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For the record Everyone wants to reach an all-time mark
Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor touches on a Hot Button issue each Monday on CNNSI.com. After you read Phil's take, give us yours. My esteemed colleague Jack McCallum, whom I replace in this space, wrote 71 Hot Button columns -- a CNNSI.com record for career Hot Buttons. As I embark upon this, my second column, I make this vow: Before I'm done, that record will be mine. That's right, Barry Bonds isn't the only guy chasing Big Mac. Granted, McCallum's mark isn't exactly the most coveted in all of sport, and not just because the Hot Button sounds as if it could be a Playboy advice column. The record hasn't been acknowledged by the Elias Sports Bureau or even Guinness, but it's a record nonetheless, and I want it because I think I'm the only person remotely connected to sports who doesn't own one. The sports world isn't very discriminating about records anymore. It doesn't much matter what kind of standard I set, or how I achieved it, as long as it's there, next to my name in the record book. We keep track of so many records these days that any player who hasn't at least challenged one just isn't trying. Greg Maddux, we're told, flirted earlier this season with the record for consecutive innings without a walk. There's a record for consecutive innings without a walk? Even if Bonds doesn't surpass Mark McGwire's 70 home runs, he's already accumulated more records this season than a teenager in the 60's, many of which take almost as long to say than they took to achieve. Most home runs ... in a season ... in the National League ... by a left-handed hitter ... wearing a dangling earring. I've been studying recent record-setters, and I think I know how to behave as I pursue the Hot Button milestone. Once I get close to the record, I'll start telling people how little it means to me, as Bonds has done as he closes in on McGwire's mark. Like Bonds, I will try with every fiber of my being to shatter the record, then pretend to be astonished that anyone even wants to discuss it. But once I break it, I'll hold my laptop aloft, as Rickey Henderson did with a base when he broke Lou Brock's career steals record in 1991. "Today," I will proclaim, á la Rickey, "I am the greatest of all time." Maybe I'll emulate the 41-year-old Henderson even further and hang on far past my prime, putting off my overdue retirement in order to seek Hot Button history, just as he is shamelessly pursuing Ty Cobb's career mark for runs. Henderson apparently thinks that once the record is his, no one will remember the rather desperate way he chased it, and other individual milestones, over the last several years. The sad thing is, he's probably right. Henderson's resume over the last seven seasons looks like this: Oakland, San Diego, Anaheim, Oakland again, the New York Mets, Seattle and San Diego again, and it's been years since he's been even close to the great player he once was. You get the feeling that Rickey would sign with the Rolando Paulino All-Stars if he thought it would get him closer to a record, any record. On second thought, that last comment was a bit below the belt. In fact, I don't remember Jack ever taking such a cheap shot in this space, which means that was the lowest blow in Hot Button history. Alert the media. I just set a record. Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor writes about a Hot Button issue every Monday on CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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