Barry Bonds

I concur about your conspiracy theory, Riverman.
I have never watched a MLB game since their stike cancelled the World Series, and I never will again.

 

Baseball has no-one to blame for all this publicity but themselves. They played Russian Roulette by turning a blind eye to performance enhancing drugs and Barry Bonds just fired the killer blow.

Football is headed for the same disaster. To suspend players for 4 games for taking Steroids is obscene. You are virtually inviting players to cheat, because the punishment sure as hell doesn't fit the crime.

 

Why does this matter at all?

1. All athletes do some sort of supplement. An enhancer that isn't natural. All of them. So what makes Bond's different from everyone else? His supplement was on a list of the banned?
2. Had Bonds played in the days of Hank (and I know, everyone is going to hate this) he would have hit far more than Aaron. The pitching was completely different. Pitchers stayed in longer, didn't walk near as much, and the technical side of pitching was nonexistent.
3. A-Rod is going to break this record easily anyway. So who cares if Bonds has it for a few years? If people are upset about Bonds breaking Aaron's record, they should be thrilled knowing they'll see A-Rod crush Bond's record. Right?
4. Baseball sucks, and the only reason it hasn't died completely is because of 3 guys. McGuire. Sosa. Bonds. ALL of them did steroids, and saved baseball from falling off the face of the earth.
Imagine baseball with no bonds. No homerun race between McGuire and Sosa, etc. What would be the point? Why would sports-center even waste time showing highlights?

Just don't understand all the hypocrisy behind this entire ordeal. Mainly because all athletes do some sort of steroid. Cyclists, Baseball players, Basketball players (see: Shaq, Zo, etc for irrefutable evidence), Football players, Track stars, etc, yet nobody cares when these players do it. People praise Lebron James and we know surely he's on roids just by the way he grew from a 17 year old's body to a 30 year olds within 2 seasons. But, since he's the media's play toy, it's perfectly fine.
Barry had a rep for being an a-hole. Without that rep, nobody would care about steroid abuse.

 

What the hell are you talking about?



Lebron now



Lebron in high school

So unless you have some sort of inside information, I really don't think that we "surely know" that he's on steroids.

 

A couple of things (although I really don't feel like debating this much):

1. Bonds had a similar HR downward trends in his twenties and thirties- It is not valid to simply state it was because he hit age "37". These were also followed by upward trends in years later.
2. The league did not have a steroid policy in place until 2002. They began "survey" testing at that point. In '05 the new mandatory random testing policy came in effect I believe.
3. Was Bonds on the juice in 02-05? I don't know- but his numbers were similar to what he had in his late 20's and early 30's. Did steroids make up the age related power loss and that is why we see similar numbers? I don't think so. Why the heck would we have a 50% increase in his record 73 HR year? I think this was likely the only year or around it- time he was on the juice.
4. Hank Aaron hit 40 HR's when he was 39, then he dropped off as he went to a DH role. So either Hank was on the juice, or it is possible that a 39 year old can put up those numbers.

I pretty well summed up my main points in my other posts.

 

Just to clarify TJ- I've never stated that Bond's use of steroids was acceptable. I've only supported that it was understandable and that he should not be discredited for his lifetime of work. I've also supported Bonds because I believe he receives a tremendous amount of hate with irrational justifications.

 

TJ,

Your stats fail to look at the 34 HRs vs the number of at bats he took. His HR total in '99 was only 34 but it was in far few at bats. His output per at bat was crazy that season.

Another thing to consider is the park he plays in. AT&T park is a fairly new park which caters to Bond's swing with a short porch in right. His HR on the road vs HR at home should really be factored into it.

Allot of newer parks these days are desinged to have power allies where the ball jumps out. Most parks are hitter frieldy not pitcher.

You also say his total is suppose to be 26 this season, a number that he is 4 off of with 51 games to play. He will most likely pass that number this season at the age of 42. He is on a pace to hit over 30 out this season well into his 40s. I do not think anyone could argue that he is juiced at the moment and he is still holding his mass.

Make you kind of wonder how deap the steriod thing actually is if at all.

 

That, right there, is absolutely stunning. 14 years earlier Ben Johnson was kicked out of Athletics for taking steroids, and yet Baseball didn't see its lack of action as likely to end up with the problem they have now??

They played Russian Roulette and lost.

I'm not defending Bonds, because anyone greedy and stupid enough to take steroids deserves no support in my view, but I think a piss weak Baseball Commissioner is at least deserving of equal blame for the controversy that this has created.