As part of the $275 million contract the Yankees negotiated with Rodriguez a year earlier, the club had agreed to pay him several million dollars to secure all the rights to market his home run chase, which they believed would be a commercial bonanza. Rodriguez was thought to be on a pace to pass Willie Mays (660 homers), Babe Ruth (714), Hank Aaron (755) and finally Bonds on the career list.
At the time, it seemed that Rodriguez’s breaking the home run record would provide a powerful sign of how baseball had moved beyond the so-called steroids era and would be an important milestone for Selig, who is keenly aware of his legacy and has been criticized for his seeming ambivalence to the issue of doping during the first part of his tenure.
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