—
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
The New Home Run King
Who?
Barry Lamar Bonds. Yes, a year ago, we heard how he was done, and would be lucky to play another game. He may not even catch Ruth, much less Hank Aaron. He went on to hit twenty-six home runs, and is within a half season, or so, of the Hammer.
What?
The all time career home run record. Yes, the most treasured mark in the history of sports. Nothing compares to this mark. Well, perhaps the single season home run mark, and Bonds did what Aaron never could - set that mark. And with seventy-three in 2001, he may have pushed the mark out where it won’t be approached for the time gaps that made it so treasured. Ruth held the mark at 60 from 1927 to 1961 - 34 years. Roger Maris broke that mark under tremendous pressure in 1961, and held the mark for 37 years. Mark McGwire hit 70 in 1998, and held it for just three seasons. Can Bonds hold the mark for thirty plus seasons or is a younger slugger like Alex Rodriguez or Ryan Howard going to climb over that mark?
When?
Isn’t this what everyone wants to know? The tickets for Giants’ games will be selling like hotcakes as he approaches the mark. The Giants’ home tickets will already be mostly sold, but the away games are going to spike up even more. Last season, the Giants were sixth in road attendance per game, with over 32,800. As Bonds gets close in June and July, road games will be sold out.
But WHEN?
Over Bonds’ career, he has hit a home run for every thirteen at-bats. In 2006, he hit a home run for every fourteen ABs. We are all aware that he had a sore knee the first few months of the season, and he was walked a good deal. Looking at Bonds’ last two months of the season, when he had a good knee, and teams were pitching to him like he was mortal, he hit a home run every twelve ABs. So when pitchers were walking Bonds he hit worse and homered less, and given the Giants lineup, that seems to have been a good approach.
Another thing we know is that Bonds will get some days off. He’s got a new manager, so it’s hard to say exactly when. We can be sure he’ll routinely get games off that are day games after night games. One would think he’d play more home games than away games, but that didn’t happen in 2006 - largely because he will DH in away games at American League parks where he might otherwise get a day off.
In the last two months, when pitchers clearly started pitching to Bonds - his walk rate dropped from 25% in the first four months to 18% in August and 15% in September. Bonds’ batting average and slugging percentage also jumped dramatically in those months. Looking at the games started and the at-bats over that period gives some indication that Bonds was getting about 3.1 at-bats per game. Not plate appearances, but at-bats.
The Giants have twenty-five games in April. Bonds will probably play in twenty-one of them. There are four “day game after night game” that he can take a break on. The Giants have twenty-eight games in May. Bonds played more in May, and not well, with respect to home run rate. Even in 2004, he homered at a lower rate in May than any other month. This May, the Giants have three games at Oakland and four in Colorado. I suspect he’ll miss three of the Giants’ games. June and July look to end up similarly, with a healthy Bonds making it through the first four months missing around thirteen of his team’s 106 games. That’s about 12% of games and would put Bonds on pace for 142 games or so. That may be a bit optimistic, but he’s healthy, knee-wise, and looks to have the desire.
So where does all this lead? It leads to Bonds’ 286th at-bat. Which will happen in the first inning of Bonds’ 93rd game. If Bonds has knee issues, he’ll get to break the record at home against the Washington Nationals on Tuesday, August 7.
If Bonds feels good, that game will be on a nice July afternoon, the 25th, against the Atlanta Braves at PacBell (or whatever). He can splash one down off John Smoltz , giving Smoltz the honor of being the pitcher Bonds has hit the most home runs off of. Get your tickets now.
Related News: San Francisco, Projections
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
For the sake of baseball, hopefully never.
I'm going to take PA #300 of 2007.
I would pick a mid-August home game.
So enjoy your Kool-Aid, boys. At least this batch is harmless.
What would pitching around him bilaterally look like? I could see multilaterally, but that might be collusion.
Too bad the Reverend couldn't attend the mock hearing that wasn't about McGwire's past (or much of anything else). Jim Jones was a guy who knew how to properly treat Congressmen.
Jim Jones was also a guy who knew what to do with his followers, and then with himself. Bonds might indeed learn something from him.
Stop saying that Barry Bonds' head has grown abnormally large. Just call it "the People's Temple"!
Nice to see the spirit of Rob Base lives on.
Nobody, obviously. That's why no sportswriters are writing articles about it, why no fans are discussing it, and why there are never any threads here on BTF that even touch on it. It's why the Giants aren't selling any tickets and why Giant road games aren't a draw at all.
If anything, the people who are most tired of Bonds should be rooting for him to break the record already so it's no longer a hot topic of conversation. Obviously, it isn't losing any steam until he retires or passes Aaron. When he retires, we'll probably get a nice 3-4 year break before the onslaught begins again with his first year of HOF eligibility approaching.
You do, for one. You may not care specifically whether Bonds ends 2007 with 756 HRs or not, but you care about the story of it and how it will be covered and perceived. I said this last year when you said the same thing: this will be a big, big story--it will just not be a celebratory one. And, a lot of people will care because they will be rooting against him. So, people care, but not in the same way they would have.
