Barry Bonds can't control the media hype. Forget all that crap and just watch him play baseball. He's the most dominating figure in sports right now.
Baseball has a history that stretches back over a century of play. In that entire time, only two players have ever hit more homers than Barry Bonds has. With this homer, he not only tied for third on this list with his godfather and idol - he is now behind only Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth. 660 is a really significant homerun - far more significant than 600 or 700.
Why so down on celebrating? It's fun man. We should celebrate more achievemnts in our lives. Not less.
I would say 'probably' on the first two ... being someone who is just trying to get back into baseball after about 15 years of not caring, I don't know the story on Boone. The point is, I don't know of anyone ever accusing Ruth, Aaron, or Mays of doing steroids. I think you can be pretty confident in saying they didn't. Hell, just look at their bodies. If baseball isn't going to make any effort to curb the use of steroids, and no players are going to come out against it, you have to assume all records are tainted. IMO. It's not only steroids - it could be a juiced ball, small parks, whatever. Home runs started exploding at one point in time in the 90s. Ever since then, every power record has been b.s. in my mind. Is it just coincidence that no one came close to 60 HRs until the 90s? Did hitters just all of a sudden get better? I remember George Foster hitting 51 in like '81 or whatever, and thinking how amazing that was. I can't believe I care about the Rockets so little that I'm forced to get into this stupid sport again. Ugh.
Griffey at 483. If he just had the last 3 years back. Shame. He'd be at around 603 right now. The Chase would be on.
Bonds didn't even hit more Homers than his two closest competitors. Ruth hit more than whole teams. Any records in this era of a lower mound, more teams, small parks, juiced balls, and STEROIDS is tainted, IMO. So what if Barry hits 25-20 more homers than ARod?
Well, yeah. Hitters crowd the plate and hit for power going the other way far more than they used to. Used to be, people didn't think you could get any significant power to the other field - now, instead of slicing a pitch down and away for a single - a player like Vladimir Guerrero goes after that pitch and tries to drive it. Enormous advances have also been made in weight training, and that helps hitters a great deal more than it helps pitchers. Finally, baseball is cyclical. In the early part of the century baseball was dominated by pitchers like Big Chief Bender, Christy Mathewson, etc, etc. Then two fellows named Carl Mays and Babe Ruth came along - the Mays incident forced baseball to continually keep new balls in play(much easier to see), and Ruth showed people you could be succesful offensively swinging for the fences. For the next couple decades, offense ruled - with the high point in the 30's. Then things began to swing the other way, and pitchers came to the fore - reaching their zenith in the 60's - then things began to slowly swing the other way - smaller parks were opened - batters began to crowd the plate - umps would let them, as they calmly eliminated half the strike zone. In the late 90's the power boom reached the top of the cycle, and since then it has slowly begun to go the other way - new parks being opened are mostly pitcher's park(Pac Bell, Comerica, Safeco, Petco) - and pitchers got their high strikes back - and soon will get the plate back too - and the game will swing back to them.
now that i look at it griffey is more then 5 years younger then bonds. maybe if he can get out of this injury rut he has been in he can catch up. then my 4 upper deck rookie cards will really be worth something.
Don't forget diversity and population and little league and weight training and exposure. All at higher levels. The whole world plays baseball now. Of course you are going to have better hitters and more home runs. The whole world got bigger in the 80's. ****, My cable went from 6 channels to 276 in the last 20 years. And we haven't even added girls yet. It's only going to get better.
It really is a shame what happened to him with all those injuries. He was at 438 after 2000. He was hitting 56 a year in his prime and 40+ in his other good seasons. If you add in 45 a year from 01, 02, and 03, he'd be at 573. He was so good. I'd much rather see him at the top then that A-hole Bonds. Bonds is the best hitter in the game though, maybe ever.
I also doubt they were accused of working out and taking care of their bodies like players do today. Pitchers and hitters alike. The top guys all work hard to remain in good shape. Baseball(all sports actually) will make adjustments to combat the use of performance enhancing drugs. The league can't just break the agreement with the Union. It would be financial suicide to them because we'd be stuck with replacement players again. I think increased awareness of physical fitness coupled with the big contracts for high performance players had the most to do with the offensive explosion. Fitness training in the 70's and even much of the 80's wasn't at the top of alot of peoples priority lists like it is today. Different eras, different times. Ruth was a player like no other. I don't mean to take anything away from the man that changed the game, but today there are dozens of players that likely could have done what he did and possibly even better.
Anyone here listen to the espn radio promos of "The Herd" with Colin Cowherd? "Screw 660, I want to see Bonds hit 666. That's when he rips his face off and reveals that it wasn't the steroids that got him there, it was his undying love and worship of Satan." That had me laughing my ass of in my car a few days ago.
It funny that people use the "look at how the numbers jumped up argument" against Bonds and others of this era but no one ever questions Ruth's ridiculous feats. So you can't use that argument against Bonds if you're not going to use it against Ruth, plus the fact that Ruth and other of his generation benefited from a "juiced" ball compared to the dead ball era and the guys like Aaron were penalized when the mound was raised.
I loved watching the moment he hit 660 when I got home from work last night. Even greater was the fact that the man in McCovey Cove who caught the ball returned it and asked for nothing in return. But what I couldn't stomach was that "Sportscenter" featured not 1, not 2, not 3, but FOUR FULL SEGMENTS to the accomplishment. Sure it was great, but we could have done just as well with a lead off segment, maybe mixed in with a historical perspective segment or round table "Baseball Tonight" style analysis. But 4 full segments? Sheesh... talk about your slow news day! (Even though the NBA playoff picture is taking shape, the NHL playoffs are going on, and the NFL Draft is less than 2 weeks away!)
660 is great, he tied Mayes, but what if he got hurt and never hit another one? He would be tied for third and not alone at third, they should give him more fanfare when he does that.
Oh, and does anyone know the story behind "the torch" "Sportscenter" made it seem like Mays just fashioned it himself as a gesture and placed 25 diamonds on it (Bonds' jersey #) to make it of value. It looked pretty cheesy to me though.
good point pgabriel. Never thought of that before. But definately true. HR's jumped in ruths era too.
