One More Thing About Bonds
While watching the Dodgers pitchers throw gingerly to Barry Bonds as he attempted to tie Babe Ruth's all-time home run record (not that I can blame them as three of the at-bats were with the outcome of the game in question), he was walked twice. The nice folks at ESPN displayed a graphic that no one in history has been walked as much as Barry has. Nearly 2,600 times (by comparison, Babe Ruth was walked just over 2,000 times). Over 650 of those were intentional.
Let me put that in perspective for you: Let's say a player plays in all 162 games and bats 4 times per game. That's 648 times to the plate. In effect, Barry Bonds has spent one entire season with the catcher standing outside the batter's box and the pitcher lobbing it to him outside the range of his bat.
Going with the other number, that's over four years of at-bats just walking to first base.
And, let's just say that it was only the intentional walks (sure, walks happen in baseball) we adjusted numbers for...at his current pace of one home-run for every 7 plate appearances, that's nearly 95 more home runs that would be on his total. So, even if he was juiced in 2001 (when he hit 73 home runs, another record--and, by the way, he's been in the 35-45 homer range each season since around '92, excepting the injury riddled 2005 season...and dropping significantly the last two seasons--ahem, very much like Henry Aaron did in '74-'76, when those three seasons accounted for 42 total homers combined, hence, I suggest is more the end result of 22 seasons in the bigs rather than stopping the suspected steriod use), that 95 home runs more than offsets the 30 or so "extra" ones he'd gotten in 2001 if he were juiced.
The numbers speak for themselves.
And Bonds numbers should stand, without an asterisk. And, let's say he's found guilty of HGH or whatever at some point in the future...then asterisk his 2001 numbers (and any other year he's found guilty), but the career numbers should stand. That's a healthy compromise, wouldn't you say? I mean, you didn't hear MLB's management doing anything during the years McGwire/Bonds/Sosa were chasing Maris and filling up ballparks and enhancing TV ratings. Any failure to take measures to prevent steriod use/abuse lies squarely at the feet of MLB, and as long as Bonds was within the rules in place at the time in question, he shouldn't be penalized for that.
Just stating the case, folks.
While watching the Dodgers pitchers throw gingerly to Barry Bonds as he attempted to tie Babe Ruth's all-time home run record (not that I can blame them as three of the at-bats were with the outcome of the game in question), he was walked twice. The nice folks at ESPN displayed a graphic that no one in history has been walked as much as Barry has. Nearly 2,600 times (by comparison, Babe Ruth was walked just over 2,000 times). Over 650 of those were intentional.
Let me put that in perspective for you: Let's say a player plays in all 162 games and bats 4 times per game. That's 648 times to the plate. In effect, Barry Bonds has spent one entire season with the catcher standing outside the batter's box and the pitcher lobbing it to him outside the range of his bat.
Going with the other number, that's over four years of at-bats just walking to first base.
And, let's just say that it was only the intentional walks (sure, walks happen in baseball) we adjusted numbers for...at his current pace of one home-run for every 7 plate appearances, that's nearly 95 more home runs that would be on his total. So, even if he was juiced in 2001 (when he hit 73 home runs, another record--and, by the way, he's been in the 35-45 homer range each season since around '92, excepting the injury riddled 2005 season...and dropping significantly the last two seasons--ahem, very much like Henry Aaron did in '74-'76, when those three seasons accounted for 42 total homers combined, hence, I suggest is more the end result of 22 seasons in the bigs rather than stopping the suspected steriod use), that 95 home runs more than offsets the 30 or so "extra" ones he'd gotten in 2001 if he were juiced.
The numbers speak for themselves.
And Bonds numbers should stand, without an asterisk. And, let's say he's found guilty of HGH or whatever at some point in the future...then asterisk his 2001 numbers (and any other year he's found guilty), but the career numbers should stand. That's a healthy compromise, wouldn't you say? I mean, you didn't hear MLB's management doing anything during the years McGwire/Bonds/Sosa were chasing Maris and filling up ballparks and enhancing TV ratings. Any failure to take measures to prevent steriod use/abuse lies squarely at the feet of MLB, and as long as Bonds was within the rules in place at the time in question, he shouldn't be penalized for that.
Just stating the case, folks.
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