Philadelphia's Ryan Howard has hit a league-leading 53 homers in the Phillies' first 138 games. With 24 games to play, he's on pace to hit 62 home runs (62.4 to be exact). If Howard hits 62 homers and if you believe he is not using any performance-enhancing drugs and if you believe Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were all using performance-enhancing drugs in the six seasons (all between 1998 and 2001) in which they hit over 61 home runs (and who doesn't at this point?), then baseball fans could be witnessing history being made. Ryan Howard has a chance to top the 61 home runs hit by Roger Maris in 1961 and become the all-time non-asterisk single season home run king.

Unfortunately, any athletic accomplishment these days is automatically - and understandably - subject to skepticism. The steroid cloud which hangs over all of sports - but especially baseball - has reduced Howard's historic chase to an afterthought. If Howard is clean, then that's a shame. If he's not clean, that's an even bigger shame . . .