Major League Baseball has just witnessed what seems to be one of the greatest seasons of all time. The home run record fell, the all-time team wins record was tied, and a divisional race went undecided until the final game of the season.

But for some reason, this season just doesn't command the same awe as it would have had the same things happened in past years. Part of it is because there's a story in the country that happens to be a lot bigger than baseball, but that doesn't explain it all. The problem is that the marquee event of this season, the 73 home run campaign of Barry Bonds, seems less like a historical event than the continuation of a trend.

The fall of a home run record that was just set three years ago proves that we're watching a different game, and it seems to take away any thought that we are watching history. It feels more like we are watching something that's getting out of control.

There used to be a mystique to the home run record. There was no record in all of sports more hallowed or monitored. It was set at 60 by Babe Ruth in 1927, and only broken once in 71 years, and even then it wasn't good enough. They had to put an asterisk next to Roger Maris's name in the record book because he couldn't hit 60 in the 154 games it took Ruth. It wasn't unbreakable, but it was a record that could stand the test of time.

In the past four years the 61 home run barrier has been broken six times, and now with Barry Bonds hitting 73, it has been totally obliterated. However, this new record that was once beyond all imagination has no feeling of invincibility. It's as though the new question is when, not if the record will be broken.

When McGwire broke Maris' record with 70, it seemed that he had put the record out of anyone's reach except his own. After all, it was a ludicrous figure. One that could only be matched by a ridiculously powerful hitter like McGwire, a figure who like Ruth seems bigger than life. Bonds, a great home run hitter, but not quite the slugger McGwire is, showed that in this offensive era, a player will have to hit a lot more than 70 home runs to put his record among the ranks of the unbreakable.

When McGwire hit 70, it felt like history was unfolding. When Bonds did it, you started to wonder just when it would end. You no longer expect to wait half a lifetime to see the record fall, you expect to see it go down again next year. It's not that Barry Bonds is not a great player or a great home run hitter. He might be the best all-around player of all time. However, Bonds' career high in home runs was the 49 he hit last season. He's a very strong hitter, but McGwire was freakish, and 70 home runs was a freakish number. It seemed like it would take another freakish physical specimen to break it. Bonds doesn't quite fit that role.

The home run in general seems to have less historical meaning than it used to. It's almost impossible to compare players of generations past with those of today using home run totals, because they don't have equal significance. Players have hit 50 home runs in a season 12 times since the home run boom began in 1994. Included among them are such prolific sluggers as Luis Gonzalez, Brady Anderson and Greg Vaughn. In the previous 127 years of Major League Baseball, it had been done 18 times. Something's off when Brady Anderson has done something neither Hank Aaron nor Ted Williams, nor Frank Robinson had ever done.

The players may be bigger, but the ball parks are smaller, the pitching is more diluted with 30 teams, and the ball is probably being wound tighter. If that is the case then breaking the 500 home run mark will eventually hold a lot less water when it comes to hall of fame voting than it used to.

Commissioner Bud Selig and the rest of the office of Major League Baseball are enjoying the home run boom, claiming it adds more excitement to the game. While this is certainly true in some ways, the bloated statistics of today's players are taking away one of baseball's most valuable assets, the historical significance of the current play on the field. The home run record is reaching a point where it will not mean anything compared to what it used to mean, and the excitement that fans took from seeing McGwire break the record in 1998 will not be the same they take if its broken a few more times this decade. At this point, that doesn't seem beyond anyone's imagination.