I also said last year--and have heard other people say it since--if Bonds does hit 756, that Alex Rodriguez will stick around if it seems he has a shot at this record and may yet retire a hero.
What would pitching around him bilaterally look like? I could see multilaterally, but that might be collusion.
Thats whats called a diction error, I assume he meant universally.
On the Bonds record front I think I must be one of the few people who hope he breaks the record but still have some misgivings about it. My way of looking at it:
Bonds clearly did something (exercise alot more or more likely use performance enhancers?) which kicked up his HR rate starting after an injury in 1999 (he got his elbow severely hyper-extended trying to keep Charlie Hayes from having his face smashed in during a brawl).
But, he also was the best player I have seen in all of my baseball watching lifetime surpassing others like Schmidt fairly easily because he had no real flaws in his game. Ironically, his bulking up may well be the reason he didn't get to the fly ball in 2002 WS which let the Angels have a 5-run inning and win the thing when the Giants were innings from a title.
So I have conflicted opinions about the whole thing. I am glad Griffey isn't going to have the record all things considered and I sincerely hope ARod doesn't end up with it in the end because for all Bonds' faults he's not nearly as self-centered and arrogant as ARod.
You do, for one. You may not care specifically whether Bonds ends 2007 with 756 HRs or not
And that's really all I meant by what I wrote.
but you care about the story of it and how it will be covered and perceived.
I might care about the perception part if I had any worries on that score, but I don't. You'll get a temporary rush of "say what you will, he's still the greatest ballplayer of his time" stories (which I'll agree with), but that's not the same thing as believing that he would have broken the record without steroids. And almost nobody except maybe Dial's children will ever believe that.
I said this last year when you said the same thing: this will be a big, big story--it will just not be a celebratory one. And, a lot of people will care because they will be rooting against him. So, people care, but not in the same way they would have.
That's about right. I'm sure that a lot of people will be actively rooting against him, and will be p.o.'d when he breaks it, and there'll be a few people outside SF who'll cheer him on, mostly because they think they're making some sort of an "in your face" declaration or something by doing so in light of all the media dumping. I honestly don't give a crap one way or the other, but that may be just me.
I also said last year--and have heard other people say it since--if Bonds does hit 756, that Alex Rodriguez will stick around if it seems he has a shot at this record and may yet retire a hero.
If he hasn't been committed to the Hotel Flanders by that time, maybe he will. And while I'd obviously root him on if he were doing it in pinstripes, I still wouldn't care about the home run record per se. On that score I'm with Jeter: It's all about the team.
A home run record-breaker couldn't have been less beloved than Roger Maris. There wasn't a more deeply polarizing, viscerally hated athlete than Muhammad Ali. Ted Williams lived up to his media-crafted persona right through the final at-bat.
Time has a funny way of altering the way we "know" sports stars "will" be viewed.
Time has a funny way of altering the way we "know" sports stars "will" be viewed.
This is true as a general point. However...
Maris never did anything substantive to offend anybody other than to break a record. His image in New York was almost entirely a product of the press, combined with his shyness. Once he got to St. Louis it changed almost overnight.
Ali was a bit of a jerk, but he still was fighting for a well-recognized principle of individual conscience when he resisted the draft, and by doing so he was standing against a war that more and more of the country has come to either agree with or at least not find particularly offensive. He was also a world class charmer who had a huge part of the younger members of the media (plus Cosell) on his side from about 1970 on, and even earlier in many cases.
And Williams warred with the Boston media and little else. The fans outside that small portion of seats in the left field foul territory of Fenway never had much of a problem with him for the most part, unless he was spitting on them or something.
Bonds is already recognized by most fans, if grudgingly, as one of the top two or three players of his generation, and as the top player by at least a sizeable plurality of those. Breaking the record might goose that percentage up a bit, but again, this doesn't have much to do with whether he cheated in order to pass Aaron. These are two completely independent questions. Nothing in the careers of Maris, Ali or Williams is remotely comparable to what Bonds did in terms of violating the concept of sport.
The only way I can see Bonds emerging from all this is:
He gets into the HOF on the first or second try, a strong possibility if not an absolute certainty
After a passage of time, he starts telling something substantive about what was going on with BALCO, and manages somehow to convince enough people that he was manipulated by Conte and Anderson. Hey, I didn't say it would be easy.
And then he starts going to spring training camps, old timers days, card shows, etc., and more or less tries to imitate the general post-career patterns of superstars.
With all that, maybe. But that second part in particular would represent a mighty big jump for him. And without that, the third part is going to be much harder to accomplish without a fatal cloud hanging over his head. I'm assuming that we're talking about expanding his fan base more than a marginal bit beyond what it already is today. I'm not sure that there's much real chance of that, minus a nice, clean lobotomy.
I know folks here "get it". I would like the greater audience of baseball fans to understand as well.
