Before Alex Rodriguez was unmasked as a chemically filled fraud, some writers and fans viewed him in the way that fight fans and writers saw the search for a white fighter to beat the racially controversial Jack Jefferson in the 1967 Broadway play and 1970 film “The Great White Hope.”

Barry Bonds, the thinking went at the time, might have hit the most home runs in baseball history, but he cheated and hit many of them with the aid of performance-enhancing drugs. Rodriguez was amassing home runs at such a furious pace – league-leading totals of 52 in 2001, 57 in ’02, 47 in ’03, 48 in ’05, 54 in ’07 – he appeared to be on his way to supplanting Bonds.

To see A-Rod as baseball’s Great White Hope had nothing to do with his or Bonds’ skin color, but the legitimacy of their home runs. When it became obvious that Bonds’ season-record 73 home runs in 1991 and many of his career-record 762 home runs were P.E.D. produced, many of us felt the need for a new homer hero.

And then the image of Rodriguez as that homer hero came crashing down, turning into smoke and ashes. Who does that leave? Albert Pujols, with 610, is the active home run leader. He does not have enough time left in his career to hit homers and eclipse Bonds.

The Elias Book of Baseball Records lists 13 other active players with 250 or more home runs, but most of them are closer to retirement than they are to Bonds.

What about Bonds’ other tainted home run record, the single season standard? It seems unlikely that anyone playing today will reach or pass 73, considering that until steroids bloomed on baseball fields no one hit more than 61, and then only Ruth and Roger Maris hit as many as 60.

There is a player, though, who is within striking distance of Maris’ “record” of 61. Giancarlo Stanton, the Miami Marlins’ $325 million right fielder, entered Sunday’s game against San Diego with a career-high 49 home runs. Stanton, known as Mike earlier in his career, fired up an average season in the past two months, slugging 28 homers.

At 6-foot-6 and 246 pounds, he is slightly smaller than the Yankees’ Aaron Judge, but they have had opposite seasons. Judge was terrific in the first two and a half months but has tailed off severely in the past two and a half months. Stanton has come on in the last two months like a souped-up bulldozer. He now needs only 13 homers to surpass Maris and claim recognition as the legitimate home run king.

Stanton, however, apparently won’t be taking any bows in the spotlight should he eclipse Maris’ stunning 1961 achievement.

“He doesn’t want to be known just as a home run hitter,” Stanton’s Los Angeles-based agent Joel Wolfe said. “He wants to be known as a great player and he wants a ring.”

But what if Stanton should surpass Maris’ mark? Would he be considered No. 1 or would that still be Bonds?

“It would be a great debate to have for the game’” Wolfe said in a telephone interview last Friday, then disclosed an interesting social note. “He’s close with Barry Bonds. Barry was his hitting coach. They stay in contact. He has great respect for Barry so I think they would laugh about it. They hit together in the off-season.”

Has Stanton brought up Bonds’ alleged use of steroids? “I don’t know if they’ve ever had that conversation,” Wolfe said.

The agent, on the other hand, knows intimately about the derivation of Stanton’s record 13-year, $325 million contact that he signed with the Marlins in November 2014 when he had played less than five years in the majors.

“Early on,” Wolfe related, “after he had two years and three years in the organization, the Marlins were offering long-term contracts and years before we got to this one. But each time he rejected the ideas of those contracts and he wouldn’t allow me to negotiate because he was unhappy with what was going on in the Marlins organization.

“The main issue was the constant turnover and instability, always being two, three years away from winning. The constant turnover. Right now he’s on his ninth manager and 10^th hitting coach. He keeps score. That wears on a guy.

“When he played in the World Baseball Classic earlier this year I think it had a profound effect on him. In the All-Star games you meet guys and you’re literally around them for five minutes. You talk to them in the outfield shagging fly balls for a few minutes and then in the dugout for a few minutes and that’s it.

“In the W.B.C. you have this lengthy exposure to all these other players. You talk to Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford. They’ve essentially have the same group of guys their entire careers. They came up together, they go to the big leagues. Bochy” – Manager Bruce Bochy – “the same front office. They got two rings (three).

“He’s envious of what they have. And that’s what he’s always wanted moreso than getting paid, which I think a lot of players aspire to. He’s wanted to win and be great and do great things in the post-season.”

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Loria, the Marlins owner, notorious for shedding players to avoid paying them big salaries, was persistent in his effort to sign Stanton to a long-term contract.

