Bobby Bonds

I hope he doesn’t surpass Hank Aaron’s record. 😡 😡

[B]Steroids Anyone????????????????????????[/B]:mad:

Dear Marguerite:

So Barry Bonds got his 715th asterisk. Who cares? If they made Roger Maris have an asterisk next to his home run record for fifty years, then Barry Bonds deserves an asterisk, a tilda, a cravat, an umlaut, and maybe one of those curly things the French hang on the bottom of the letter ‘C’ next to his records. To me , the fairest thing would to give Barry Bonds 358 homeruns, and the BALCO pharmacy 357. At least Babe Ruth hit his homeruns fueled on hot dogs, beer, and sexual promiscuity. How more American can you get? Barry Bonds had to resort to testical shrinking steroids. Who does he think he is, the Soviet Union womens shotputting team? I just hope that that useless commissioner, Small Market Bud Selig, does the right thing.

Lee

P.S.

Any damn knucklehead can hit a homerun sober. Babe Ruth was a god.

Hi,

Ok M, you got me with this one. Bonds is the greatest player statistically, to play the game, and in the top 20 overall, in my opinion. I certainly don’t condone Bond’s actions, and he certainly hasn’t endured himself to the public over the years, all the while hearing racial and steroid slurs, and a few death threats to him and his family along the way. He was never suspended, or broke rules in baseball, nor tested positive for what they test for. He also hasn’t broken any civil laws. Can the 50 or so lesser players who were suspended for breaking the rules claim they should get harsher treatment, and have their lives trashed in the media even more the Barry? The only leagal threat to Bonds is he may have lied to the grand jury, and that remains to be seen. Should there be an astrix next to Bond’s stats? Absolutly not. In the hall of fame, there is a pitcher from 1909 who wrote in his book about a traveling alixer salesman who sold this human growth potion that had to be injected, and he used it for years. Back in the days when Coke-a-Cola actually had cocain as an ingrediant, you’ll find in photos and lifestyle tales of how Babe Ruth drank a case of coke a day. Never was without it. That’s besides the booze. There have been many teammate books on Willie Mays and how he took speed before games to relieve the hangovers. Jim Bouton, who wrote Ball Four in the late 60’s talks alot about players juicing themselves. To me, this matter of steroids is between baseball owners and players. The owners could have stopped it years ago, but the money McGuire and Sosa generated for them trumped the sport itself. Money is more importent then integrity. The only astrix that should be considered is one on baseball as a whole. Every player, and owner was juiced for the first 100 and so years of baseball. Bud Selig has made a deal with Bonds, in my estamation, to finish the year and retire and he’ll make all the negitives go away. Get him into the hall on the first ballot, or whatever. So he won’t get the home run record. That’s my prediction. Too emotional and volital and baseball doesn’t need that. Bonds is not, nor deserves, poster boy status of all that’s wrong with baseball. I’m still surprized Dwight Gooden didn’t get a 6th lifetime suspension. I guess baseball is starting to enforce something.

I agree Racer, I am not a big Barry fan but he has never tested positive for a banned substance. If he had tested positive we all wouldn’t be having this discussion. Baseball is such a statistics based game with so much history, but the reality is that players today get better equipment, injections for pain in the elbows, wrists etc. All records are made to be broken and if he gets the record he deserves it as far as I am concerned.

Jerimy

Dear Friends:

Barry Bonds never officially tested positive for steroids because baseball never bothered testing for steroids. He did flunk the ‘head bigger than a melon test’ which I am sure is a result of better equipment and training. Look, if your hat is made by a sailmaker, then you are probably on steroids.

Baseball has long turned a blind eye to this problem. As long as people came to the ballpark, baseball didn’t care about the product they put out on the field. But I do care. When I go to a baseball game, I want to know that what I am watching on the field is real, not better living through pharmacology. Baseball advertises that you are watching the real deal, top rate athletes competing against each other. Baseball isn’t pro-wrestling. At least, to pro wrestlings credit, they make no pretense that you are watching something real.