I think Gossage said it this offseason. He didn't care if Bonds broke the record, because the person he would respect most would still be Aaron because of everything he had to overcome
I've got 7/24 against John Smoltz before Dial presented this. Because it's his birthday, against the Braves, and it's John Smoltz who is going ot challenge him.
As far as what Bonds' record will mean, like Aaron's record before it, it means that he was dedicated to his sport and to excellence for a long enough period of time to set the record. That is worthy of honoring.
He will break it at home (or Oakland) because he will change his swing on the road if he's sitting at 754. He won't sit out, but he'll go for base hits or gap doubles. I've noticed this near his other milestones.
I think it will. Roger Maris was, at least in the mainstream, little more than a name to most people until the record was falling. We remember the previous record-holder most at the moment the torch is passed. It will be Aaron's biggest day in the sun since his playing days.
In some respect, I think 755 is in the way of really appreciating Aaron's career, much like 2,632 is in the way of appreciating how good a player Ripken was. The single accomplishment starts to become all the player is known for.
Or... after a few more years, a consensus develops that whatever PEDs Bonds took played only a small role in his accomplishments;
Or... it becomes clear that so many athletes in so many sports use a variety of PEDs, and that testing regimes can't succeed, that the large majority of fans decide it's just not worth worrying about.
And (either way) people come to look back on the 2000s "steroid hysteria" the way we do Victorian sexual attitudes, with a combination of wonderment and bemusement.
I have no idea if either will happen, but these are FAR more likely scenarios than you seem able to imagine.
This will be tested when Bonds has 754. I personally will be interested in whether Aaron travels to ballparks to "be there," as it were. Not sure what it will mean, but it is interesting.
Or... after a few more years, a consensus develops that whatever PEDs Bonds took played only a small role in his accomplishments;
Or... it becomes clear that so many athletes in so many sports use a variety of PEDs, and that testing regimes can't succeed, that the large majority of fans decide it's just not worth worrying about.
And (either way) people come to look back on the 2000s "steroid hysteria" the way we do Victorian sexual attitudes, with a combination of wonderment and bemusement.
I have no idea if either will happen, but these are FAR more likely scenarios than you seem able to imagine.
If you'd bothered to read what I wrote immediately above the one line that you quoted, you might have noticed that I also wrote this:
Bonds is already recognized by most fans, if grudgingly, as one of the top two or three players of his generation, and as the top player by at least a sizeable plurality of those.
It won't take any steroid revisionism to place Bonds at, or very near the top of his generation. And it isn't a case of people "worrying" about it, at least to the same level that they do today. It's simply acknowledging that no steroids, no 73, and no steroids, no 756. Bonds didn't need those numbers to put himself well above Mark McGwire, and on a rough par with Hank Aaron. (There's obviously more to both of those two players than their career HR totals.) But he did need steroids to get him to those two landmarks, and whether or not in 2015 or 2055 it's considered a "big deal" that he juiced to do so doesn't alter this in the slightest.
This will be tested when Bonds has 754. I personally will be interested in whether Aaron travels to ballparks to "be there," as it were. Not sure what it will mean, but it is interesting.
I doubt that most people would consider Aaron "less of a gentleman" because he doesn't want to recognize the man who at that point would figuratively have just robbed his house. Rather, he would have to be downright noble to do so.
I wish he'd have let me continue to applaud it from 1998-2007 as I did from 1986-97, but he had to go and cheat.
How could anyone think that someone cheating his way to probably the most-recognizable record in sports wouldn't be a big story?
Could a guy with a head puffed by steroids so much even get a lobotomy?
No one truly dedicated to his sport would cheat it so long and so brazenly, and with such little remorse.
How many homeruns could Bonds end his career with in order for you to be comfortable saying that he didn't "need" steroids to get past Aaron? 800? 850? 1000?
It's one thing to say that you don't care if it gave him 1 or 10 or 100 extra homeruns because it's still just as bad (for reasons discussed ad nauseum); it's yet another to state that he couldn't possibly have done it unaided. The latter implies that you have some idea of how many he'd have gotten if not for using (to know that it would fall short).
It's easy to get caught up in 73 and 756 because they're the highest numbers we've seen (or are likely to see), but a non-enhanced Bonds is very arguably a better player than Aaron or Maris, and the modern era is without a doubt a better place to hit homeruns.
Of course it does, because that will determine your original claim -- "Everyone has already discounted this upcoming record, and it will remain forever tainted" -- holds up. The question is whether Bonds will, in the future, we considered the "legitimate" holder of the two HR titles. That is not necessarily the same as believing he could have done it w/o PEDs. Most of us would say Aaron is the legitimate HR kind even if it were definitively proven that Aaron passed Ruth only because he hit in smaller stadiums, or because of medical treatments unavailable in Ruth's day. The question is whether fans in the future will consider the use of PEDs (assuming it remains a consensus that Bonds used) to render records illegitimate. We don't know, and it's a failure of imagination to assume they will.
