players who cheat and batters who suspect they’re being outhit by cheaters. The “asterisk” is a semi-notorious punctuation mark in baseball history. It is commonly believed that when Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record of 60 in 1961, Commissioner Ford Frick ordered that an asterisk be placed in the record book because Ruth set the record over 154 games a
