Official Barry Bonds Countdown Thread

[vhawk01]

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I was just trying to comment on the sidepoint that it is also evidence that all the guys on that team are whiny bitches who don't care about winning and are probably playing for the wrong reasons.

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Hmmmm. I'm gonna go ahead and believe my friends and the stories I've heard - knowing that they're stand-up guys and the farthest thing from whiners - instead of going with this wild conjecture you're offering.

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Voting a guy off the team for being a jerk= whiny bitches, IMO. I'm not offering wild conjecture, I'm offering a definition of a phrase. You can choose to reject that definition if you want, but I'm not trying to pretend I know your friends better than you. You described their behavior, that behavior is the very definition of being whiny bitches IMO. No conjecture.

[duracell]

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I think Barry's probably a dick, but the whole thing is unfairly overblown. I don't think it'll matter in 20 years though, because we'll either have gotten over it or will have crowned one (or two!) new home run kings. We'll just accept the era and steroids for what they are, still consider Hank Aaron to be the 2nd (or 3rd) best RF ever, and probably consider either Bonds or Ruth as the best player ever, whichever floats your boat.

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This got lost in the shuffle, but IMO, it's the best post in this whole thread.

[vhawk01]

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I'm still hoping I can get someone to respond from the "This record is steroid-enhanced" camp to clarify that statement a bit. It is one of those comments that seems logical and rational if you only think about it for like ten seconds, but is actually incredibly stupid and incorrect when you think about it for eleven or more. I hear it a lot with regards to modern equipment and weight training, and it is just as stupid there.

This record was not steroid-enhanced. It might be tainted, because thats a subjective, public opinion type deal, but it wasn't enhanced.

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Advancement of technology is not banned by baseball.

Confusion on my end now: You said the record cannot be called "steroid-enhanced" but it can be tainted. What is it tainted by in your scenario?

(Geez, part of me hates being dragged into these types of semantical discussion, because as I said in my first point about this I'm totally ambivalent about Bonds and the record...I do get a kick out of the back and forth between the two vehemently opposed sides on the issues though. More LOL at the side that tries to act like Bonds didn't do steroids though).

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The fact that one is banned and the other isn't is entirely beside the point. It doesn't make a single bit of difference. The point was level playing fields.

[RedBean]

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So I'm not going to present any more evidence or proof until Redbean is willing to say that Bonds is clean, or jesus is willing to say that steroids don't assist HR hitters. Then they can start to present their own evidence and we'll see how it stacks up.

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Barry Bonds has not violated the MLB steroid policy, nor failed a MLB administered steroid test. Fact.

Please be to disproving that. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[offTopic]

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Wow, on Jim Rome they are accusing Aaron being paid big money to sell out and film last night's message.

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I thought it was all CGI.

[Scorcho]

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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

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No other player in the game at the time comes as close to getting Sid Bream at the plate as Bonds did.

[vhawk01]

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It is true that, excluding the 2001 season, Bonds never hit more than 49 home runs in a season -- a number that has been bested many times. However, Bond's peak years of production, 2000 - 2004, came when he was 35 to 39 years old. Hitting this many home runs so late in one's career is unprecedented:

* In 130 years of major league history, only 11 times has a man aged 35 or over hit 45 or more home runs. Bonds did it five of those eleven times. Ruth did it twice; no one else did it more than once.
* Since turning 35, Bonds has hit 300 home runs. The next-closest is Aaron with 245.
* Bonds is the all-time leader for home runs at ages 36, 38 and 39, and is second all-time at ages 35, 37 and 41. At earlier ages? He doesn't exist. He's 7th all-time at age 28 (46 homers in 1993), but doesn't even crack the top 10 at any other age.
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* Prior to age 35, Bonds hit one home run every 15.68 at bats -- an extremely good rate. Since age 35, he has hit one ever 8.77 at-bats -- almost unheard of. (Ruth averaged 1 homer per 11.76 AB over his career, and never did better than 1 in 10 during any 5-year stretch. The record is held by Mark McGwire, another suspected steroid user: 1 home run per 10.61 AB over his career, and 1 in 8.13 during his five peak years.)


it is odd how ungodly good at hitting HRs bonds got at the end of his career..maybe it was sheer skill and luck
but given the huge amount of circumstantial evidence that he used one would assume steroids played a factor.

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Please check out Maris' freak season and look at his average and his other best seasons.

Please check out Aaron's production in his mid to late 30's.

Then read a chapter on outliers in a stats book or something.

[DrewDevil]

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I'm still hoping I can get someone to respond from the "This record is steroid-enhanced" camp to clarify that statement a bit. It is one of those comments that seems logical and rational if you only think about it for like ten seconds, but is actually incredibly stupid and incorrect when you think about it for eleven or more. I hear it a lot with regards to modern equipment and weight training, and it is just as stupid there.

This record was not steroid-enhanced. It might be tainted, because thats a subjective, public opinion type deal, but it wasn't enhanced.

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I don't understand what you are saying.

Steroids absolutely enhance the effectiveness of the home run hitter. Are you seriously disputing THAT?

And please, don't trot out the strawman "Steroids don't help you connect with the baseball," because no one's ever claimed that they do. They just make the ball go farther and faster when you connect.

Also, weight training and superior nutrition are not against the rules, which is how sentient beings distinguish between them and steroids on the culpability scale.

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You don't get the point. The only way you can make the argument that this record is steroid-enhanced is if you somehow believe ONLY Barry, or at least Barry and a very small minority of other players, are on steroids. This is obviously ridiculous, and is just as silly as claiming Bonds never juiced.

The point of the weight lifting comparison is that people also foolishly list weight-training and workout regimens as an added benefit that todays player has. What they forget is that this added benefit helps ALL players, hitters, pitchers, everyone, so it isn't an individual benefit. Barry may have been aided by steroids, but so were most of the pitchers he faced. Why do they help him more than hurt him?

The record is small-park-enhanced, its nature-of-todays-game-enhanced, its small-modern-strikezone-enhanced, but it is NOT steroid-enhanced. Its neutral with regards to steroids.

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I agree that steroids have helped a lot of hitters hit a lot more home runs, and not just Barry. They just helped him become the HR king.

And this is by far the greatest offensive era in baseball history, an era which corresponds almost exactly with the rise of steroid use in MLB, which I believe is pretty strong evidence that steroids help the hitters far more than the pitchers.

Somebody else also claimed that pitchers are helped even more than hitters, but I think that's pretty ridiculous given the sky-high ERAs and home run totals we've seen over the past 15 years.

[vhawk01]

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Why do you even need proof?

Hank Aaron broke the record when everyone was doing greenies.

Bonds broke the record when everyone was/is doing steroids.

What's the [censored] difference?

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Greenies: not against the rules in 1974.

Steroids: against the rules in 2007.

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They were against the law, though, right? Didn't you make that point about steroids earlier?

[DrewDevil]

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Why do you even need proof?

Hank Aaron broke the record when everyone was doing greenies.

Bonds broke the record when everyone was/is doing steroids.

What's the [censored] difference?

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Greenies: not against the rules in 1974.

Steroids: against the rules in 2007.

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They were against the law, though, right? Didn't you make that point about steroids earlier?

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No, that wasn't me. I don't really care if they were against the law or not.