It's just hard to predict this kind of thing: I'd guess that most fans and baseball writers in 1962 would have predicted that Ruth's 60 would continue to be viewed as the "real" season record for years to come (unless someone hit 61 in 154 games). They were wrong.
Bonds is obviously a better player than either Aaron or Maris but there really isn't anything in his pre-steroid career to think he'd get anywhere near 756. Didn't Bill James ever do one of his "percentage likelihood" charts that included Bonds re Aaron's record.
Heh.
Here we go again with the steroid/Tommy John surgery equivalence nonsense. And only 37 posts in.
Sigh.
Has any baseball writer of any repute ever suggested that Aaron's record was somehow less legitimate because of medical advances between 1938 and 1974? Your confusion is between "attained under more favorable conditions" and "less legitimate." They're two completely different concepts.
I assume this is written to convince us that people are lining up to see a great athlete make baseball history.
Thousands of those tickets are, of course, being bought by people who wish to express their distaste of Bonds, not cheer him. Does the author really believe everyone outside of SF are buying tickets to cheer the moment? It would also be interesting to go back and see/hear the broadcasts from Riverfront Stadium to see how many people booed Aaron in the series before he set the record. Probably no more than a handful. If Bonds sets the record in an old-line road city it's not remotely inconceivable that there will be more boos than cheers.
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
That's simply not true. There was a significant (not better than 50%, but better than 25%) chance Bonds would, based on the Favorite Toy.
Favorite Toy: link
seasons left = 24 * (.6*age)
future HR = (3N + (2[N-1]) + (N-2)) * seasons left / 6 N is HR last year, N-1 year before
chance of 756 = projected total/756 -.5
Bonds at end of 1998 season: 411 HR
4.2 * (111 + 80 + 42) / 6
projected: 163 HR
chance of 756 = (574/756)-.5 = 25.9%
Bonds at end of 1999 season: 445 HR
3.6 * (102 + 74 + 40) /6
projected: 130
chance of 756 = 575/756 - .5 = 26.1%
Bonds at end of 2000 season: 494 HR
3.0 * (147 + 68 + 37) /6
projected: 126
chance of 756 = 620/756 -.5 = 32.0%
I did all three seasons because it's hard to pinpoint where the suspicion begins. But there was greater than a 25% chance that Bonds would pass Aaron at the end of the 1998 season. Not a certainty but there was a healthy chance even that far back that he'd do it.
You know, Aaron received a good deal of hate mail about breaking Ruth's record. HTH.
It makes sense, considering Bonds power shot up a noticeable amount in 99.
Says someone blissfully unaware that 714 earned him a standing ovation on the road.
I don't think the word "cheat" means what he thinks it means, either.
Andy said something to that effect last year. So, ask him. The comment as I recall it was half in jest, to be fair.
Wonder if if it would've been that way if they'd moved him to another position for Rodriguez.
Your confusion, apparently, is between a discussion of what the baseball community will consider legitimate -- the subject of my post -- and what it should consider legitimate (which I didn't address).
Historically, the way fans draw the line between "more favorable conditions" and "unfair advantage" (or cheating) can shift over time. For a long time, many believed Maris did not hold the "real" HR record. But that became a marginal view over time. The same thing could easily be true for Bonds. In fact, it's probably more likely than not. Is there any important career or single-season record in the books that is widely regarded as illegitimate? Anger and memories fade, but the black ink lives on......
See, here's a guy who CARES.
The subject of your post was to suggest a controversy that doesn't exist regarding the legitimacy of Aaron's record ... and trying to sneak it by. It's not "most of us" that think Aaron's HR record is legitimate even if it's "proven" that smaller stadiums or medical advances helped, it's EVERYONE. Aside from fringe elements which we can find over essentially every historical question, there is NO controversy over the legitimacy of Aaron's record. It's highly debatable that he was a better HR or power hitter than Ruth. Again, two easily distinguished concepts.
Did those people show their face in public and boo? Didn't think so.
Your writing is some of the most clever and intelligent I've ever read. Your wit is unsurpassed.
This on the other hand is intellectual debate?
DMN: I know you doubt that Barry used steroids and/or HGH, and I know Chris is insane, but the rest of us can draw obvious conclusions based on the facts at hand. Barry Bonds used PEDs to gain an advantage he wasn't otherwise getting. The use he made of them was illegal. It was a use others in his sport refused to resort to and which they called and continue to call "cheating." Other than "cheating" is there some term that captures "resort to illicit means for the purpose of gaining advantage over one's peers?" (Of course I'm bracketing out litigation, where that's called "a good day at the office.")
Yep, you don't give a crap one way or the other, which is why half the Bonds threads are your own posts.
(And even hanging your hat on 'illegal' won't get you out of the hole; it depends on facts which you definitely don't know -- even if you think you know he used steroids -- such as the specifics of what you think he used. Frinstance, THG -- i.e., "the clear" -- wasn't illegal until 2004.)
It's the "spirit", David, the Spirit.
It's really going to start unloading that just tons of players were "cheating". I mean, Darren Holme? David Bell?
