At the time of the homerun chase(s), this was brought up. It was ignored/denied at the time as well. It is another blemish on the game, but much less of one than the steroid issue, IMO. At least with juiced baseballs, everyone was on the same playing level, except for pitchers of course. This stuff will never go away until someone from MLB steps up and admits to some of this crap instead of sweeping it under the rug. Giambi admitted wrong doing, yes he took some slack for a bit but hardly anyone remembers to mention him with the other "juicers". He took responsibility and people moved on. Bonds, Mcgwire, Palmeiro, and company deny everything which draws more attention to thier wrong doings.

Here's a link to CT scan images done by Penn State (compares ruth, maris, and mcgwire-era baseballs side by side):

http://www.energy.psu.edu/factsheets/CQI_Facility.pdf

I originally thought they didn't show the ring, but then I realized that the UMS picture was a closeup of just the center part (what they call the "pill").  If you look closely at the mcgwire era ball in the penn state CT scan you can see it in there as well.  That was published in 2002, so part of the reason MLB is downplaying this may be that it is old news.

is how much impact the changes in the ball had on homers.  There had to be some impact, but how much?  And what do today's balls look like in comparison?  

We don't even know what impact steroids had on homers in the '90's necessarily.  We can assume that people hit more homers b/c they were on steroids but, how many more?  Was the homer increase in the '90's caused by steroids or juiced balls (or smaller parks, worse pitching, etc.)?  I don't think people will pay much attention b/c steroids is a sexier story, but an honest analysis can't ignore this.

in the "juiced hitters/juiced balls" fooferaw over 1998 is the question of how many pitchers were using steroids during that time! There weren't any "rules" in baseball against "performance-enhancing" drugs at the time... "andro" was then a legal over-the-counter "food supplement" that one could buy damn near anywhere! Were pitchers throwing "harder", leading to faster speeds at contact (and because of it, more home runs)?

And why weren't any of these questions asked in 1998???? Didn't any of the sportswriters who are now so sanctimonious about McGwire suspect anything while the "Maris chase" was on??? Or was the "Chase" such a good story that they didn't want to look too closely at why it was happening? Sportswriters were riding the "gravy train", too... their stories were being more widely read as baseball regained national popularity in 1998.

I'm disgusted at how the NFL is getting a "free pass" from many writers and broadcasters... one of the candidates for Defensive Player of the Year, Shawne Merriman of the Chargers, served a four-game suspension THIS YEAR for steroid use!!!! Where's the outrage from the national media over THAT?????

The problem is, fans and media care about baseball records... especially home run records. Nobody cares about football records, because they're constantly being broken. One of the most amazing NFL records was broken this year by LaDainian Tomlinson... the scoring record set by Paul Freakin' Hornung during a 12-game season!!! (The current NFL season is 16 games.) Now, Hornung was also the Packers' kicker as well as their halfback, giving him more opportunities to score... but very little was made of LDT's breaking of that long-standing mark.

I'm tired of baseball being the "whipping boy" for steroids in pro sports, when the NFL obviously still has a larger problem with "performance-enhancing" drug use.