Bonds/Aaron

[Guest Anglesault]

I was just watching Mike and the Mad Dog.

 

They were talking about some coverage that the Bonds chase was getting on ESPN with one of the head honchos for the network. I don't watch ESPN because those morons on SportsCenter and their goddamn catchphrases piss me off, but I heard something that makes me dislike Barry Bonds even more than I do now.

 

Did Barry Bonds honestly compare the hate mail that Hank Aaron got for being black to the mail that Bonds is getting for juicing?

 

Good LORD what a Jackass.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Well, its hard to say, because I haven't seen the hate mail that Bonds gets. If the average sports fan that writes a letter is anything like the fans I see at games or on talk radio, then I have no doubt there is angry venom in those letters. Given how an offhand quote can turn into a national issue, I wouldn't hold anything against Bonds if he said it. And he might even be right.

[Guest What_ever]

Bonds is such an ass...

 

He's already played the race card on this whole steroids bit... completely ignoring the fact that Giambi is being called out for this also.

 

People like him are the reason a lot of people laugh whenever racism is brought up.

[Guest Anglesault]

Well, its hard to say, because I haven't seen the hate mail that Bonds gets. If the average sports fan that writes a letter is anything like the fans I see at games or on talk radio, then I have no doubt there is angry venom in those letters. Given how an offhand quote can turn into a national issue, I wouldn't hold anything against Bonds if he said it. And he might even be right.

Henry Aaron was getting hate mail for something he couldn't help or change even if he wanted to.

 

Barry Bonds could have very easily kept the needle out of his ass.

 

Hank Aaron didn't deserve what he got. Barry probably does.

[Mik 0]

Am I the only person in the entire world who thinks Bonds didn't take steroids?

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

You're not. I'm not going to presume anything until I have some damn proof.

[Guest Anglesault]

What exactly qualifies as proof? A photo of him sticking the needle in?

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

A positive drug test, and a record of what drugs he took.

[Guest Redhawk]

I don't think you can ignore the race issue, even if Barry isn't 100% accurate. Giambi has received flak, but no where near as much as Bonds. And how come no one ever talks about Bret Boone, Jeff Bagwell and some of the other White sluggers. All I hear about is Bonds, Sosa and Sheffield. And no writer has ever openly challenged Giambi to a piss test.

 

Read this...

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=wiley/040304

[Guest Anglesault]

I don't think you can ignore the race issue, even if Barry isn't 100% accurate. Giambi has received flak, but no where near as much as Bonds.

Giambi also isn't breaking two of baseball's biggest records.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

I don't think you can ignore the race issue, even if Barry isn't 100% accurate. Giambi has received flak, but no where near as much as Bonds. And how come no one ever talks about Bret Boone, Jeff Bagwell and some of the other White sluggers. All I hear about is Bonds, Sosa and Sheffield. And no writer has ever openly challenged Giambi to a piss test.

 

Read this...

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=wiley/040304

Ralph Wiley is an ass. He wrote a column last year pondering the lack of black athletes in baseball. The column included this gem......

 

It is usually the American-born blacks' records and place that are resented instead of celebrated. For example, it's the stolen base that is denigrated as a weapon by baseball sabermaticians like Bill James, at precisely the time when a Rickey Henderson steals 130 bases in a season. There are sour grapes when a baseball man uses stats to tell you a stolen base isn't important. Any time a baseball manager will give up an out for a base, as with a sac bunt or groundball to the right side, any time a base is so precious, then it goes without saying that the stolen base must be important. Not the CS, the caught stealing, or stats of success rates, but the stolen base itself.

 

So Rickey Henderson becomes, in the media and our oral history of the day, a bad guy, "this guy," who did something meaningless, and refers to himself in the third person and, oh yeah (with a decidedly sour look), maybe the best leadoff hitter ever, whatever that means.

 

News for Wiley (I'm sure he heard it many times): Stolen bases ARE overrated, and if Rickey had never stolen a base his entire career, he would STILL be in the HOF.

[Guest Redhawk]

Also, I've never heard anyone suggest an asterisk be put by Mark McGwire's 70, yet even though they've proved nothing, I've heard people call for an asterisk by Bonds' numbers.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Yay..he hit #661..now lets forget about him for a while...please?

[Vern Gagne 0]

Also, I've never heard anyone suggest an asterisk be put by Mark McGwire's 70, yet even though they've proved nothing, I've heard people call for an asterisk by Bonds' numbers.

During the HR chase of '98 I never got why the media didn't call out on McGwire being an ass to reporters. Sammy was always friendly and exited about the chase, McGwire was surely. Very much like Bonds can be at times.

[Guest Anglesault]

Also, I've never heard anyone suggest an asterisk be put by Mark McGwire's 70, yet even though they've proved nothing, I've heard people call for an asterisk by Bonds' numbers.