It is kevinly clear to me that the "word on the street" in MLB was that hGH, like shark cartiliage before it, was what one took for shoulder/back injuries. It wasn't banned, it wasn't illegal (as far as these guys knew), and they could get it. I mean, look at David Bell's lawyer's comments.
Yep, you don't give a crap one way or the other, which is why half the Bonds threads are your own posts.
Not one of which has ever expressed any personal concern about the record being broken. I'd tell you to go read them all if you don't believe me, but I'm neither that crazy nor that sadistic. Most of my posts on the subject have actually been in anticipatory amusement over Selig's plight on the day it happens, an amusement you likely share.
That's not to say I don't care about steroids (duh) or about steroids and the HOF (double duh), but about the record, it's been obvious that barring injury he's going to break it, and why get worked up over something that's both inevitable and already been discounted by nearly everyone outside of SF and a handful of fanboys?
And I'm not saying that you really care the other way, either. My take is that you see the record as simply ratifying Bonds's greatness, but if he somehow didn't make it, I can't imagine that it would change your opinion of him, nor should it. There's plenty to admire in his pre-steroid career without the need for the record to add to it, whether or not you think the record legit or bogus. Whether he passes Aaron or not isn't going to change anyone's opinion about Bonds one way or the other. Those opinions were all formed long ago.
You keep saying this, but what is the evidence for this conclusion? Serious inquiry, not rhetorical.
You keep saying this, but what is the evidence for this conclusion? Serious inquiry, not rhetorical.
Here's but one example from the NYT:
BASEBALL; A Bit of Breathing Room, But for How Long?
E-MAIL Print Permissions Save
By JACK CURRY
Published: July 21, 2006
The overhead television in the San Francisco Giants' clubhouse was running all Barry Bonds news all the time on Thursday. Bonds did not see or hear the results of an ESPN poll in which 80 percent of the respondents said they believed that he had knowingly used steroids. The results were probably meaningless to him.
You can argue that 80% isn't "almost everyone," and you can say that just because 80% think he took steroids, it doesn't mean that they're discounting his records, but that's more a matter of a wish fathering a thought than it is of common sense and deduction. Only a lawyer would draw such a studied and hairsplitting non-conclusion from that 80% figure.
Actually, you are correct. Infact Barry Bonds wasn't a better player in either 1999 or 2000 than he had been previously.
Infact, now flipping back through Game of Shadows, they claim Bonds got injured in 1999 because of PED abuse - So ironically enough, these drugs may ( and most likely) have hindered an other-wise Bonds great season back in 99.
* 55% answered "No" to the question "If indicted, should Bonds be suspended from baseball immediately?" If they don't think he should be suspended even if he is indicted, they certainly don't think he should be suspended if he isn't indicted. Which, just to remind everyone, he hasn't been, because prosecutors don't think the evidence is nearly as strong as everyone else does.
* 75% said his records should remain in the books, either with or without an asterisk. Only 24% want them removed.
* 48% said yes to Bonds in the Hall; 47% said no. (It drops to 30% support if indicted and convicted -- but note what this means; 60% of people who support his induction do so even if he is indicted and convicted.)
And that's at the absolute height of the hysteria. In 2013, people will have calmed down.
I don't know what these numbers are supposed to prove, but you brought up the poll as proof of something.
Ah, now I see the problem. Because you believe that "took steroids" = "bogus record," you assume most/all fans will follow the same logic. But the poll shows this isn't true: 37% would accept the record completely, meaning some of the 80% gave that answer. And a large proportion (38% of all respondents) said give him the record with an asterisk. That category doubtless includes a wide range of views regarding how "legitimate" his record would be -- I think you could fairly say that 38% is 'discounting' his record, but not nearly to the extent you do.
The point is, a consensus he took steriods need not equal a consensus that it was essential to his getting the record. And even believing it was essential need not mean concluding the record is invalid (depending on whether and to what extent you feel it was "cheating"). There are several intervening steps that can lead people to other conclusions, but you are projecting your own reasoning on to the fans of the future. Plus, this is TODAY's fan opinion -- it could easily change.
Here's one plausible outcome in terms of conventional wisdom 5-10 years from now:
Took them: yes
Necessary for record: perhaps, but we can't know for sure
Cheating: a little, but not that serious (especially since far more effective drugs are now in use)
Accept records as legitimate: yes
Admire the guy: athletically yes, personally not so much
I thought Bonds got injured in 1999 because somebody tried to rip his arm off in a brawl.
It's the "spirit", David, the Spirit.
Well Chris, which is it? The "spirit" or the Spirit?
I come out the exact opposite if I'm understanding your use of the terms.
A man has every right to do what he thinks he should do to earn a living and as much money as he can absent manifest illegality which I don't find in the Bonds case. To the extent the "hysteria" stems from Bonds's distaste for sportswriters and their silly questions, I could care less.
As a sportsman, little to admire post-steroids.