“Jeffrey was coming to me with contract extensions and we would talk,” Wolfe said. “It wasn’t contentious. He would ask ‘why won’t Giancarlo – it was Mike back then – engage? Doesn’t he want $100 million, $150 million, that kind of lifetime security?’ And I would say ‘no, he doesn’t. That’s not what’s important to him. He doesn’t want to sign and be there long term without the commitment of stability that the team’s going to win and go for it.’”

After the Angels signed Mike Trout to a 6-year, $14.5 million contract in 2014, Wolfe said, the Marlins proposed “something similar” to the Trout deal. “We had the same response and there was no counter offer,” the agent said.

“And then he had an M.V.P. caliber season in 2014 but for getting hit in the face in September he probably would’ve won the M.V.P.,” Wolfe said. “They then came back and said, ‘OK, we’re going to take a different approach. Is there anything he would consider?’

“I asked him, he thought about it. He said he didn’t expect they would ever do it, but if they were willing to commit to doing things differently and going for it and making this a winning franchise and giving me a lifetime deal so I would never have to worry about it again, that I might consider.”

Wolfe said a couple of weeks later David Samson, the Marlins president, called and said, “We want to meet with you in L.A. Jeffrey wants to come and we want to do something big along the lines of what you said and possibly historic.”

Stanton’s initial response, Wolfe recalled, was ‘Oh oh. What did I get myself into?’

“They came and we met with them at the Beverly Hills Hotel,” Wolfe said, recalling the Marlins contingent as Loria, Samson, baseball executives Michael Hill and Dan Jennings and Manager Mike Redmond.

“They had two sales pitches,” Wolfe said. “They were prepared to give him a lifetime, historic contract, the biggest contract ever, and a commitment to winning. Before they talked money, Giancarlo want to know what they were prepared to do on the winning side, how were they going to commit to him, what were they prepared to do.

“And he wanted to speak. And he did candidly, as eloquently and articulately as I’ve ever heard a player speak. He told them all the things that had bothered him, what he expected in the future and they listened. And it hit home. Dan Jennings was very vocal in that meeting. He looked him in the eye and told him he was on board with him and they were going out and do these things and so did Jeffrey.

“’G’ wasn’t sure. They didn’t convince him in that meeting. The contract still needed a lot of work. It took several weeks to get it right and several weeks of convincing that they would do what they promised to do. One of the concessions Giancarlo was willing to make for them to do what they said they were going to do, one of which was to lock up some of the young studs or at least make the attempt: Christian Yelich, Marcell Ozuna, Jose Fernandez.”

[Fernandez, a 24-year-old Cuban pitcher on his way to superstardom, didn’t make it. He and two friends were killed in a Miami boating accident nine months ago. An investigation found that Fernandez, the boat’s driver, was legally drunk, had cocaine in his system and was driving in a reckless manner.]

Getting a go-ahead from Stanton, Wolfe had to negotiate salary and other elements of the contract, most importantly an opt-out clause that would permit Stanton to walk away and become a free agent, a complete no-trade provision and no money deferred from the 13 years of salaries. Stanton got it all.

The opt-out became the primary issue, Wolfe said. “They couldn’t believe we were asking for it,” he said. “We were waiting for word from Jeffrey, and there was this big stare down as we dawdled over this clause. They said to us are you really going to walk away from $325 million over an opt-out, which they were desperately trying to avoid or tie it to the team’s success. But Giancarlo dug in. He wouldn’t sign without that opt-out provision. They finally agreed to it.”

As developments may show, that opt-out clause could be worth many millions of dollars to players, and if his timing is right, Stanton could be one of the first players to benefit if legalized betting comes to professional sports.

The United States Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a New Jersey case in October on sports betting. Depending on how the court rules, Congress could wind up enacting legislation that would permit sports betting in states.

Reports estimate that $150 billion is gambled illegally on sports each year. If Congress makes that gambling legal, state governments would presumably split the gambling proceeds with the leagues and, in turn, the leagues would divide their take with their teams and the teams, as is their practice, could give it all to their players. Salaries would soar.

Adam Silver, the N.B.A. commissioner has long lobbied for Congress to legalize sports betting. Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball’s commissioner, has spoken favorably of the idea.

Legalized betting on sports may not be right around the corner, but it could be just down the street.

JUDGE RISES

Aaron Judge has lost his lead in several American League offensive categories, but he gained one lead Sunday.

By striking out three times against the Seattle Mariners, the Yankees’ rookie right fielder raised his season strikeout total to 172, most in the A.L.

How should we judge Aaron Judge? On the basis of the first 10 weeks of the season? On his performance in the 11 weeks since then? Or should we wait for him to play the remaining six weeks and maybe post-season games, too, before making a final decision?

