Aaron Record Safe as Long as Big Hitters Sit

As Barry Bonds slowly moves up the home run ladder, evidence elsewhere suggests that Henry Aaron’s career record of 755 is safer than ever. Mark McGwire and Ken Griffey Jr., the two active players given the best chance of catching Aaron among those high on the ladder, are at a standstill--so to speak. Actually, they are having trouble standing because of leg injuries, but the point is: Any delay as the chronological clock keeps ticking compounds the Aaron pursuit.

McGwire is 37 and has 555 home runs. He was rocketing toward Aaron with his consecutive seasons of 70 and 65 until slowed last season by patellar tendinitis in his right knee, ultimately requiring off-season surgery. He has hit only four homers since July 2 and was two for 21 with one homer this year when he went back on the 15-day disabled list Wednesday because of soreness in the knee. The future is uncertain.

“I’m not going to punish him by sending him out there when he doesn’t have a chance,” Tony La Russa, the St. Louis Cardinal manager, said. “I hope we get him back before the end of the first half. But if we got him back for the whole second half, we’d take that over everything else.”

A frustrated McGwire said he has lost sleep over his condition and is back doing the rehabilitation procedure he did all winter.

“I’m rehabbed out,” he said. “Being there with a name on the back of my jersey, that’s not going to help anybody out. I want to be who I am. Unfortunately, right now I’m not.”

Neither is Griffey, who has a tear in his left hamstring. He suffered the injury in late March but has not gone on the disabled list. The Cincinnati Reds believe a one-legged Griffey pinch-hitting in the late innings can influence the opposition’s pitching moves and strategy, if nothing else. So far, it has been nothing else. Griffey went into the weekend 0 for 8 as a pinch-hitter. At 31, he has 438 homers.

Should he be on the disabled list?

“They call somebody up, what are they going to do?” Griffey said. “They are going to be doing the same thing I’m doing. I’ve heard that they are wasting a roster spot on me because they have to pinch-run for me if I get on. Well, they can use a pitcher to pinch-run. I’m not in pain. I’ve got sore muscles from all the rehab, but there is no pain. I mean, I just want to help the ballclub.”

So does Bonds, who isn’t sure he is really doing that for the San Francisco Giants, even when he homers in six consecutive games, as he had done until Thursday. At 36, Bonds needs 253 homers to catch Aaron, but his immediate goal is to get his .232 average closer to his .289 career mark.

“I’m just trying to stay afloat above the .200 mark,” he said after beating the Dodgers with

No. 501 on Wednesday night. “I need to get more than just one hit a game and get on base and try to create some things for Jeff Kent. I’ve got to get on base a little bit more instead of just rounding them.”

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Was Bonds getting ahead of himself last week when he noted that he planned to go into the Hall of Fame wearing the cap of whatever team he played for last or merely trying to get the Giants to the negotiating table since he is eligible for free agency at the end of the season?

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Houston Astro General Manager Gerry Hunsicker finds it amusing that the Atlanta Braves have three pitchers in their bullpen--Jose Cabrera, Joe Slusarski and Marc Valdes--who were in the Astro bullpen last year. “Maybe the Braves know something we don’t,” Hunsicker said. “We had the worst bullpen in baseball last year.”

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Jeff Fassero has a 6.38 earned-run average, but he has been a key figure in the Chicago Cubs’ surprising start, providing reliability as the bullpen closer while Tom Gordon recovers from elbow reconstruction. Fassero entered the season with 10 saves, the last in 1993, but he is nine for 10 in save situations and saved both games of Wednesday’s doubleheader against the Philadelphia Phillies, the first time a Cub reliever had done that since 1981. “Unless my arm’s dragging on the ground, I’ll take the ball,” Fassero said.