I think the fundamental dilemma in figuring this out is that we're talking about professional sports and grown men with families, so the man and the sportsman rest in the same person.
Pro athletes generally aren't automatically suspended if indicted, so why would this figure surprise anyone? If anything, it's low.
If one in four people want the records totally out of the books this supports the anti-Bonds people more than the pro. With the unmeasured chunk of the 75% who want an asterisk, at least a sizeable plurality disfavor a caveat-free record.
Again, if 47% of the people are against one of the top 20 players in the history of baseball getting in the HOF (and fully seven in ten if indicted), I don't see how this supports any conclusion other than the one Andy drew.
I think this is true whether PEDs ever existed or not. Harvey did an excellent job summarizing why in his earlier post.
As to Bonds and his chances, other than the 73 HR year (which is a big help, no doubt), his HR numbers per season haven't been that bizarre. It's the HR/AB rate that is incredible. Along with that, of course, he stopped getting a lot of AB due to BB. So, his HR total stayed close to historic norms for him. I'm discounting age a lot - perhaps PEDs helped him age better than he otherwise would've. Plausible, possible but not provable. Anyway, my point is that I can easily imagine that if he'd never become BONDS! his HR total would be close to the same. A touch lower, but in the area.
Of course, if one pulls an ace out of one's sleeve, it's cheating even if one was dealt a straight-flush.
But the unarguable point is that of course we can't foresee the future with any degree of precision. I don't see how you could possibly interpret 80% of people thinking Bonds took steroids as meaning anything but a bogus record, unless you think that a majority of that 80% thought that those steroids were of no help to him, but to each his own interpretation.
In the meantime, I await a poll taken at the time of Bonds's new record that asks two simple question:
Would Barry Bonds have hit 73 home runs in 2001 without steroids?
Would Barry Bonds have broken Hank Aaron's record without steroids?
Those are the quesions that get to the heart of the dispute. Anything beyond that is just spin.
I would predict today that a sizeable majority would answer "no" to both of those questions---today; at the time of the record breaking; and for the foreseeable future. What may change is the moral weight they assign to their answers, as that depends far more on unknown events than the direct questions I pose above.
As for the validity of that ESPN poll, I wouldn't necessarily put all that much stock in it one way or the other, since I don't know whether it was a truly random survey, but it was about the only direct poll I could find late last night. If there are any polls out there which asked the two questions above, and where a sizeable minority of the fans answered "yes" to either of those questions, I'd be more than interested in seeing them.
Would Barry Bonds have broken Hank Aaron's record without steroids?
Those are the quesions that get to the heart of the dispute.
In your opinion, which is perfectly valid for yourself. But the real bottom line question in that scenario is "Do you consider Bonds to be the all-time HR champion, or not?" You assume that if they answer your question the correct way, the other opinion must follow. But if so, why don't you want it asked? And why are you ignoring the fact that ABC/ESPN did ask it?
Would Barry Bonds have broken Hank Aaron's record without steroids?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Neither do any of you.
It depends. If the all time home run champion is the guy who hit the most homeruns in the major leagues, and Bonds passes Aaron, it will be Bonds, no matter what you think of him or how he got there. If the all time home run champion is the guy who is the best at hitting homeruns, than we should all have a vote whether it is Bonds, Aaron, Ruth, or somebody else. With no definitive right answer.
Your writing is some of the most clever and intelligent I've ever read. Your wit is unsurpassed.
I didn't realize repeatedly and incorrectly chanting "cheat" constituted intellectual debate. Thanks for clearing that up.
This on the other hand is intellectual debate?
Is that supposed to be intellectual debate, or what? Okay, now you go.
Would Barry Bonds have hit 73 home runs in 2001 without steroids?
I don't know.
And you don't know that OJ sliced and diced his wife, either. Nor does anyone except OJ himself.
Canny observation! The OJ story had two slashed-up dead bodies. Nobody's wondering how much less dead Nicole Simpson might have been, without PEDs.
If the all time home run champion is the guy who is the best at hitting homeruns, than we should all have a vote whether it is Bonds, Aaron, Ruth, or somebody else. With no definitive right answer.
Finally, the weight of history comes around to Mr. Shane Spencer.
Probably not, IMO.
Would Barry Bonds have broken Hank Aaron's record without steroids?
Probably not, IMO.
But from the point of view of your campaign, hanging your hat on this is sort of self-defeating, because we don't really know what Bonds would have done if you put him a hard core weight training and fish milkshake program and take out the PEDs. 59? 61? 52? 711? 687? If steroids helped him hit an extra 12 homers in 2001, well, that is just a number.
You are better off focusing on the moral aspects, because if you don't care, as you claim, whether Bonds ends 2007 with 753 HRs or 756 HRs, that is what it's about.
I don't know.
And you don't know that OJ sliced and diced his wife, either. Nor does anyone except OJ himself.
Canny observation! The OJ story had two slashed-up dead bodies. Nobody's wondering how much less dead Nicole Simpson might have been, without PEDs.