People have, especially when news came out that he was on whatever he was on. The thing is whatever that shit he was on was legal, while Bonds would be on something illegal.

 

I'd personally give it back to Maris.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Figures. I was going to come out with a single season home run chart, with asteriks next to every single name. Including Ruth's.

[lomasmoney 0]

why Ruth.... juiced balls back then or something

[Damaramu 0]

I don't worry about Bonds.

Because if ARod keeps up his production that he is now and plays till he's 40 something he'll easily pass Aaron and Bonds.

If Bonds makes the record he will not hold onto it for long.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

why Ruth.... juiced balls back then or something

 

Corked bats.

[sfaJack 0]

Wasn't Yankee Stadium only like 295 down the right field line in Ruth's day as well?

[The Man in Blak 0]

McGwire was on Andro, IIRC, during the home run chase and he got quite a lot of negative publicity for his usage in '98.

 

As far as Bonds is concerned...I highly recommend everybody to check out this article, which has a lot of scientific discussion as to how steroids could impact Barry Bonds' performance. I'll highlight a very important section of it here:

 

If he's using performance enhancing drugs, how could we tell?  A number of ways really, but none are what one could call defining.

 

First, obviously, he'd hit the ball farther.  The added strength from the muscle mass increase would turn what were once flyball outs into home runs, very much like the effect the thin air has on balls at Coors Field.  While it'd be hard to measure how many flyball outs are now home runs, we would see a difference in length of his home runs.  If someone were hitting the ball farther, we'd expect him to show up on the longest home runs of the year more often.  In 1994, there were 45 homers that traveled at least 450 feet.  Many of the names on that list are noted moonshot artists - Sosa, Griffey, Canseco, Fielder, Piazza.  However, none that year were hit by Barry Bonds.  In each year from 1995 to 1998, there were at least 40 homers that traveled 450 feet and guys like McGwire, Sosa, Griffey, Canseco, Piazza were all over those lists.  Yet no Bonds.  In fact, from 1990 when STATS Inc began publishing these lists in their Baseball Scoreboard book, until 2000, Bonds showed up on these lists exactly once (in 1993 he hit a ball 450 feet in a game in Colorado).

 

However, things changed in 2000.  In the 2000 season, he showed up twice on the list.  Over the last 2 years, he has topped 450 feet ten times, hitting balls at least 480 feet six times.  This total does not include 13 of the home runs he's hit into McCovey Cove over that period as they don't usually give distance for those.  However, the cove is 380 feet from home plate down the right field line and balls hit over the right center field fence where the wall zig-zags have to travel 446 feet to get to the water's edge.  Given any shot from home plate will clear the walkway at an angle - the ball would not go directly into the cove at water's edge - the distance traveled would likely be an additional 5-10 feet.  So what we have is this: not including his first 3 years where we have no record of home run distance, Bonds topped 450 feet once in the first 14 years of his career.  But in the last 3 years, he has topped that mark at least a dozen times, and perhaps as many as two dozen.  And not only is he reaching this mark much more frequently, but he is exceeding it by nearly 10%.  So unless you believe that he never made solid contact with a ball until his 15th year in the majors, Bonds is a lot stronger than he was over the majority of his career.

 

According to Yale University Physicis Professor Robert Adair in "the Physics of Baseball", in order to hit a ball 400 feet under ordinary weather conditions, with optimal trajectory and spin, a hitter's bat speed must be 76 mph (for a pitched ball travelling at 85 mph, major league average).  To hit the same pitch 450 feet, his bat speed must be 86 mph, a 13% increase in speed, requiring 28% more energy to accomplish.  To hit that same pitch 480 feet, the bat speed would have to be 92 mph, requiring almost 30% more energy than the 450 foot blow.  So the question then is can an athlete already in peak condition increase his power that much just by altering his workout and nutrition?

 

How often do athletes get substantially stronger at this age?  Well, never.  Some would compare Bonds recent surge to that of Hank Aaron's late in his career.  In 1971, at age 37, Aaron hit a career high 47 homers and set a personal best mark of .669 slugging.  After an off year in 1972, Aaron followed up with another strong season with 40 homers in 1973.  However, these two seasons were not substantially better than any of Aaron's other great years, and Aaron benefitted from a move to a more hitter-friendly park and the pitcher's mound being lowered.  With Bonds, this is not the case.  If anything, the recent move to Pac Bell, one of the toughest parks for hitters, works against Bonds.