It is a conundrum. Look up that word in a Thesaurus, and you’ll find these synonyms: puzzle, mystery, challenge, problem, riddle. Choose any of those, and that’s what Judge’s season has been.

In the first 10 weeks, he was a rookie phenomenon, leading the major leagues or the American League in practically every significant offensive category. Look for his name now among the offensive leaders. Where did he go?

He was so good in the first 10 weeks and produced so many impressive statistics that as much as he has waned in the past 11 weeks he still is ahead of everyone else in some categories. For example, he finished the Yankees’ three-game series in Boston No. 1 in the American League in home runs, runs, walks, slugging and slugging plus on-base percentage.

Still, Judge’s drop off in production the past 11 weeks has been eye-opening. In that Boston series, he had a single in 12 at-bats.

The broadcasters for the Yankees and other outlets trace the start of Judge’s decline to the All-Star break, usually citing statistics since the break, which for Judge included the home run derby. Some players have declined to participate in the derby because they fear they will change their swing to hit more home runs in the Derby and that change would affect their production after the All-Star game.

Judge, however, started slipping nearly a month before the Derby and the All-Star game. The tipoff was the increase in his strikeouts.

In his first 59 games of the season, Judge struck out more than twice in a game only twice, and those games were five weeks apart. But in a five-game span in mid-June Judge struck out three times in three of the games. He has not stopped striking out.

When he struck out for his first of three times against Chris Sale of Boston Saturday night, Judge extended his consecutive-game strikeout streak to 36, one short of the record of 37.

The record was held by Bill Stoneman, who was a pitcher with the Montreal Expos and accumulated the streak over two seasons, 1971 and ’72. Bob Veale struck out in 36 consecutive games but also did it in two seasons, 1967 and ’68 with Pittsburgh.

Among non-pitchers Judge was tied with Dunn, who struck out in 36 straight games with the White Sox in 2011-12. Judge, however, cleaned out the record book Sunday by striking out in his fourth and final at-bat against the Red Sox.

Records aside, the Yankees’ concern has to be the increased frequency of Judge’s strikeouts. No matter how awesome a hitter he was in the first 10 weeks, Judge can’t be any kind of hitter if he is missing pitches or taking them for strikes.

In his first 59 games, Judge struck out 72 times, averaging 1.22 strikeouts a game. In his next 60 games, through Sunday, he struck out 95 times, or 1.58 a game. His offensive production has shrunk commensurately, his batting average plummeting from .347 in his first 59 games to .217 in his last 60 and runs batted in from 49 to 31.

As with all rookies who taper off as pitchers get to know them, it seems that word has spread around the league on how to pitch Judge, but he apparently made such an early impression that pitchers are still treating Judge carefully and cautiously. He has walked more often in his last 60 games (51 times) than in his first 59 (39 times).

ESPN.COM ENABLES JUDGE DEFAMATION

Given Aaron Judge’s meteoric start to the season, would this headline catch your attention:

“Aaron Judge Benched While Under Investigation By MLB.”

It caught mine because it was too bizarre to believe, but it appeared on a respectable website, ESPN.com, so I at least had to ask about it. Any truth to it, I asked, almost embarrassed.

“None whatsoever that I know of,” came the reply.

I looked at the phony article again and saw something I hadn’t noticed. “Sponsored headlines,” the site warned. I say warned, I suppose, because ESPN.com, was telling viewers “we didn’t post this.”

But ESPN.com did post it and was responsible for its content.

The website might not have written what was there, but it approved it and accepted it.

I asked an ESPN.com spokesperson about it.

“For your knowledge,” came the reply, “as is pretty common in the industry, there is an outside company that curates those stories and we can obviously flag and push back any stories that are problematic.”

And ESPN.com saw nothing with an article that makes up an imaginary investigation into Aaron Judge?

In an e-mail a few minutes after the first, the ESPN spokesperson wrote, “Thanks for flagging. Appreciate it.”

Yeah, I guess someone has to.

RECORD REMAINS INTACT—THEIRS AND MINE

Giancarlo Stanton, the Miami Marlins monster man, did not hit a home run last Wednesday. Bad for him. Good for me.

When the Marlins began their game with the Giants last Wednesday, Stanton had hit home runs in each of six successive games. When the game ended, Stanton was not in position to tie or break the record for home runs in eight consecutive games.

Dale Long set the record in 1956 with Pittsburgh, and Don Mattingly (1987) and Ken Griffey Jr. (1993) subsequently matched it. Why do I care about that particular record?

To be honest, I think I share it with Long, Mattingly and Griffey.

