Barry Bonds - hero or villain?

[all_funkt_up]

Always been into my baseball. Used to watch it religiously about 7 years ago. Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and the rest of them were in their pomp. It amused me then that there was controversy about drug taking in the sport and there still is now. You only have to look at the players to think something isnt quite right. The batters are all 6-foot something, fast as fuck and have forearms bigger than my legs and yet they can run the 100 metres sub 12 seconds. Its like American footballers isnt it, they must be on something to *ahem* give them the edge.

Anyway, I have started to tune in again to Sunday night baseball again and saw this article in today's Times. Probably not of interest to the majority of people here but I'll stick it up anyway. The bit about Barry Bond's physical development is very fishy. How someone in their mid 20's can "grow" 3 show sizes is beyond me.

If sport is something akin to a religion, then for Americans, statistics are its liturgy. Walk into any sports bar in the United States and you will immediately be plugged into a conversation that can sound like a mathematics seminar.
The talk will be peppered with references to rates and averages and percentages. The antagonists will debate the relative merits of players not just in reminiscences of a spectacular hit or pass, but through the whole range of completion percentages, quarterback ratings or triple-double frequencies.
No sport reveres its data more than baseball. The US’s national pastime lends itself to the accumulation of vast quantities of statistical facts and records. Some of these are magnificently obscure in their origination – “on-base percentage with runners in scoring positions” springs to mind.
But there are a few numbers that are clear and comprehensible and magnificent in their simplicity, not averages to three decimal places but whole numbers. These records stand like citadels for generations, defying the efforts of even some of the greatest players to breach them. When a player closes in on such a record, the moment becomes a national event.
The most recent occasion was in September 1995, when Cal Ripken, the iron man of the Baltimore Orioles, broke one of the most famous of records – that for consecutive games played. The “Streak” as it is known, had stood for 56 years at an astonishing 2,130 games – 15 seasons without a missed game – and was held by the legendary Lou Gehrig, of the New York Yankees.
That September night 12 years ago, when history was in the making, President Bill Clinton and Vice-President Al Gore showed up in the stadium; fireworks lit up the sky. At the end of the game there were appearances and speeches from the glitterati of baseball, politics and entertainment. Ripken’s teammates even presented him with a rock that weighed 2,131lb.
Some time in the next month, barring something unforeseeable, an even greater record, a more hallowed number, will fall.
The most home runs scored in a career is probably the most revered statistic in American sport. It has been held for the past 34 years by Hank Aaron, of the Atlanta Braves and the Pittsburgh Pirates, who hit 755 homers in a span that ended in 1974. But now Barry Bonds, a 42-year old outfielder for the San Francisco Giants, is only 11 home runs away from immortality. At his present pace of homers – about one every three games – he should beat Aaron’s record before the traditional mid-season July 4 summer break.
When Bonds finally hits that iconic 756, however, there will be little official fanfare. There will be no President there to greet him; none of the top men who run the sport will shake his hand. Giants fans will doubtless go wild, but if it happens in a stadium other than his own, the likely reaction to this solemn moment in sporting history will be a deafening chorus of boos.
Bonds’s problem is that, even as he chases the greatest record in his sport he is being pursued by intensifying investigations into allegations that he is doing it by cheating.
Federal investigators are examining his role in the widening scandal of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (Balco), a medical equipment company that has been implicated in providing performance-enhancing drugs to a number of athletes. Bonds has been accused of perjury before a Grand Jury investigation of the company. And he is a leading target of an official baseball inquiry by George Mitchell, the former senator who helped to broker a peace deal in Northern Ireland.
Bonds has always denied knowingly taking steroids, but the fact is, no one believes him. The circumstantial evidence against him is compelling. In the first 15 years of his career, Bonds was impressive but not necessarily the stuff of legends.
From the age of 22 to 35, the most productive period of any sportsman’s career, he averaged a home run every 16 times he went to home plate. But after 35, when most players’ power wanes, he accelerated his big-hitting capability, averaging a home run every nine at-bats.
These numbers are amplified by more visibly verifiable data. According to Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, two reporters who wrote Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, Balco, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports, a member of the Giants staff testified that since Bonds joined the team in 1993, the size of his uniform jersey has gone from 42 to 52, his hat size had increased by half an inch and his shoe size has changed from 10½ to 13. You do not manage that simply by working out a lot harder.
Bonds is not alone. A number of other players have been similarly accused, but Bonds is the only one soon to enter baseball history.
The imminence of the record-breaking moment is not only awkward for baseball but also a source of deep embarrassment to the sport’s organisers. Although some would surely like to, they can take no action against him, to stop him taking his place in the record books, because the drugs he is accused of taking were not forbidden by baseball authorities.
And as with most American controversies, this is not only about sport. Bonds contends that the reason he is so despised and denounced is that he is black. Although it is an absurd claim to make, baseball does have a sorry history on race relations, having been a whites-only sport until the 1940s. And it is worth noting that when Aaron took the home run record 34 years ago, the moment was marred by an avalanche of hate mail and racist threats that went his way because he wasalso black.
There have been rumours for weeks that before Bonds gets to the magic number, something or someone will intervene. Perhaps the federal prosecutors will step in just in time with charges; perhaps he can be persuaded, in one redeeming act, to retire short of the number.
Neither seems very likely to happen. There is not even much hope that the Bonds record will not stand for very long; the athletes in the home-run charts are untainted by steroid scandals but are well behind the front-runner. For the time being, though, as Bonds chalks up his last few home runs before the big one, baseball – and a nation – can only look away in embarrassment.
Hitting the big time
Only three men have achieved more than 700 home runs: Aaron (755), Bonds (745) and Babe Ruth (714). Here are the players in contention to join that club . . .
596: Sammy Sosa, 38, Texas Rangers
569: Ken Griffey Jr, 37, Cincinnati Reds
491: Frank Thomas, 38, Toronto Blue Jays
479: Álex RodrÍguez, 31, New York Yankees
477: Jim Thome, 36, Chicago White Sox
476: Manny Ramirez, 34, Boston Red Sox
Heroes Americans wouldn’t swap
Ichiro Suzuki (Seattle Mariners)
Hits in a season George Sisler’s record of 257 hits in a season stood for 84 years until the Japanese showed that an “outsider” could capture the American imagination by reaching 262 in 2004. The Japanese Prime Minister congratulated Suzuki, as did Sisler’s family after flying to see the historic hit.
Cal Ripken Jr (Baltimore Orioles)
Consecutive games played The record-breaking 2,131st consecutive game played by the “Iron Man”, in 1995, was voted the most memorable moment in MLB history. “The Streak” reached 2,632 after passing the 56-year-old mark set by Lou Gehrig, whose run was ended by the disease named after him that claimed his life.
Joe DiMaggio (New York Yankees)
Hits in successive games Marilyn Monroe’s second husband recorded hits in 56 straight games in 1941 to surpass Willie Keeler’s 1897 record of 44. Wartime radio broadcasts were interrupted to report hits and the song Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio reached No 1 as the United States found the hero it craved in troubled times.

