"Anybody remember what happened in Philadelphia sports history on Dec. 6, 2002?

That was the day the Phillies signed Jim Thome. It was huge news at the time. He was, without a doubt, the most coveted free agent at the time. The Phillies gave him a six-year, $85 million contract, the largest free agent deal of that offseason.

But now, among Phillies fans, Jim Thome is an afterthought. He is on the verge of hitting his 600th career home run, but few will see it as a big deal.

And that's a glaring example of how baseball's tacit approval of the rampant use of steroids for a decade or more has damaged the game.

Baseball is a game of numbers, and the numbers are all out of whack. Thome is eighth on the all-time home run list, but he should be fifth, because three guys in front of him -- Barry Bonds (No. 1), Alex Rodriguez (No. 6 and still climbing) and Sammy Sosa (No. 7) -- are frauds.

Thome's 574th homer moved him past Harmon Killebrew. He's a legend. His 587th sent him past Frank Robinson, another legend. But his 583rd moved him past Mark McGwire, about as far from a legend as you can get.

Since Thome has hit a lot of home runs, there probably are young baseball fans who think he must have used steroids. It's the only way to hit that many, right?

That's another way steroid use damaged the game. Since about 1995, if anybody does anything out of the ordinary, we assume it was because he was jacked up.

But Thome doesn't fit the profile of a juicer. He was a huge man when he came into the big leagues in 1991. He may have gotten slightly bigger over the years, but that's due to age more than anything else."