madlee wrote:I calculated and adjusted his total for the years of steroid usage. I have him at 660 HRs at this point in his career. He would be top 10 but not #1 without steroids.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/b/bondsba01.shtml

prior to steroids, he was hitting around 30 HRs a season. I even gave him 30 for the last few non steroid, injury plagued years.

30 HRs x 22 seasons = 660.

Where's the Alex Sanchez outrage?

Christopher J. McGarvey wrote:

Germ War wrote:We can all, of course, overlook the fact that homerun #755 was hit off a pitcher who was busted for steroid use.

What about the fact that he hit 756 off a pitcher from The Nationals?

Lemuel Gulliver wrote:Sometimes the parodies write themselves.

Mike Bacsik, the pitcher who made the difficult and admirable decision to pitch to Bonds as if he were a normal player, and who will forever be known as the man whose fastball was sent out of the park along with the last remnant of baseball's self-respect, could only watch. Bonds would later present Bacsik with an autographed bat.

Bonds then presented his helmet, gloves, and bat to a steward of the Baseball Hall of Fame for shipment to Cooperstown, where they will be enshrined forever, allowing fathers and sons to come and stare at them glumly as they bear mute witness to baseball's diminished glory.

The Nationals won the game, 8-6.

As soon as Bonds completed his self-congratulation, a self-conscious gasp could be heard as a videotaped message from Hank Aaron was played over the video screen, sending surprise and a fleeting moment of uncomfortable self-awareness through both the crowd and Bonds himself.

"I move over now and offer my best wishes to Barry and his family on this historic achievement," Aaron concluded, displaying infinitely more grace than Bonds, baseball fans, and perhaps even baseball itself had any right to ask of him.

Germ War wrote:I think Gareth Keenan said it best.

As I'm not convinced Bonds was the only player using performance-enhancing drugs, I don't believe his accomplishments really "stain" the game the way people believe. Does it make it right? No. But, the fact remains that the huge presence of the media in this day and age makes it easy to skew your perception of a player, rightly or wrongly, and one has to wonder how that media influence would translate in a historical context.

I'm not suggesting Barry Bonds isn't an asshole. I am suggesting that he played within the limits of the game, and if anything, the steroid scandal is baseball's fault. Barry had a competitive advantage available to him (as did any other player, if they so chose), and he took it, all within the rules and guidelines allowed by the league.

Does it diminish his achievement? Possibly. But he owns the record, and as far as I'm concerned, the steroid era was a level playing field, simply by baseball's negligence for having established rules in place.

Long story short: Fuck Bud Selig.

madlee wrote:All you bond apologist fucks, esp. bradley, obviously do not respect the game nor probably even know about the death threats that hank aaron got when he broke babe ruth's record.