756 or 756*? A torn fan's dilemma
>> Tuesday
It's said that you can really only feel one of two ways about Barry Bonds, that you love him or hate him. Everyone around McCovey Cove seems to be in praise of Bonds and his pursuit to become baseball's all-time home run king, steroids or no steroids. Everyone on the other side of the fence seems absolutely convinced that Bonds used steroids and as such, he is forever branded as a cheater.
I guess I disprove that theory because I honestly can't decide. But Margaret Thatcher (I'm willing to be that's her first mention on this blog) said that standing in the middle of the road was dangerous because then you'll get knocked down by traffic coming in both directions.
So here's what I think on Bonds, not because you really give a damn what I think. (Christ, people, don't look to sportswriters, much less amateur ones. Make up your own minds.) I'm rather writing this because it will likely be decidedly less relevant once he breaks the record.
First off the case against Bonds. To the un-medical-schooled eye, it's obvious that Bonds has undergone a remarkable physical transformation over his career. However, I'm no doctor. Frankly, as the rest of this staff will attest, I don't know the first thing about body building, unless the building materials involve frozen pizza and beer. So, I can't really tell whether it's steroids or just a really good training program that's kept him in shape all these years. Looking at Bonds' statistics, it's easy to point at his 73-home run total in 2001 when he was allegedly 'roided up, and his 14-game 2005 campaign as a time for him to "clean himself out." However, such an assertion would be pure conjecture. That's the dilemma of the case around Bonds. There seems to be a lot of circumstantial evidence, but nothing hard and fast to point to. No smoking gun as it were. There's a lot of smoke, so it would be reasonable to judge that there's probably a fire somewhere, but that brings us to the second part of our story...
There really is no smoking gun. Hell, other than his '01 73-homer outlier, Bonds has pretty consistently hit 35-45 homers per season both before and after '01 when healthy. Despite that key fact, things look really bad for Bonds in terms of the public eye, and Lord knows his perpetual hostility towards the media has not helped him in this regard. But still, there really isn't any proof that Bonds is undeniably a cheater. There are investigations, subpoenas, and tell-all books, but to the best of my knowledge, there's nothing completely damning so far. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a debate at all. It would be settled fact.
On that front, we have to remember that the mainstream news media, and the mainstream sports media have both jumped the gun before when it looked pretty bad. Oops. Ever since then, whenever serious charges are thrown out (like, Bonds is a cheater) that go to the core of a person's character, we need to demand a higher standard of proof rather than just allegations and circumstantial evidence. However, at the same time, with one of sport's greatest records being threatened, fans feel a need to ask those same tough questions of any dubious claim on the title.
In the end, it's kind of sad, and maybe on a deeper, more pretentious level, it's a microcosm of our public debate in general because both sides are firing accusatory questions past each other, without really taking all the facts into account.
And why should they? Their minds are already made up and nothing is going to change that. Bonds is already the greatest home-run hitter ever, if not the greatest all-around player ever and damn what anyone else thinks. They're just jealous. Bonds is a cheater and a disgrace to the game, and damn any absence of proof. We don't need any.
PS: I included the picture because I thought it was funny.
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5 comments:
Dumbass--don't look at homerun totals. Look at the rates in those seasons. Also look at the fact that he's utterly defied any typical aging curve. On base 60% of the time as a 39 year-old? 50% as a 42 year-old? Come on.
I think the much more important issues that no one wants to talk about are whether PEDs are forever a part of pro sports (the answer to which: yes) and whether that's really so horrible. The real sad part is how often the word "cheater" still pops up in the Bonds debate. We're fixed on approaching this thing like children.
I knew even as I was typing it that HRs weren't the best way to measure it, but I included that stat because no one is really talking about his On Base Percentage. The issue for many people is Home Runs, regardless of whether it's the most appropriate or not.
However, I'm not sure looking at Bonds's OBP is the answer to explain whether he's on steroids or not.
The 60% OBP year in question you brought up (2004), Bonds walked nearly 100 times more than he collected a hit (232 BB/135 H). It was the most walks (by 34) Bonds ever collected over the course of a season in his entire career (and that's saying something since Bonds has led the NL in walks twelve of the last sixteen years). This season, Bonds is once again on pace to collect about 200 walks, a pace that undoubtedly pads his OBP favorably.
Is that evidence showing that pitchers are perhaps afraid to pitch to a 'roided-up Bonds? Probably. I'll even say very very likely, but that's still circumstantial and still no smoking gun, because some of those years include time before Bonds' alleged steroid use.
Has he defied any age scale? Yea, I'm pretty sure of that, but outside of being an NFL kicker, is there any sport that has career longevity like baseball?
