Sluggers Are Still Hounded by ‘What-Ifs’ From Last Year

It has become their burden.

Matt Williams, Ken Griffey Jr. and Barry Bonds all had a shot in 1994 at one of baseball’s hallowed records: Roger Maris’ 61 homers in a season.

But the strike cut their bids short, leaving only the speculation that surrounds the three sluggers and haunts fans. For all their achievements, that infuriating riddle of “What if?” could become an unwanted legacy.

Instead of basking in the afterglow of a glorious season, they are forced to answer the frustrating questions over and over: “Could you have hit 62 homers?” and “Will you ever get another chance?”

“It just ain’t fair. Just the same questions every day,” Griffey says. “It didn’t happen. It’s eight months ago. It’s over and done with, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

The continuing focus on last year is a distraction to the three players as they prepare for 1995, another season that will be shortened because of the strike. And it perpetuates the pressure each felt while hitting dozens of homers in 1994.

“The questions last year ranged from, ‘Do you think you can hit 62 home runs?’ to ‘Do you think you can hit 62 home runs?’ It was just the same question every day,” Williams says. “Now the question is, ‘Do you think you could have done it?”

Williams was leading the majors with 43 home runs when the strike began Aug. 12. Griffey led the American League with 40 homers. Bonds, who was on a tear when play ended, had 37.

Frank Thomas had 38 homers for the Chicago White Sox when play stopped and Cleveland’s Albert Belle had 36. Jeff Bagwell of Houston had 39, but broke his hand two days before the start of the strike.

The folks at STATS, Inc., a sports statistics firm in Skokie, Ill., decided to turn speculation into computer projections. They ran a program last year that simulated the rest of the 1994 baseball season.

Their results? Bonds would have finished with 55 homers, Griffey with 54 and Thomas with 53. And Williams would have hit 62, breaking the record on the final day of the season with a blast off the Dodgers’ Tom Candiotti.

The simulated games were played on computers at the firm’s headquarters, and a crowd gathered around the terminal whenever Williams came to the plate.

“It was really exciting, I can tell you. He had 61 with about a week to spare, and then went homerless for a week,” said Rob Neyer, assistant director of publications for STATS, Inc. “It was kind of an event. There was cheering when he hit his 62nd.”

Hitting 62 homers last season was something Williams claims he never thought about while playing. It confronted him during endless interviews, though, leading him to quickly shower and escape after some games.

“Last year I had a shot at the record for the National League (Hack Wilson’s 56 homers in 1930). As far as the 60 or 61, who knows,” Williams says. “You drive yourself nuts if you think about stuff like that. Why put yourself through that, putting yourself through what might have been?”

Last season, Griffey broke Mickey Mantle’s mark for home runs through the end of May by hitting 22, and the Seattle center fielder smashed Babe Ruth’s record for homers through the end of June with 32.

San Francisco teammates Williams and Bonds were both hot when the strike began, wiping out 47 Giants games. Both had benefited from the midseason signing of Darryl Strawberry to bat behind them. In 27 games with Strawberry in the lineup, Bonds hit 14 homers and Williams had 12.

Williams set an NL record with 40 homers by the end of July, and had five in his last eight games. Bonds had six home runs in his last 10 games before the strike.

Bonds refuses to dwell on what might have been, preferring to look ahead.

“I know what could have been accomplished,” he says. “So what? I’m not old. I’ve got plenty of more years left.”

It’s unlikely anyone will come close to the record this season, which has been reduced to 144 games because of the strike. STATS, Inc., has projected no one will even hit 40 homers this season.

And Griffey doubts the record will ever be broken, saying a batter approaching Maris’ record will see little worth hitting.

“I don’t think any pitcher’s going to want to be in the record book as giving up No. 60 or No. 61 or No. 62. I’d rather walk that guy,” he says. “The more you hit, the more you’re going to get pitched around.”