Time to Forget the Bambino?

I was pleasantly astonished to see in the first paragraph of Jim Murray’s column of July 19 that he had finally mentioned Roger Maris’ home run record without also mentioning Babe Ruth. After all, Ruth’s record has been gone for 37 years. But my astonishment quickly faded a few paragraphs later, when Murray got back on the Ruth bandwagon by mentioning the “61-60 homer marks.”

Come on, Jim. Get over it. While I consider the Babe to be the greatest baseball player ever, he does not hold the single-season home run record. That record, right now, belongs to Roger Maris alone.

ANDREW M. WEISS, Studio City

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Overproduction of any commodity reduces its value. That is happening with the home run record. Three players are threatening the record set by Roger Maris in 1961, which will require an asterisk, anyway, due to the completely commercial aspects of interleague play.

Two or three homers in one game are commonplace. The Red Sox hit four in one inning recently. The Braves had hit 131 in 96 games.

What’s causing this plethora of product? A livelier ball? Poor pitching due to expansion? El Nino? No matter, home runs are not as exciting as they once were because there are so many of them.

EDWARD L. KOBLITZ, Los Angeles