Actually, upon further analysis, I'm in support of Glavine pitching the opener because it means Leiter will pitch the home opener (7th game of the season). That's good for us because we're going and I'd much rather see Leiter than Glavine. I assume the majority of Mets fans feel the same way, so I think the decision makes sense.

Chump, if I understand your argument properly, it's not just illegal steroids you're talking about, it's all the legal stuff people take to get big, too. Yes, athletes today are much bigger and stronger than they were in prior generations. Has this ruined baseball?

Our current era has a greater number of homeruns for a number of reasons, but overall offense isn't that out of line with history. It's at a high point, but baseball has had many cycles throughout its history. After the deadball era, there was a huge offensive outbreak in the late 20s and 30s. In fact, in 1930, the average NL team scored 5.68 runs per game. That's over a full run more than 2003. So, the raw stats put up in 1930 were much more inflated than those of today.

Fortunately, thanks to sabermetrics, we can easily compare players across eras. Stats like EqA and OPS+ express a player's performance compared to the league average. So, yes, looking at raw homeruns as the way of evaluating players won't work as well across eras. But, baseball has always had that problem. In 1930, 8 people in the AL hit at least .350. The league batting average was .288. In 1968, Yastrzemski led the league with a .301 average. The league batting average was .230. That's why it's much better to use stats like EqA when comparing players across eras.

That all brings us back to the fact that many hitters today are much bigger due to steroids and legal supplements. But, as long as we're using stats that compare their performance to their own peers, we're okay discussing their accomplishments in historical terms. And as I pointed out yesterday, Bonds compares pretty well to his peers.

The much harder numbers to evaluate fairly are those from the first half of last century when a large percentage of the country's most talented players were not allowed to play.