Slate: The Sultans of Stats – A Harvard professor pooh-poohs McGwire’s records. Is he right? I’ve suspected this was true; here is the best articulation of it. “Home runs can’t be as meaningful as they once were if

Steve Finley is on pace to hit more in a season than Reggie

Jackson ever did. But it is also irrelevant. Baseball history,

even as the purists who complain about today’s cheapened

offensive statistics construct it, is little more than a record of

inflated achievement. Insane numbers don’t threaten the

integrity of baseball’s historical accomplishments. They

constitute it.”