Written by Dustin McGee
The name Jose Bautista didn’t mean a whole lot to baseball fans when this season started, even though Bautista has been in the league for more than seven years. Bautista entered the 2010 season with 59 career home runs, 16 being the most he has ever hit in one year. The Toronto Blue Jays, figuring that he might hit 10 or so home runs for them, stuck him in their outfield mix. Well, Bautista proved everyone wrong.On Sept. 23, Bautista dropped his 50th homer of the season, leading the majors by nine over Albert Pujols, who hit his 41st on the same day. Bautista made his first ever all-star game this year and is the first player to hit 50 homeruns in a season since 2007. He attributes his success this season to an improved swing that has fixed his timing problems and allowed him to have a more balanced, powerful swing.As his newly found success has brought on much praise, Bautista also finds himself fielding questions and fighting off suspicions of steroid use. It has been evident that offensive numbers in baseball have declined the last few years due to the push for steroid punishment and testing. We aren’t used to seeing hitters hit 50 or 60 home runs the way we did four to five years ago. Watching a player like Bautista jump from a previous career high of 16 home runs to 50, the largest jump in major league history, is going to make fans and media very suspicious of performance-enhancing drug use. The game of baseball needs a player such as Bautista to be proven clean, just to show the world that success in baseball can still be enhanced by fundamental changes and hard work. Bautista has had a gigantic turnaround in his career, and I hope that he continues to find success through his work ethic. The game needs a clean start, and I believe that Bautista has helped begin a long road back.
