Official Barry Bonds Countdown Thread

[By-Tor]

[ QUOTE ]
I passed the bar exam in Texas.

My main argument that Bonds used steroids is the evidence presented in the book Game of Shadows

[/ QUOTE ]

this really explains a lot...










...like your stupidity.

[DrewDevil]

Oh come on, By-Tor, you're gonna make me bust out cryin.

"Yeah, it's in a BOOK that was written FOR PROFIT... it MUST be completely wrong... but BARRY BONDS, he tells only the TRUTH..."

[SL__72]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How is today not the toughest era in baseball? The ever expanding pool of players more then compensates for the increased number of teams.

[/ QUOTE ]

I strongly disagree. We're seeing major reduction in the African-American population in baseball. In post-integration pre-expansion, we had a ridiculous amount of players for almost HALF the teams we have today.

[/ QUOTE ]

There has been a reduction in the number of African American players but there has also been a huge influx of Latin and Asian players. Hardballtimes and BP.com have both done studies on the leagues difficulty and while they differ on how much harder it has gotten over the years, they agree that the difficulty steadily increased over the history of the league. The only other difference is that HBT's study shows the league quality kind of leveled off and hasn't increased much since the early 90s.

The red line in this graph is HBT's final conclusion after a series of 4 articles and the green one obviously is Clay's.

[RedBean]

[ QUOTE ]
That's just some made-up rule you just made up.


[/ QUOTE ]

Wait a minute.....you're going after Bonds for Steroids here....and YOU are telling ME about made-up rules?


[ QUOTE ]

Oh wait... it must be because you know that evidence is damning, and you don't WANT to address it. Pity.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can we discuss the defense's evidence too?

Oh damn...it hasn't been presented yet.

What about the parts of the leaked testimony that was omitted at the author's discretion?

Oh crap...that hasn't been made public either.

Can we talk about the possible exulpatory results of the blood tests from Bonds medical history?

Oh dangit...that wasn't leaked either.

What a conundrum we have here.....we are trying to discuss the evidence of the case, and the majority of it is missing or yet to be revealed....it almost seems like this can't be properly debated until we have all the available evidence at our disposal.

That being the case, they probably should have thought this this thing through and had some sort of law or rule preventing the leaking of grand jury testimony to preserve a defendant's right to a fair trial and not taint the jury pool by inflamming public perception with unsubstantiated prosecutorial allegations.

Oh that's right...<u>they do have such a law, but it was broken</u> in order to launch a smear campaign against Bonds in the court of public opinion since the 3 seperate sets of jurors who have had access to all of the sealed evidence have each failed to produce even a simple indictment.

But since we don't have access to all the evidence....rather than sit around and do nothing while we wait....let's discuss how THREE grand juries have examined all of the evidence presented by the government, and they have not found sufficient evidence to issue an indictment to even GO to trial...much less win a trial.

[By-Tor]

[ QUOTE ]
Oh come on, By-Tor, you're gonna make me bust out cryin.

"Yeah, it's in a BOOK that was written FOR PROFIT... it MUST be completely wrong... but BARRY BONDS, he tells only the TRUTH..."

[/ QUOTE ]

i was laughing more at the combination of you being "schooled" in Texass and taking something reporters wrote in a book as FACT.

makes a lot of sense.

[Clarkmeister]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How is today not the toughest era in baseball? The ever expanding pool of players more then compensates for the increased number of teams.

[/ QUOTE ]

I strongly disagree. We're seeing major reduction in the African-American population in baseball. In post-integration pre-expansion, we had a ridiculous amount of players for almost HALF the teams we have today.

[/ QUOTE ]


This is absurd. Half the teams, but maybe less than a quarter the player pool. Money, money, money, population expansion and global appeal have created far more available talent than there was in Ruth's day.

Said another way: I think the worst MLB team today could arguably go back and beat the 1927 Yankees in say a best of 101 series.