The point remains that in both cases nobody's been convicted, though at least in the OJ case they got to air out a lot more than we have in the matter of Barry Bonds. And we didn't have the spectacle of one of OJ's pals sitting in jail for the better part of a year just so he wouldn't be forced to implicate him. Of course with a lawyer's mentality that Anderson stonewalling implies absolutely nothing of substance about Bonds's steroid use---perish the thought.
Would Barry Bonds have hit 73 home runs in 2001 without steroids?
Probably not, IMO.
Would Barry Bonds have broken Hank Aaron's record without steroids?
Probably not, IMO.
But from the point of view of your campaign, hanging your hat on this is sort of self-defeating, because we don't really know what Bonds would have done if you put him a hard core weight training and fish milkshake program and take out the PEDs. 59? 61? 52? 711? 687? If steroids helped him hit an extra 12 homers in 2001, well, that is just a number.
Being as how Bonds's home run rate skyrocketed after 1998, it's a pretty fair assumption that steroids did a lot more to pad his total than a diet of fish milkshakes would have, being that he was already doing the weights to the max---aided of course by steroids.
You are better off focusing on the moral aspects, because if you don't care, as you claim, whether Bonds ends 2007 with 753 HRs or 756 HRs, that is what it's about.
But the moral aspect is independent of the questions I posed, just as the answers to those questions are independent of the moral issue. An honest Bonds defender would simply answer the questions by saying, "Yes, and what of it? Players have been cheating since 1845." The Treder position, IIRC. Which glides by the distinctive elements of steroids, but is at least internally coherent and consistent.
No, but we had the spectacle of one of OJ's pals renewing his law license and "joining" his legal team for the purpose of removing himself from the prosecution's witness list. The same man is is heavily suspected of disposing of OJ's golf bag and the blood-soaked clothes inside. If true, that's a whole lot skeevier in the morality department than refusing to open a left fielder's medicine cabinet.
Likewise the moral spectrum of Barry vs. OJ. That's like comparing Don Mattingly and Mike Tyson because they each enjoyed a quick snack in the middle of their contest.
If I had to refine the Barry-OJ comparison, or abandon it, I'd choose the latter. It's just silly, and it's indicative of anti-Bonds hysteria and not a lot else. Bonds won't be accused of viciously murdering Hank Aaron's HR total.
As for specifics:We're not talking about some abstract indictment, like for failing to pay his income taxes. We're talking about him being indicted for steroid use. (Actually, we're talking about being indicted for perjury over whether he knowingly used steroids, but the necessary predicate of that perjury charge is that he knowingly used steroids.) Note that if you just listen to the anti-Bonds extremists, you'll hear plenty of people who want him suspended right now even without an indictment.
EddieA:Sheesh, will you drop it? This wasn't a poll from their internet site. It was a regular poll. Telephone poll, randomly chosen respondents, all that.
Andy:As I explained to Eddie, it was. Conducted by a polling company and all that.
You don't see it because you have complete blinders on the subject of steroids. They could think that steroids didn't help, or that steroid use wasn't against the rules, or they could just not care about steroids any more than you do about spitballs, even though spitballs were against the rules.
That is not the only honest position. Another one is the position that some posit Bonds took:
He saw what McGwire and Sosa did in 1998, and concluded that, since it was very obvious to him that they were juicing, it had to be obvious to everyone else, and nobody seemed to really give a damn. A reporter found a bottle of androstenedione, and got shouted down, when everyone had to know that Mac and Sammy were doing a hell of a lot more than that. If they could do it, and become national heroes, than why shouldn't he? Why should there be a different standard applied to him than to those guys?
I'm not saying that this is what happened. I am not saying that this was Barry's thought process. I am saying that it is feasible, and represents another honest form of defense.
Right. "Pretty fair assumptions" are not really what this should be about, though, IMO. And if you focus on the NUMBERS, that's all you are bringing to the table.
being that he was already doing the weights to the max--
I don't know enough about Bonds' training program to make this judgment. It is certainly possible that you are correct, but I also think it is possible for guys to ratchet up training programs in other ways. I have done so myself without either Bonds' time or resources and got much, much bigger, in my 30s. Yes, I know there are any number of differences between me and a world-class athlete.
But the moral aspect is independent of the questions I posed, just as the answers to those questions are independent of the moral issue.
I disagree. Nothing that comes off your keyboard is independent of the moral issue, and these questions certainly are not. If they were, there would be no need to ask them.
Bonds almost certainly did use, and the steroids almost certainly did help him. But quantifying that is trickier than people are willing to admit, which is why I think the numbers are not the thing to focus on.
Andy, among others, has compared Bonds to Nixon, and the more I see and hear of Bonds and of the debate that rages on around him, the more I buy the analogy. In that context, McGwire is Kennedy and Sosa is LBJ, I guess.
And David, I hate to play lawyer on you this time, but within the context of the two questions I posed, "bogus" simply means "wouldn't have happened without steroids." "Not caring" or "wasn't against the rules" doesn't enter into this, only "they could think that steroids didn't help." Which is absurd, but not inconsistent.
