My Arguments for Barry Bonds

[Penguinfan]

Sorry man, Bonds openly cheated, CHEATED and he put the asterisk there, nobody else. You can't say that people back then COULD have been cheating, you have no evidence to accuse them with, the evidence against Bonds is clear and present. I agree the media is against him, something else he brought on himslef. I wouldn't worry if your a Bonds fan though, MLB and the spineless Bud Selig will do nothing. In my opinion this makes the HR record useless now, completely useless. I would feel the same way if it were Sammy Sosa though, who knows how many of those blasts came with a corked bat? Again with him we have proof.

[BlackCoffee]

Who cares about records. All records are useless. North America is waaaay to big about records. Gretzky holds the record for 92 goals in a season. Who cares if anyone ever breaks it. People make a big deal about nothing. It about wins and championships and Bonds still has no ring.

[Penguinfan]

You would be correct to a certain extent. It is all measured by championships, yes that's true, but everything else has value as well. I am a gigantic Lemieux fan, but those 92 goals Gretzky put up is still one of the most impressive feats in sports. Every year ONE team get to win a championship in any sport, we need another reason to watch the games and individual accomplishments count. Why would certain players be fan favorites if all that mattered were championships, you would just be a fan of a team and not a certan player. The records matter, and for that reason they should be respected, not obtained by cheating, that is what would render them useless.

[TajaUk]

I am a massive Giants fan. I have watched them lots and lots of times whenever I got back to San Fran.

The main reason I go back to watch them is Bonds. I dont give two hoots about anything else as long as he entertains me.

North American "sports" aint really sports anyway, its all about TV schedules , entertinment and making wedge.

They could stop all the drug taking in Baseball very easily, just tell the players to take mandatory drug tests before games, but NO they might upset the players union and they might go on strike! Virtually no other country would tolerate this player power, America has totally lost the plot and has let this situation where cheats can prosper and win! *until recently the US atheltics team were famous for covering up positive tests, but the TV and public didnt care they wanted to see winners. Unless the public demand the sports clean and make the players do something, or they let the current situation continue and people accept cheats prosper in baseball.


If you want to see a fair sports game then go watch the local soccer games in the park.

[jillaj]

Barry is a putz. Does he really think the public is as dumb as he is? He looks roided out and has been since he found his power stroke.

[BlackCoffee]

Even without cheating, I already render records useless unless they have to do with wins and losses. I agree with you that there needs to be individuality in sports. You can be a fan of a player because of his great skill and talent or his personality not because of his 'numbers'. Cubs fans know that Sosa hits the most useless home runs in the world. He may get 60 in a season but 40 of them are when the games are 10-0. Gretzky's 92 goals isn't as impressive as you think. They were winning games 8-2 and the team was amazing. Hull and Lemieux scored 86 on lesser teams. And Selanne scoring 76 as a rookie for a crap Winnipeg team was just sick.

The US has gone stats crazy. Last year, I was watching the Giants/Dodgers/Astros pennant/wildcard races and they kept showing Ichiro trying break a record for a dead last-place team. Ridiculous.

Stats are for fantasy geeks only

[omahilo]

Bonds also DENIED using steroids after saying that stuff to the grand jury that he had to know was going to come out eventually.

[parskynhutch]

How could steroids not have had an impact on his hitting? He hits 73 dingers at age 37? He's constantly hitting 45+ since?

[Kidd7138]

"First, and it is true, he is playing against pitchers that are also juiced up. In the days of Ruth and Maris guys would be throwing 70-90 MPH fastballs, today they are in the mid 90s, often throwing 3 or four other pitches to complement their blazing fastballs."

I think you're seriously overstating the difference in pitchers repertoire's from the early days of baseball to today. Pitchers weren't throwing 75 mph heaters back in the day, and steroids is not the kind of thing that would magically add 5-10 mph on somebody's fastball, pitchers use them more for injury recovery and to delay the aging process which a pitcher's arm goes through. Offensive feats from guys like Maris in the 60's and surrounding time periods are impressive because that was a period absolutely dominated by pitching.

"Cubs fans know that Sosa hits the most useless home runs in the world. He may get 60 in a season but 40 of them are when the games are 10-0."

I really hope you don't actually believe that Sammy Sosa hit 2/3 of his home runs in largely meaningless situations.