You did hit the nail square on the head though with most sports fans seemingly unwilling to believe that baseball players are human like the rest of us, and not some altruistic superhero from a Saturday morning PSA.
Ask most people if they would do what it took to get ahead in their job and I'm willing to bet almost all would admit to it, and the rest would lie. Yet for whatever reason the idea of athletes doing the same thing in their jobs (especially when it wasn't outlawed by MLB at the time) is unthinkable.
The thing that everyone forgets in the whole Barry/Steroid Era debate is that MLB had no official steroid policy until 2002. Post-McGwire, Post-Sosa, Post-Canseco, Post-Bonds-73. While using steroids might have been illegal according to local criminal jurisdiction, in the end, they broke no rules of Major League baseball explicitly banning steroids. You might as well indict a player's character and call them a cheater for speeding to get to the ballpark early for some extra BP.
Did Bonds use steroids? I personally think so, but I have no proof.
Even if he did use steroids, they weren't against MLB's rules at the time, so that can't be held against him.
If I'm way off-base, correct me, but that's what it looks like to me based on what I've seen on the matter.
I was thinking about this recently and thought of something Bob Costas said during a Brewers game last friday night.
Ultimately, people are probably going to have to consider baseball's most well-known record in three eras. The "post-dead ball" era, in which Ruth was king. The "modern era" in which Aaron was consistently great (which, by the way, coincided with the beginning upswing of HR totals and also the beginning of amphetamines in the game -- Aaron is above suspicion on this, a lot of his contemporaries aren't) and the "steroid era" that Bonds dominated.
Another thing I've considered is this: Babe Ruth's original 715 record is meaningless to me. Know why? Babe Ruth NEVER played a game in a league where there were any black players (and very very few, if any, latins). As such, Babe played against an uninclusive and by definition worse talent pool. Am I sure some black or hispanic player could have challenged the mark before Robinson came into the league in '47? No. Is it possible? Absolutely.
For Bonds, my take is basically this: the guy dominated in an era where a lot of great home run hitters and probably a lot of pitchers were on some sort of PEDs. Greenies, steroids, HGH, something. This is not an indictment of everyone, but it's naive not to consider the probability. Now, as such, Bonds should be considered the best player of the era because he was most likely on a level playing field with the guys he played against. Amid roided out guys jacking balls into the stratosphere and throwing 100 mph, Bonds was still clearly the best player. Is he on the same playing field that Aaron played on? No, in Aaron's day the game was probably clean, or at least 'cleaner.' Is he on the same playing field Ruth played on, with fewer players, less of a talent pool and completely different playing conditions? No. In fact, Bonds is playing in probably a tougher environment.
What it boils down to is basically this: in his day, Hank Aaron displayed incredible longevity and massively consistent production. In an era where "if you weren't cheating, you weren't trying," Bonds did the same thing under different circumstances. Yes, he probably cheated, but if he hadn't, it would have been Bonds that would have been at a disadvantage.
What people will have to accept is that until A-Rod breaks the record or if by some ridiculous miracle Griffey gets there before he retires, there are always going to be three home run kings. To think of it only in terms of Bonds holding a record he doesn't deserve is both foolish and shortsighted.
Also, I don't want to get too into the nuts and bolts of this debate, but I don't think the whole outrage of the fan would be this big if say, Jason Giambi or Mark McGwire were breaking the record. Giambi, by all accounts an affable dude that calls people "buddy" has actually more involvement in the legal proceedings on this issue but gets less than half the crap for it from fans that Bonds does. Granted, he's not chasing the most famous record in sports, but if Bonds weren't SUUUUCH a dick, who knows what we'd be saying about this whole issue.
Mike--those walk totals are absolutely the result of pitchers being afraid to challenge him. And it's because of those ridiculous AB/HR ratios he's put up in recent years. And yes, baseball players do enjoy more longevity than other athletes. But even going by league-adjusted measures, he's had his four best seasons after age 36. That's unheard of.
Matt-excellent points all around. Just to pad your argument... Not only did Ruth never face pitchers who threw as hard as the ones Bonds faces, he also never faced the variety and quality of pitches that Bonds has faced. One could argue that both of our objections are offset by the fact that the talent pool--though not as broad or talented as today's--was more concentrated at the major league level (i.e. less teams, less roster spots for pitchers, less innings from scrubs).
But that all gets back to the evolution of the game that make counting numbers and raw averages so utterly meaningless. And it's hilarious that people care so damned much when you consider how unceremoniously we've chucked out single-season and career records established by pre-"modern era" players who played when the game was "different." There's a lot of dead guys who are probably raging pissed about that.
Point is: the game is "different"--for better or for worse, depending on who you ask. Other point is: the homerun record is dumb, and you shouldn't care about it. Done.
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