[GaNgStA kEeKs]

Its a strange one really isn't it.

I was watching one of the MLB shows and a guy made a good point that although the drugs may help him a little bit that with or without them Bonds would've hit just as many home runs.

You have to have the quality to get into it. Its not like i could go take the drugs and become the MLB quality player overnight. Your born with that talent and its a shame how good a hitter he is, is being overshadowed by this.

Its like drugs in football isn't it? It might make you run that bit better but its not going to teach you a new trick or improve your talent.

[all_funkt_up]

I agree Kiko, to be a good player you need to have many elements. However if a player had the eye and the swing for baseball but not the physicalities, then a course of steriods could make up for their deficiencies.

I read the other way that Bjarne Riise admitted to taking EPO during his Tour De France wins.

Everyone's at it, probably a case of those that get caught and those that dont.

[rcgills]

Originally Posted by all_funkt_up

I read the other way that Bjarne Riise admitted to taking EPO during his Tour De France wins.

I think it's more newsworthy these days if a cyclist turns out not to be taking anything, isn't it?

[all_funkt_up]

Well he took his bloody time, but 2 1/2 months later he has hit number 755. I watched the game against the Padres on NASN this afternoon.

One more and the record is his own. Shame that a blatant cheat has now achieved the milestone of 755 home runs. Hopefully he gets number 756 out of the way sharpish so we see games from teams other than the Giants. They're all over NASN at the moment, as the producers obviously didnt want to miss the milestone event.

[rene]

HERO... Barry Bonds strikes again!!

miss the MLB for a few weeks.. is he in the hall of fame now

[all_funkt_up]

He's a fat, cheating, steroid taking cunt.

He will never make the hall of fame.

[GaNgStA kEeKs]

As much as it may seem he has cheated he has never tested positive in a drugs test.

NOT GUILTY.....Until proven otherwise

[all_funkt_up]

Cunt - until proven otherwise

[rene]

He's a fat, cheating, steroid taking cunt.

He will never make the hall of fame.

you don´t like the Giants AFU ?? It seems so ..

He make a great job - try to do it AFU and Kiko, if you get it you´re better and Bonds is a fat boy but as long as you try .. Bonds is better than you

[all_funkt_up]

I dont mind the Giants. If I had to choose a team it would be the Atlanta Braves - but nah I have nothing against the Giants. Just that cheating cunt Bonds.

Oh, did I mention, he's a CUNT

[rene]

The 'A's .. not bad AFU not bad.


For me I like the Padres and the Mets aren´t bad.. but both in the NL and I can´t decide what team is the better one for me!

On the AL side the Sox (Boston and Chicago) aren´t bad for me.

[all_funkt_up]

I like the Mets too Rene. Anyone bar the LA Dodgers and the Yankees - because of their association with Manchester United.

[rene]

Yankees are too commercial I think .. imo you have to love the game not the clothes

Dodgers with Mr. Lowe isn´t bad right but a direct opponent in the NL West of the San Diego Padres and BigWells or M.Peavy

[bonehead]

Originally Posted by Kiko

As much as it may seem he has cheated he has never tested positive in a drugs test.

NOT GUILTY.....Until proven otherwise

That's the funniest thing you've ever said Kiko. The guy's fucking head expanded in his late 30's, he went up two helmet sizes in a year. I think that's proof enough he was on something. The only reason he never failed a test was because they never had test in MLB until a couple of years ago. Anyway, this will all mean fuck all in a few years when A-Rod hits his 800th home run.