Long died in 1991 so he’s not around to express his opinion, but I have a unique perspective about that record that even Mattingly and Griffey don’t have.

I claim to be the only person who saw – in person – a home run in each of those streaks. It’s highly unlikely that anyone else saw Long, Mattingly and Griffey hit a home run in their eight-game streaks. I should mention that I have previously made this claim, and no one has disputed it.

NO LIKE QUESTION, NO RESPOND TO QUESTION

John Henry, the principal owner of the Red Sox, has initiated a campaign to change the name of Yawkey Way, one of the streets that border Fenway Park, where the Red Sox play.

Henry, whose 15 years of ownership and three Red Sox World Series championships give him plenty of public power, recently talked publicly about his mission and didn’t have to explain it.

Tom Yawkey, Red Sox owner from 1933 to 1976, was seen in Boston as a racist, who passed up chances to sign such African-American stars as Jackie Robinson and Henry Aaron. The Red Sox were the last major league team to employ a black player, adding Pumpsie Green in 1959, 12 years after Jackie Robinson became the first black major league player.

I thought Henry’s quest was admirable, but it prompted me to ask Henry a question.

“While I appreciate your admirable effort to eradicate vestiges of racism at Fenway,” I wrote in an e-mail, “it prompts me to ask a question about practices under your ownership. The Red Sox media guide is filled with pages of photos of Red Sox officials. I see no black faces. As far as I remember, under your ownership, the Red Sox have not had an African-American general manager or other top baseball operations official.

“In a column I am writing today, I plan to include an item about your effort to change the name of Yawkey Way. I would appreciate a comment from you on the issue I raise here.

“Please do not misunderstand. I am not accusing you of being a racist or suggesting that you are. I am asking the question because for many years I have written about minority hiring and raise the issue in that context. I would appreciate a reply any time today or tonight. Thank you.”

Because of technical problems that delayed the on-time posting of this column, Henry had an extra day to reply, but he has not.

Warning: Much of this column is not objective. How can it be objective when one of the two players it is about wrote in his 1990 book that I was the reporter he missed the most following his 1988 retirement?

That man was Don Baylor, and now it’s my turn to miss him because he died in the early morning hours of Aug. 7. Darren Daulton died several hours earlier on Aug. 6.

I didn’t know Daulton, but I know more about what killed him than I know about the cause of Baylor’s death, which was multiple myeloma, a cancer formed by malignant plasma cells.

Of the at least eight former major leaguers who had glioblastoma tumors, Daulton lived the longest following diagnosis, but is four years anything to cheer about, especially when Daulton’s experience led to massive misunderstanding and misinterpretation of his condition.

On Feb. 19, 2015, Daulton tweeted news of his latest MRI, a test he had regularly so doctors could check on the results of his July 2013 operation he for the removal of not one but two glioblastoma tumors. Depending on the tumor, patients initially have an MRI every month, then every three months and every six months and if everything looks good, finally once a year.

“I’m incredibly blessed to have a clean scan,” Daulton tweeted, adding, “I’m doing well and feeling great.”

Reporters and other observers, leaped to the conclusion that Daulton’s message meant he was free of cancer.  One example of many examples:

“CSN’s John Clark broke the news this evening through Twitter, announcing that Daulton, 53, has been cleared of brain cancer after an MRI test. Daulton, who played for the Phillies the majority of his career (1985-1997), was diagnosed with two glioma tumors in July of 2013. After surgery the cancer was still residing, but that cancer is now gone.”

In today’s sad world of journalism, getting it first is the only thing that matters. Getting it right is often irrelevant. CSN’s John Clark had it first, but he didn’t have it right. I wonder what, if anything, John Clark thinks today now that Daulton has died. I wonder the same about all of the other Philadelphia newsmen who declared Daulton cancer free.

The Daulton story carried the same headline in the Wilmington (Del.) News Journal and on the website NBCSports HardballTalk: “Darren Daulton says he’s cancer free.” Daulton, of course, said no such thing. He didn’t say he was cancer free, and he didn’t say he had beaten cancer. Reporters put the words in his mouth. That linguistic trick doesn’t make it so.

After those stories appeared in print and on websites, I spoke with an expert on Daulton’s type of brain tumor. “Someone with glioblastoma is never cancer free,” said the expert, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “He may be stable; his scans may be stable. But you’re never cancer free.”

Virtually no one, if anyone, survives glioblastoma. The worst thing a person who is diagnosed with a brain tumor can be told is that it is a glioblastoma because it is a death sentence.

