Letters to the Editor
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Aaron
Perhaps the best part of the Barry Bonds circus was that it reminded us of what a class act Hank Aaron is.
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Will we asterisk everyone else's records from 1991 on, too?
Conservative estimates place steroid use in baseball during the '80s and '90s at 40%. Some estimates place it as high as 70%. Are we going to asterisk all those division, league, and world championships? All the pitching records? Give me a break. Major League Baseball created an atmosphere that demanded faster pitches and bigger homeruns, and turned a blind eye to how the players delivered. Let's say Bonds was juicing (I mean, come on, how much muscle did he add?). So what? Until the 21st century, non-steroid enhancements weren't even banned or tested for. Bonds never tested positive. His nearest competitors have all admitted to using some form of enhancement (as well), and he still beat them.
Bonds had, before the time frame he is alleged (I'm convinced, but the man's not convicted of squat except in the court of public opinion) to have used enhancement drugs, already secured his position in the Hall of Fame with banner offensive and defensive seasons. Bonds is, by dint of walks per season, on-base percentage, slugging, and, yes, home runs, the single most effective offensive player in baseball. So what if he's an ass? That's grounds for encouraging your kids to adopt other role models, not for diminishing his accomplishments.
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the thing about the future is it hasn't happened yet
Condoleeza Rice is the only person in the world still using the phrase "Noone could have predicted". For this, & other good reasons, we should all raise our middle fingers in salute every time she manifests.
If I make 10,000 predictions some of them will come true. Then I can make a living as a seer by only telling people about those that worked out. And if we we make a million guesses, more will work out.
But sure, there will still be unpredicted events. Just not unimaginable, simply because nobody predicted that say, ARod would be called to Scientology like Michael Jordan was called to baseball. Or that gorillas could be taught to throw sliders, or horse-human hybrids to play outfield. After all, Frances the talking mule was out there 50 years ago.
So I'll make a short term & serious prediction: The fun drain on baseball will start to affect attendance within 2 years. Fancy stadiums, nostalgia & pseudoparticipation through stats and chat can't support a boring, ethically compromised game forever. Another prediction: David Ortiz will wreck his knee, retire, and replace David Letterman.
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Aaron
I love Hank but wasn't that a bit creepy last night? (his Big Bro is watching speech?)
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Had_enough revisionist history
Bonds was a "journeyman hitter before he started juicing"? By the end of the 2000 season he had won 3 MVP awards and had already hit 494 HR's if he had retired then he would have been 23rd on the all time list. He was a sure fire hall of famer before he, in all probability, started juicing, and unless they prove he has failed a drug test since 2004 he is a sure fire hall of famer now.
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@ Mike Re: Fantasy baseball
If I said what you say I said, you'd have a point. But I didn't. Nowhere in my comments did I say, or even suggest, that fantasy baseball is "the root of all evil in baseball." I didn't say that, because I don't believe that it is the case. I merely believe that it is an unhealthy influence, (regardless of how dorky and dweebish it is). I stated that there is an over-emphasis on of the significance of stats like homers, and there has been for many decades. But that emphasis has grown in the 40+ years that I've been around, and influences like fantasy baseball only help to increase that influence, even if it's primarily in the minds of the fans.
Just for the record, I agree with you about the worth of Bonds vs. Eckstein to a team. I wouldn't agree with the "100 Ecksteins" part, but the difference "in reality" is significant anyway. However, fantasy baseball exaggerates and inflates that difference (hence your "100 Ecksteins" point), and that's why I don't like it. Well, that, and the fact that it's so dorky and dweebish. But Eckstein has a couple of rings, and Bonds doesn'thave any. And Eckstein himself is a big reason why he has one, and Bonds himself is a big reason why he doesn't, and fantasy baseball doesn't account for those factors. Fantsay baseball is just that: fantasy.
I will offer to "clarify" my opinion of baseball's situation like this: If baseball is a beached whale, with a bunch of sharks and fish feeding on it, fantasy baseball is only one of those fish, and a small one at that. It's not "the root of all evil," nor is it a "huge" problem. But it's not helping, either. It's one relatively minor problem alongside all the major problems. Speaking of problems, don't even get me started with sports talk radio....
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Come on, King
Honestly, I'm not playing dumb here ... What I'm saying is there's no proof that the cause of his success has been steroid use ... He started using steroids and his home run totals went up. Also, 9/11 happened. Correlation does not equal causation.
Respectfully, King, I think you are playing dumb, because that's a terrible arguement. Yes, 9/11 (and plenty of other things) correlated with Bonds' surge, but the terrorists didn't fly the planes into the buildings in order to improve Barry Bonds' performance. Yet that's the exact specific reason that Bonds took steriods. The "correlation doesn't equal causation" argument isn't worth much when the suspected cause was undertaken deliberately for the purpose of creating the effect, and when it's reasonable to believe that the two are related. (This isn't praying for rain, after all.) It may be true that steriods have never been scientifically proven to improve performance, but players wouldn't have continually put so much of that crap in their bodies if they hadn't seen some pretty persuasive evidence that it works. That's not conclusive proof, but this isn't a criminal court, and you'd have to have a pretty big stick up your ass not to give it a lot of weight.
The only strong reason I can see for doubting the effectiveness of steriods is that other players may have taken just as much and not seen the same improvement in performance. But that inconsistency, if it exists, isn't nearly as persuasive to me as what we know of Canseco, McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, etc.