Don't blame and don't belittle Jose Hernandez. It's not all his fault. He likely will become the all-time, single-season strikeout leader, passing Bobby Bonds' record of 189 set in 1970. But Hernandez is just a small part of a strikeout epidemic in baseball ... the It's OK To K syndrome.

The acceptance of strikeouts essentially began in the mid-1980s when, among others, Rob Deer, Pete Incaviglia, Bo Jackson, Cory Snyder and Jim Presley started playing every day, hitting 25-30 homers a year and striking out 150+ times. In 1987, Jackson struck out 158 times in 396 at-bats, one every 2.7 at-bats, at the time the worst ratio in history in a season of 400 plate appearances. Incaviglia struck out 185 times in 1986, but avoided Bonds' record by not striking out in his final seven plate appearances. Deer struck out 186 times in 1987, but then-Brewers manager Tom Trebelhorn sat him against Roger Clemens the final weekend so he wouldn't break it. Two years ago, Marlins manager John Boles benched Preston Wilson, who finished with 187. "He wants to play," Boles said. "But I don't want this on his record."

	Hernandez is not alone in the whif club.

A noble gesture, for sure. It is equally noble that the Brewers are, after sitting him for a few games last week at home against the Giants, playing Hernandez the final week of the season. He is one of their best players and made the All-Star team this year. Through Wednesday, he was hitting .288 with 24 home runs and 73 RBIs. He has 525 at-bats this season; when Deer fanned 186 times in 1987, he only had 474 at-bats.

Is what Hernandez is doing any worse than what Mark McGwire did last year? He struck out 118 times in 299 at-bats, the most strikeouts in history for anyone with less than 300 at-bats. Is it any worse than what Manny Lee did in 1991? He, like Hernandez, was a shortstop, and he struck out 107 times with no homers and 29 RBIs -- the only man ever to strike out 100 times in a year without hitting a homer. It is any worse than what Devil Rays third baseman Jared Sandberg is doing? He has 135 strikeouts in 348 at-bats, one every 2.6 at-bats.

Everyone strikes out these days. The Yankees are the best offensive team in the game, and they likely will have eight 100-strikeout guys on their team this year. The Yankees didn't have eight 100-strikeout men from 1900-1960. Through Wednesday, 60 different players had struck out at least 100 times. Another 10 were on the cusp, meaning, for yet another year, there will be more 100-strikeout men in one season than there were in the first 60 seasons of the 20th century. Many hitters today go to the plate ready to swing as hard as they can in case they hit it. No one chokes up with two strikes, and the swings are the same on 0-2 as on 3-0.

The troublesome part is that no one seems bothered by it. It didn't used to be that way. Frank Robinson once said the most embarrassing year of his career was the one year that he struck out 100 times (that was 1965, he hit 33 homers and drove in 113 runs. He also got traded). Lou Brock sat out the final day of the 1970 season because he had 99 K's, and didn't want 100. Now guys reach 100 strikeouts by the All-Star break. Wilson had 40 in April 2000. Joe DiMaggio didn't strike out 40 times in any season. Tony Gwynn had one three-strikeout game in his career; 76 times this year has a player struck out four or more times.

Today's pitchers have something to do with the strikeout craze. There are a lot of hard throwers today. The slider and the splitter are strikeout pitches, ones that DiMaggio didn't see very often. It is a different game today. Still, the rates are embarrassingly high, and there is no penalty for striking out 150 times in a season. And please, don't tell us that a strikeout isn't that bad because at least you didn't hit into a double play. There's a statistic called productive outs, which is an out that advances a runner. Not surprisingly, the Angels lead the league in productive outs. A groundout to the second baseman, advancing the runner to third with one out, is a lot better than a strikeout.

Jose Hernandez could use more of those. He has more strikeouts the last two seasons than DiMaggio had in his 13-year career. If Hernandez somehow gets to 196, he will have as many strikeouts as the worst strikeout season of DiMaggio, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams combined. Soon, Hernandez will be in the record books for a dubious category. It will be somewhat embarrassing. But he will know that even though he is on top, he certainly is not alone.

Tim Kurkjian is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and a regular contributor to Baseball Tonight. E-mail tim.kurkjian@espnmag.com.