The American Brain Tumor Association says the median survival is about 14.6 months and two-year survival is 30 percent. “However,” ABTA adds, “a 2009 study reported that almost 10% of patients with glioblastoma may live five years or longer.”

This is the roster of former major league players who were struck down by glioblastoma, the time of their survival following diagnosis and the date of death:

• Darren Daulton            49 months          8/6/2017
• Johnny Oates               38 months         12/24/2004
• Bobby Murcer               19 months         7/12/2008
• John Vukovich              18 months         3/8/2007
• Dick Howser                 12 months         6/17/1987
• Dan Quisenberry             9 months         9/30/1998
• Tug McGraw                    9 months        1/5/2004
• Gary Carter                      8 ½ months    2/16/2012

Bobby Bonds and Ken Brett may also belong on the list, but the types of their brain tumors either weren’t determined or were never disclosed.

I will add two more baseball related people to the list: Michael Weiner, the late executive director of the Players Association, who died 15 months after diagnosis, and Jeanine Duncan, wife of the noted retired pitching coach, Dave Duncan. She lived for 22 months after her diagnosis of glioblastoma.

And then there’s Dave and Jeanine’s son, Chris, a former major league outfielder. He was diagnosed with glioblastoma Sept. 30, 2012, seven months before his mother died. But he is only weeks away from being five years beyond his diagnosis.

His survival might have something to do with the grade of his glioblastoma, but whatever it is I wish him many, many more years of a good, healthy life.

I wish Baylor had many more years to live than his 68 years. He was a good man, the best, and he should have had a longer life, not just for his sake but also for the sake of those of us who knew him and for the sake of those who had yet to meet him.

I liked what Frank Robinson, his Baltimore teammate, said at Baylor’s funeral Saturday.

“I wasn’t too friendly with too many people in baseball,” Robinson said, “and I don’t say too many nice things about them. But there’s nothing I can stand here and say bad about our friend Don Baylor.”

Baylor was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2003, three years after Mel Stottlemyre, the former New York Yankees pitcher and pitching coach, was diagnosed with the same cancer. According to a medical guide, normal plasma cells are found in the bone marrow and are an important part of the immune system.

Both Baylor and Stottlemyre underwent bone marrow transplants, and they worked for some years. But Stottlemyre had a problem early this year, and now Baylor has died.

If Baylor had a fault, it was his apparent aversion to telephones. At least that’s what it seemed like when he often didn’t return calls. None of his friends, though, held that failure against him. That’s Donnie, we would say to each other.

And sometimes Becky, his wonderful wife, stepped in for him and took or returned the calls. Speaking of Becky, I really liked what she said in announcing that Baylor had died.

“Don passed from this earth,” she said, “with the same fierce dignity with which he played the game and lived his life.” Not many baseball wives I have met could put together a sentence like that.

Baylor wore a lot of different uniforms, 14 in all. He played for six teams, coached for eight and managed two, including the Colorado Rockies as their first manager and the Chicago Cubs. He managed the Rockies to the post-season in their third season but lost to Atlanta in the division series.

Baylor was fired after his sixth season even though the Rockies posted winning records for three successive seasons before that final losing season.

Jerry McMorris, the owner who brought the expansion team to Denver, realized too late that firing Baylor was a bad move. A couple of years after the deed was done, McMorris told me he had made a mistake by firing Baylor.

I spoke to Baylor on the phone a couple or three months before he died. Had I known that that would be the last conversation I would have with him I would have made my confession on that call. Now I have to make it publicly. It’s only right.

Baylor won the American League most valuable player award in 1979 when he drove in 139 runs and hit 36 home runs. In the writers’ voting, he received 20 of 28 first-place votes and was a runaway winner for the award.

Two of the first-place votes he didn’t receive went to Ken Singleton and were cast, not surprisingly, by the two Baltimore writers who were honoring a player they covered the whole season and saw his imprint on the Orioles.

But there was a third first-place vote for Singleton. From whose pen did that come?

That is what I am confessing now, Donny. I voted not for you but for Singleton.

As the voting turned out, my Singleton vote had no effect on Baylor, even added to the three votes for Mike Flanagan and two for George Brett. Baylor was first with 347 points, Singleton second with 241 and Brett third with 226.

These many years later, as much as I liked Baylor I don’t feel bad or think I made a mistake voting for Singleton. In fact, it has turned out to be pretty funny.

More and more, younger writers are voting for the award (I was a young voter once, maybe even that year), and younger writers are using the so-called advanced metrics to determine their votes.

In 1979, according to baseball-reference.com, Singleton had a 5.3 WAR rating to Baylor’s 3.7, and Singleton had a .938 OPS to Baylor’s .901.