Baseball is a game of comparison, in its essence. Statistics are more often than not, the basis of that comparison. Statistics are what make the game interesting. If those statistics are skewed by the abomination of steroids, then why isn’t is appropriate to mark those statistics with an asterisk, when those statistics aren’t real?

Since baseball began testing for steroids, the number of homeruns dropped by 45 percent. This would tell me that 55% of Barry Bonds’ home runs are real, and 45% are steroid induced. If Barry wants to prove the world wrong, all he has to do is hit 73 homeruns this season. Then I will believe. But he won’t, because he can’t.

Lee

Hi again,

Should there be an asterisk next to Ruth’s old strike out record saying he was drunk at least half the time at the plate, so those SO’s shouldn’t count? There is no doubt that Bonds and every other slugger was and is on something. One thing that has never been proven with steroids though, is they do not enhance, or improve, hand, eye coordination. I’ve witnessed 175# lightweights park a ball 400 feet. So, if anyone can prove, like with Bonds, that those homers that went into the bay, wouldn’t have been first to the 20th row homers anyway, then prove it. How easy is it to say if someone wasn’t on something, they would not have been able to do it? I hate to break the news, but Lance Armstrong pushed the envolope too. Before his first Tour DeFrance win, he was a known blood doper. In one way, money changed all sports. Because athletes get so much money now, they can afford to burn huge amounts looking for an edge. Staying one step ahead. Doing a better job of hiding it now. You play the game as the game is. Set new rules, then play that game, but all stats count the same. Remember when football goal posts were at the front of the end zone? I guess every kicker after that change should have an asterisk saying a they had a yardage advantage. Wouldn’t have made all those FG’s and extra points if the had to kick under the old rules. Right?Baseball only has to adopt the Olimpic rules of preformance enhancing junk. End of story. That’s what the Tour DeFrance uses, and did anyone notice the cycleist one day ride by with his face all swollen up. He got stung by a bee, was alergic, but if he took the only cure for it, it would have DQ’ed him from the race. On the list of banned substances. I’m sure the owners will allow enough loop holes so athletes can continue to cheat in any drug policy that’s put in place. It’s not about how you play the game these days, it’s win or loose. Nothing else matters. Don’t forget about the controversy with the baseball itself, when those homers were hit, and is now dropping off. Governor Arnold is paying for his steroid years. Those heart operations he had wern’t due to what he said, or just some flukie health issue.

Dear Marc:

You are correct that steroids don’t help hand eye coordination. What they do is make a ball that isn’t hit all that well go over the fences. Instead of a double, it goes over the fence. Steroids make a huge impact on the sport of baseball. Look, everyone is aware of the health risks of steroids. Even knowing those risks, baseball players still indulged in them. Why? Because they knew the upside steroids had on your game. If they didn’t make that big of a difference, then why would anyone use them? Maybe they thought acne, shrinking testacles, cancer risk, and uncontrollable anger was a good thing.

Look, the numbers do not lie. The year after steroid testing began, the major leagues had a 45% drop in the number of home runs. During the steroid era, 45 or more home runs a season was a rather mundane statistic. After steroid testing, no one has hit 45 home runs. Comparing a home run in the steroid era to a home run hit by skill and training alone just isn’t fair.

I know the old sports axioms, It isn’t cheating unless you get caught, if you aren’t cheating you aren’t trying, and Barry Bonds tried harder than anyone.