[DrewDevil]

[ QUOTE ]
What a conundrum we have here.....we are trying to discuss the evidence of the case, and the majority of it is missing or yet to be revealed....it almost seems like this can't be properly debated until we have all the available evidence at our disposal.

[/ QUOTE ]

HAHAHAHAHA that's awesome.

I have to say your refusal to budge even the slightest is somewhat impressive, even though I think your actual opinions are three shades of wacko.

I'm going to make a real effort to stop posting in this thread now (APPLAUSE) and let the denial-fest continue unabated.

I'll just conclude by restating my original opinion: Give Bonds the home run record, but not the Hall of Fame.

[RedBean]

[ QUOTE ]
I have to say your refusal to budge even the slightest is somewhat impressive, even though I think your actual opinions are three shades of wacko.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I guess I am kind of a wild and crazy guy for reserving judgement until all the facts of the case are known.

[tdarko]

Muresan,

This thread is a mess and I don't want to get into everyone's goofy arguing but this comment has to be addressed:

[ QUOTE ]
Bonds top 3 of all-time without steroids would be an interesting argument to see from both sides. I'd be interested to see the reasoning behind it

[/ QUOTE ]

When Barry's 1999 season was finished his numbers and accomplishments looked like this-

BA .288
HR 445
SB 460

The only player in major league history to have 400 HR's and 400 SB's passing his father and Willie Mays the year before.

3 MVP's
8 Gold Gloves (arguably the greatest Left Fielder to ever play)
8 time all-star
7 Silver Sluggers

What I always think is funny is that so many think that steroids created this power freak and this player that was changing the game but Barry was doing this all along. Most don't realize his numbers before 1999:

Before 99' he led the league in slugging 3 times and was in the top 7 in the league 10 times.

He led the league in On Base% 4 times and was in the top 5 9 times--the other time he finished 7th.

He led the league in OPS 5 times and finished in the top 6 10 times.

He led the league in OPS+ 4 times and finished in the top 5 ten times.

He led the league in BB 5 times and finished in the top 3 ten times.

He led the league in Intentional Walks 7 times and was in the top ten 11 times.

He led the league in runs created 2 times and was in the top 5 9 times.


The list could actually keep going on and on but the point is that he has dominated this game since he started, the only difference is that when he was doing it in the 80's and 90's there wasn't a scandal involved.

Barry is the greatest baseball player to have ever played anyone who thinks differently falls into one of these two categories:

1) Doesn't know enough about baseball and can't properly judge skill/talent

or most likely

2) Is letting hatred toward a person blind what they are actually seeing

[boc4life]

With regards to league difficulty, I'm pretty sure it's a slam-dunk in the favor of "The league is more difficult now than it's ever been"

There's so many reasons for it, I'll just list a bunch off the top of my head

-Big money in the game leading to kids growing up dedicating their lives to baseball, paying for and receiving high levels of coaching at acadamies

-Modern weight and fitness training/Performance enhancing drug usage

-Evolution of the game. Specialized bullpen roles, pitchers going on more rest than before. Average velocity on pitches has increased with time

-Development of new pitches such as the split-fingered fastball

-Expanding worldwide base of players


I think it's weird how people don't truly understand the way that sports evolve and improve over time. People wish we could go back to the time before specialized bullpen roles, or see a 4 man rotation again, or wonder why we don't see knuckleballers anymore. Well, simply put, those strategies/styles of play are obsolete. If a team were to try a 4 man rotation or allow their starters to go 8+ innings most nights, they would get annihilated in today's game. A pitcher utilizing the knuckleball had better be pretty damn good at throwing it, because with shrinking strike zones, smaller ballparks, and bigger and stronger hitters, the knuckleball will get pounded these days.

It's just facts. The game is constantly improving. Relative to the players of his day ("Pound for pound"), Babe Ruth is probably the greatest hitter ever to live. I imagine he'd have a difficult time transitioning to today's form of baseball, though.