Jeff Passan from Yahoo! Sports thinks that, with Gary Sheffield’s recent admittance, the 500 home run club has lost the reverence it used to command.

And yet here Sheffield is, the club’s 10th member in the last 11 years after the game’s first 120 years produced 15. Of the 10 to reach the milestone since 1999, six bathe in steroid suspicion: Sheffield (admitted but said it was inadvertent), Rafael Palmeiro (tested positive), Alex Rodriguez (tested positive), Barry Bonds (duh), Mark McGwire (visual and documented evidence) and Sammy Sosa (visual evidence).

Which either makes the accomplishments of the other four – Ken Griffey Jr., Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez and Frank Thomas – all the more impressive or makes the inner cynic mistrust the veracity of anyone’s statistics.

“If anybody questions 500,” Sheffield said, “tell ‘em to go try it.”

It’s not questioning the accomplishment, per se. To hit 500 home runs takes innate aptitude and cultured longevity. Some home run hitters bomb away for a few years and flame out. Others are very good for a very long time, and that’s still not enough for 500. Sustained greatness is the ultimate testament in baseball, and prior to 1999, the 500-home run club embodied it.

Carlos Delgado makes a good point in a quote from the article, saying that players these days are bigger, have better equipment, better training, and play in smaller ballparks. He’s dead on, but Passan is stressing that the 500 club has been tainted by its steroid users.

Personally, I accepted the fact a long time ago that the 500 home run milestone was a dubious achievement given the bloated statistics from guys like Bonds, Sosa, and McGwire. True, the home run does carry a lot of weight in baseball. Not only does it have the power to win games, but it can bring a stadium alive as well as silence thousands. While ballplayers like Ryan Howard and Adam Dunn deserve praise for their ability to countlessly knock the guts out of a baseball, I’ve always admired guys like Ken Griffey Jr. who could do the same while also winning gold gloves at their position. That’s why Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Griffey will be remembered as some of the greatest all-around players the game has ever seen, instead of just average athletes with a killer swing.