Lee

Hi,

Bonds played the game as the game and rules allowed him, so he deseves whatever achievements he can muster. His stats on doubles and singles are pretty good too, so do those turn into singles and bunts then, if over the fence hits are discounted? Sure steroids improve power, but when I played the game, I can remember talking some over the fence power swings that resulted in a single, and a just make contact swing that went over the fence. Power can be decieving and hard, if not impossable, to measure. What makes these steroid idiots stick out so much is they are always standing next to a player who isn’t on anything, and he’s in great athletic shape. It’s obvious who’s taking something. As Lee mentioned above, for anyone one who witnessed an East German Olympic swimmer back in the ’60’s, this is nothing new. For steroids to work though, you do have to pump iron and workout. You can achieve the same results and power with or without them, but it’s all in how long one takes over the other,which, in my opinion, is the key to all this. What do pro athletes hate to do the most? Workout and get in shape for the sport they are being paid to play. Why? Because it takes so long and darn, I might have to do this year ’round or something. My sport only has 1 to 3 months off, and I don’t have enough time to spend this un-godly amount of money they are heeping on me, if I’m in a gym all the time. So, to get more time off, some think they can shorten the workout regimine before camp starts. How do you do that? Take some of that money, hire a nutritianist, trainer, doctor, street pharmasist, mexician drug runner, whatever you want to call them, and inject yourself right down to a 6 week workout schedual. Now, everybodies happy, including the owners, not having to put up with disgruntled players all season long now.
Screw the pros. They can put a rule in and fix the problem in a heartbeat. It’s at the highschool level, and even before, where this can’t be tolerated or accepted. I’ve been involved in too many sports, and in my opinion, this is where all cheating is learned. It’s just refined at the collage and pro levels. More and better resourses to hide it better. New rules, with stiff penalties that really get enforced the first time, should be a no-brainer.

Hi,

To add one or more things here, has anyone figured out why Bonds is targeted like this? Why not McGuire? He bulked up twice as much as Barry and was taking them longer. Why isn’t everybody all over that season home run stat of his to be erased? Obviously, he played the whole season juiced, so erase everything from that season, right? Or put more astricks in the books. McGuire has crawled under a rock, along with Palmaro, and baseball is doing a great job of keeping those 2 out of the fray, wouldn’t you say? So, back to the question, why Bonds then? Well, I’ll tell you why, in my opinion. Baseball knows that whatever outcome of this issue is had, it’s going to be ugly to the fans and baseball itself. Next step, control how ugly. Bonds is the biggest ‘active’ attention getter in baseball right now. Because of his home run mission. Notice I used active. In McGuire’s case, he’s been ‘retired’ for awhile now, he has streets and sections of highways, hospital wings and charities with his name plastered all over them already. Society is so fast at heeping honors on people right after service, or athletic compition greatness, that a lot of people are going to get embarrassed, if they had to tear that stuff off. Because of scandle and cheating. Can’t say I blame baseball, but that’s why I think Bonds is getting a raw deal being convicted and tried in the media, and booed everywhere he goes. Keep the attention on an active player, while we put our heads in the sand on those past stats in the books like they are ligit too. Just Barry should get an asterisk. I believe Warren Spahn had 360 something wins in his career as a pitcher. During his career as a pitcher, him, along with several great players, did 4 years in WW2. If you took a conservative average of wins in a season, based on Spahns’ previous seasons, he’d have gotten at least 20 wins in each of those years. Because he had those seasons after the war too. That would have put him at least at 440 career wins as a pitcher. Deserve an asterisk? How about the players who never played aginst black athletes? Deserve an asterisk? So, you can have those all over baseball stats for various reasons. All make sence too. Bonds can hit 800 homeruns, and in my eyes he’ll never be the greatest homer king, or greatest player. He’ll just be the number one guy in a history book.
I believe that baseball is slipping up and missing an oppertunity to turn this issue around to somekind of positive. One guy has been forgotten in all this, and he’s Hank Arron. I think there is somekind of anamosity between baseball and Arron over the years, so maybe they did try and Hank won’t have any part of it. To me, he’s the HR king. No better work ethic and natural talent, never juiced, and went about his biz everyday for years on end. I believe he never hit 50 homers in a season in his career, and only 40 something a couple of times. Steady, all american work ethic, without outside chemical help, should be exploited to the max in somesort of media blitz, as the example to follow. Remind the kids that it’s not about getting everything in life upfront, and get it back to how the game should be played without having to cheat.