In 1961, Roger Maris hit a record 61 home runs.
In 1998, Mark McGwire broke the record when he hit 70.
In 2001, Barry Bonds crushed 73.
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So who is the single-season home run king?
"It doesn’t matter,’’ Giancarlo Stanton told Dave Hyde of the Sun Sentinel. “The record is the record. But, personally, I do (think 61 is the record)."
Whoa.
With 43 games remaining, Stanton has hit 44 home runs. He's on pace to hit 60.
San Francisco Giants
Does Stanton really believe 61 is the legitimate number?
As Hyde writes:
After saying he considered Maris’ record the real one, after saying 61 home runs always was the number he knew as a kid, he thought about it for a while in the Marlins’ clubhouse following their 8-1 win against San Francisco.
He wanted to clarify his thoughts some more. So he did something he rarely does. He walked back over to the group of reporters who left him 10 minutes earlier and took another stab at the question.
He admitted he’s “at a crossroads” in an internal debate over what to think about all this. If PED users like Bonds, McGwire and Sosa need an asterisk by their name, he said, so does Babe Ruth since he only faced white pitchers.
Bonds was Stanton's hitting coach in 2016...