Official Barry Bonds Countdown Thread

[hauchen]

From barstoolsports.com

"The big news of the weekend was Barry Bonds finally tying Hank Aaron’s HR record. So I guess now is as good a time as any to mention that I think this whole Bonds fiasco has been one of the most hypocritical issues of our generation. Now let me start by saying I hate Barry Bonds and I wish he wasn’t going to be the new HR king. But it has nothing to do with the fact that Bonds used Steroids. I just hate him because he’s a jerk. And to be honest I think anybody who says they would have cheered for Bonds before he got accused of using Steroids is a fraud. Cheating has always been a part of baseball. Players have used greenies, corked bats, scuffed baseballs etc. since the beginning of time. But somehow steroids have crossed a mythical line in the sand in regards to cheating. Everything else was deemed as cute and part of the game but not steroids. I’ve never understood this philosophy?Am I supposed to believe that if steroids were available 20 years ago those players wouldn’t have used them? That the players from Hank Aaron’s generation are somehow morally superior to the modern day player? That’s asinine. The bottom-line is that as technology has advanced so has the available methods of cheating with steroids leading the charge. And the kicker of the whole thing is that steroids weren’t even banned in baseball. In fact, I think you can argue that baseball actually encouraged steroid use. I mean everybody knew about it but nobody did anything to stop it. The players knew it, the coaches knew it, the GM’s knew it and the league knew it. But the bottom-line is that HR’s and specifically the McGuire vs. Sosa HR chase were great for baseball. The league turned a blind eye to steroids because they needed it. Therefore, for Bud Selig to sit there and put on this act like Bonds somehow pulled one over the game makes me want to puke. Selig knew exactly what was going on and so did everybody else. And to take this point a step further if I was a MLB player and I saw how the league was embracing the long ball and how guys were getting outrageous contracts based on power numbers I would have taken steroids in a heart beat.

And for anybody who tries to play the moral card and talks about the youth of America, I call [censored] on that too. I don’t understand how steroids can be viewed as a threat to National Security in baseball while Shawn Merriman is getting busted for steroids and voted to the all star game in the same season in the NFL. How the hell is that possible? It’s like we’re living in a bizarre world or something.

None of it makes sense to me. It never has. I know this was a long rant but I just don’t felt like I needed to chime in on this. Like I said at the beginning. I have no problem with people hating Barry Bonds. The guy is a jerk and deserves to be booed. But it has nothing to do with using steroids. Everybody did it. And I don’t know how you can blame any of them. Every era is different and has different numbers based on changes in the game. Raised mounds, segregation, big parks, small parks, expansion etc. We lived in the steroid era which was a product of the times. But it doesn’t make it worse or better than previous generations. And to make it seem like Barry Bonds is somehow a super villain or disgraced the game is just ludicrous. Boo him because he’s a jerk but not because he used Steroids because he would have been a fool not to."