[B-Man]

And look in your baseball history archives.. plenty of names from the past have hit 40+ homers in a year for no particular reason, then went back to their 'typical' years.

He didn't hit 40, or I probably wouldn't be suspicious. He hit 57. There's a big difference between hitting 40 and hitting 57. Here is the list of players who hit 57 or more home runs in a season before 1997:

Roger Maris
Babe Ruth
Jimmie Foxx
Hank Greenberg

That's it. Here is the list of other players pre-1990 who hit 50 home runs in a season:

Hack Wilson
Ralph Kiner
Mickey Mantle
George Foster
Willie Mays
Johnny Mize

Of those 10, 9 are in the Hall of Fame (Foster isn't), a place Gonzalez surely will never be. I don't think any of them were "typical" hitters , and certainly none of them had a career high, excluding their best year, of 31 home runs, or a next-best season of 26.

Hitting 40 home runs is one thing, hitting 57 is another. And when a 33 year old player who has not had much power throughout his career hits 57 home runs, that is cause for suspicion.

I also disagree with your argument about doubles. Hitting doubles is very different from hitting home runs. Wade Boggs hit a ton of doubles, but only hit over 20 home runs once. There are a lot of players who hit a lot of doubles, but only an average amount of home runs. Here are the ML doubles leaders (top 10) from this year, in order: G. Anderson, Garciaparra, Soriano, Abreu, Ordonez, Beltran, Lowell, Floyd, Vidro, Cabrera. Only Soriano was also in the home run leaders (9th). Hitting doubles is very different than hitting home runs.

Hey, maybe Gonzalez is clean... but I am very suspicious.