 

The problem with Bonds is that there's a lot of circumstantial evidence that's weighing against him. First off, both BALCO and Greg Anderson have said that they had sent Bonds performance-enhancing drugs, so that's one circumstantial tick against him (there's no "smoking gun" that says that he took these drugs, but it certainly doesn't help matters). Secondly, Bonds' power boost happens to coincide chronologically with some injury problems:

• In 1999, Bonds missed 60 games due to injury. In 2000, he came back and enjoyed a boost in home runs (49 HRs, 12 more than his last full year in '99).
• During the 2000 offseason, Bonds had knee surgery. In 2001, he hit a record-setting 73 HRs, which was 24 more home runs than his previous career high.

This sudden surge in home run hitting capacity had a profound effect on Bonds' OPS; by comparison, his on-base percentage really didn't fluctuate nearly as much as his slugging percentage did:

• 1992 - .311 .456 .624
• 1993 - .336 .458 .677
• 1994 - .312 .426 .647
• 1995 - .294 .431 .577
• 1996 - .308 .461 .615
• 1997 - .291 .446 .585
• 1998 - .303 .438 .609
• -----------------------------------
• 2000 - .306 .440 .688
• 2001 - .328 .515 .863

See the comparison against his career highs? His OBP in 2001 is .054 higher than his career high, but his slugging percentage took a HUGE jump of .186 from the sheer lack of home runs. And the jump in OBP isn't nearly the huge abnormality that some would have you believe; even though Bonds had a phenomenal 177 walks in 2001, he had led the league in walks five times before that, with recent totals that hit 151 and 146 walks (1996 and 1997, respectively). What many people undermine, when comparing Bonds' OBPs in 1996 and 2001 is that he hit 20 points higher in 2001, which can't really be attributed to steroids (as far as I know, steroids haven't been known to throttle up hand-eye coordination). For all intensive purposes, Bonds' rise in OBP in 2001 can and should be attributed to his maturation as a hitter (and, later on in 2002, by the additional intimidation factor of being the single season home run champion).

 

I put emphasis on Bonds' OBP to drive home that Barry Bonds was already on his way to turning in a Hall of Fame career long before he began shattering home run records. You can't question the man's ability as one of the best all-around hitters of the modern era. However, I think you can question his year in 2001, with his home run totals in particular. All of the other stats (defensive speed and prowess and stolen base totals) can easily be chalked up to age, but - as that article explains - the scientific ground for such an increase in power can't feasibly be attributed to "better conditioning", in my opinion.

 

Bonds' chase of the Babe and Hank Aaron is rightfully tainted, but you can't smear everything that the man has done through his career (as easy as he makes it, with his dickish arrogance and propensity for surly and ignorant comments). Even if you erase 2001 from the record books, Barry Bonds is a first-ballot Hall of Famer and one of the best all-around players to play the game.

[Damaramu 0]

So does nobody think ARod could take the lead by the end of his career?

[The Man in Blak 0]

Well, over the last six years, he's averaged roughly 46 HRs a year and he's only 27. If A-Rod can keep up that pace of 46 HRs a year, he'll have 800 HRs by the time he's 37 in 10 years...which definitely seems within reach, barring catastrophies, of course.

 

EDIT: Screwed up some math there, initially.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

I'll get to the Bonds' comment shortly. I'm looking over some numbers.

 

Wasn't Yankee Stadium only like 295 down the right field line in Ruth's day as well?

 

Yes, but center field was nearly 500 feet (the area which is now monument park was in play), so I don't hold that against him. As well, when he hit 29 home runs in 1919, Fenway Park was perhaps the toughest hitters' park in baseball. Note that outside of Ruth, the entire TEAM hit 4 home runs. That's insane.

 

So does nobody think ARod could take the lead by the end of his career?

 

He COULD, but remember that he's still not even halfway there. Baseball players are sometimes unpredictable as they age. We don't know what path Rodriguez's career will take. For all we know, Bonds might not even make it.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

As for Bonds, there are a few things worth considering. One, his power spike occured almost instantly as Pac Bell Park opened. Is it possible that the park is responsible? In 2001 and 2003, he slugged about 100 points higher at home than on the road. That's quite odd for what is considered an extreme pitchers' park. Hypothesis: The Giants built a park with caters to Bonds' strength.

 

Also, after Bonds' 2001 season, he saw his intentional walks nearly double. Take away his intentional walks, and his walk totals match what he produced in the 90s. Hypothesis: Bonds' continued success is due to pitchers not challenging him.

 

One year power spikes are not unheard of. Aaron slugged .643 at the age of 39, after slugging .514 the year before.

[sfaJack 0]

Yes, but center field was nearly 500 feet (the area which is now monument park was in play), so I don't hold that against him. As well, when he hit 29 home runs in 1919, Fenway Park was perhaps the toughest hitters' park in baseball. Note that outside of Ruth, the entire TEAM hit 4 home runs. That's insane.

Oh I don't hold it against him either. I just hear that as one of the popular arguments that folks try to use to devalue the Babe's accomplishments, but have never really bothered to check it out.

 

The man was simply a great player, period.