Alex Rodriguez joined the ultra exclusive “600 Homerun club” after he belted a two run homer to straightaway center in the bottom of the first inning of the Yankees game against the Toronto Blue Jays earlier today.

With this homerun, A-Rod becomes the seventh man in major league baseball history to hit 600 or more homeruns. The other members of the 600 club are Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr., Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, and Barry Bonds. What sets Alex apart from those men is that today Rodriguez became the youngest player ever to hit his 600th homerun. Alex reached 600 at the tender age of 35 years and eight days. The next youngest player to hit number 600 was Babe Ruth at 36 years and 196 days.

The fact that Alex is now the youngest man to hit 600 and that he is still a very productive player begs the question can Alex Rodriguez break Barry Bonds’ career homerun record of 756?

A-Rod has averaged 36 homeruns per season over the last five years. If you give Alex the benefit of the doubt and estimate that he will keep hitting homers over the next couple of the years at that same rate then a guess could be made that he would need roughly four more seasons to come close to breaking Bonds’ record. Rodriguez would be 39 years old and it wouldn’t be implausible to think that A-Rod could still be playing in the majors at that age. Ken Griffey Jr. and Babe Ruth both retired at age 40, while Willie Mays and Hank Aaron retired at age 42. It should obviously be noted that those sluggers were at the tail end of their careers when they were in their 40’s and their production wasn’t especially high.

So this made me think whether this would be what the people want? Would people want to see Rodriguez take away one of the games most cherished records from Barry Bonds a man whose name has become synonymous with steroids and accusations?

Alex Rodriguez is much better received by the press and is much more liked among fans then Bonds. Unfortunately, A-Rod’s legacy like so many other superstars of this era is not without controversy. In 2009 in an interview with ESPN’s Peter Gammons Rodriguez admitted to taking performance enhancing drugs while playing for the Texas Rangers in 2001. The admission of guilt came after mounting speculation and after a Sports Illustrated investigative piece into the matter was released.

"When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I felt like I had all the weight of the world on top of me and I needed to perform, and perform at a high level every day," Rodriguez told ESPN's Peter Gammons in an exclusive interview in Miami Beach, Fla.

"Back then, [baseball] was a different culture," Rodriguez said. "It was very loose. I was young. I was stupid. I was naive. And I wanted to prove to everyone that I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time.”

This news was a crushing blow to major league baseball. At the time Alex Rodriguez had just become the fastest player ever to reach 500 homeruns. It seemed as though he would become the hero that major league baseball had been searching for. They were hoping that this would be the man that would win back all the game’s hallowed records and do it without any link to performance enhancing drugs. Instead though Rodriguez admitted to using performance enhancing drugs only days later and as a result baseball fell deeper into the steroid era.

Alex should be applauded for reaching 600 homeruns at the age of 35. Unfortunately though while many baseball fans would like to place him in the company of 600 club members such as Griffey, Ruth, Mays, and Aaron the stain of performance enhancing drugs will move him next to Bonds and Sosa. I don’t believe that Alex is using substances now or has used them in some time. His admission of wrongdoing and apology seemed sincere and baseball is policing the use of performance enhancing drugs more strictly than ever. Unfortunately, the mark that comes with being linked to these substances is one that can’t be wiped off. His achievements are remarkable but the matter in which they were accomplished will always be questioned. Whether that is fair or not I don’t know but unfortunately for Alex that is just the way it is.

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