Gonfalon, of course steroids aren't murder. You know that, I know that, and you know that I know that. The only point of comparison, but it's certainly a true one, is that in both cases there are certain people who wilfully choose not to draw conclusions that the rest of the world, unencumbered by blinders, can see. In both cases, their mantra is "not proven." And with OJ's "alleged" crime and Bonds's "alleged" juicing, they are more interested in winning their case (understandably so) than they are at arriving at the truth. The heinousness of the two acts has nothing to do with the comparison, only the disingenousness of the respective defense teams.
Andy,
that's not what the word "bogus" means. HTH.
What you wrote presumed it was a form of cheating, that everyone knew it was cheating, and that it was okay because players have been cheating since 1845, and as long as they get away with it (i.e., nobody knows it is happening), it is okay within the rubric of the game.
What I wrote presumes that it is NOT cheating, because it presumes that everybody damn well knew that Sosa and McGwire were doing it, and nobody yelled, "Hey, those guys are cheating" or did anything else about it.
Among the majority who think OJ is guilty, the debate is pretty much this: prison, or the gas chamber? With the majority who think Bonds did steroids, you have a large, gradated menu of nuanced feelings and opinions. For that reason alone, it's already a useless analogy. And that's before the baggage enters into it.
Disingenuousness of the defense? It's a bit disingenuous for you to pretend t'was merely a limited, academic observation, and that no one should infer any attendant resemblance as "pariahs."
I mean, you've said it's a desperate reach to compare Barry Bonds to Gaylord Perry. But O.J. Simpson is an parallel worth considering? I'd have to call that premise "not proven."
What you wrote presumed it was a form of cheating, that everyone knew it was cheating, and that it was okay because players have been cheating since 1845, and as long as they get away with it (i.e., nobody knows it is happening), it is okay within the rubric of the game.
What I wrote presumes that it is NOT cheating, because it presumes that everybody damn well knew that Sosa and McGwire were doing it, and nobody yelled, "Hey, those guys are cheating" or did anything else about it.
There isn't any such presumption at all in what you wrote, though you may have intended it that way. The only presumption is that "everyone was doing it"---and millions of cheaters and law violators use that same excuse every day, knowing full well that what they were doing was illegal, or "cheating," regardless of whether or not someone happened to yell, "hey, you guys are cheating" in their ears. But in any case, both are equally valid (or invalid) positions.
And Gonfalon, I swear just for your sake I'll never mention OJ again, even though I used the parallel only to exhibit the generic defense posture of wilful blindness, perhaps along the same lines I exhibit myself when I think that Clemens didn't throw that bat on purpose.
I did intend it that way. The thought was that everyone knew what these guys were doing, and nobody stood up and said, "this is wrong". This is different from saying "everybody does it," because guys only say that when they get caught doing something wrong. Here, Sosa and McGwire weren't saying, "so we cheated, but everybody does it." Rather, nobody was saying they cheated, even though everyone knew they were doing steroids.
Of course, not everyone knew they were doing steroids, although I think (a) a lot of people suspected and (b) many savvy observers, possibly including Bonds, did not just suspect, but were absolutely convinced.
perhaps along the same lines I exhibit myself when I think that Clemens didn't throw that bat on purpose.
Of course he threw the bat on purpose. It's not like it slipped out of his hands while he was taking a practice swing on the mound.
What he did not do was look at the broken bat in his hand, and (a) decide that the appropriate thing to do was to try to hit Piazza with it or (b) reflexively threw it at Piazza in some fit of mindless berserker rage. Anyone who says otherwise is either a troll, or a rabid and partisan, and can safely be ignored.
You should do whatever you wish. I was just saying that the OJ analogy comes with layers of ancillary negativity that I can't imagine you were unaware of.
Me, I compare Barry Bonds to Michael Jackson, for the simple reason that each of them had early career guidance from his father.
Either that, or I link Bonds with Timothy McVeigh, because both men made their points by using fertilizer.
You should do whatever you wish. I was just saying that the OJ analogy comes with layers of ancillary negativity that I can't imagine you were unaware of.
For whatever reason, I had assumed that within this rather small closed circle of people who more or less know each other's working philosophies, people would realize that the comparison was to the nature of the defense strategies, not to the nature of the crimes. I wouldn't be making such comparisons on television, because I know that in the wider many world people just wait for "gotcha" moments like that. Which is one of the lesser reasons why you'll never see me on television.
And as for you, I now see that you're comparing Bonds to a child molester and a mass murderer, so let's just call it even....
obviously should read "in the wider world many people..."
I can't believe your mind would immediately go to the mass murder, instead of focusing on the central "fertilizer/B.S." comparison. Negative bias! And your Jackson sidebar is even worse; the man was exonerated!
(Er, post #93 was a joke...)
So now you think child molesting and wholesale killing is something to joke about....
But then we're all child molesters / murderers / fertilizer salesmen here, anyway. Not that there's anything wrong with that.