Barry Bonds is now the all time home run leader. I did get to see it on T.V. last night and have listened to talk radio some today where it is the main topic. Throughout the day, I have found myself thinking about this much more than I anticipated.
Watching the event and the celebration afterwards left me cold. For me, a life long baseball fan, there was no joy in it.
In the press conference after the game, Barry Bonds said, “This record is in no way tainted”.
Also in that press conference, Bonds said that commissioner Bud Selig called to congratulate him. Bud couldn’t be there because, this week, he is meeting with George Mitchell to discuss the findings of his steroid investigation. What if, after meeting with Mitchell and confronting the mountain of circumstantial evidence against Bonds, Selig concludes that Bonds cheated? What is he going to do about it now? Lance Williams, co-author of the book, “Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports”, says that Selig has been aware of the evidence against Bonds for years and that he had the opportunity to head this moment off.
After the 1994 baseball players strike, I, like a lot of fans, decided I would not follow the game anymore. By the time Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were chasing the ghost of Roger Maris, I, like a lot of fans, was back. The steroid era helped revive Major League Baseball. Bud Selig who was a team owner during all of this is an accesory to the big lie. All of the owners are.
I think that what really got to me last night was seeing Hank Aaron on the Jumbotron “congratulating” Bonds with a pre-taped video message. The message sounded like it was written by a lawyer. It seemed like somebody convinced Hank to do this because it would be the “best for baseball”. Earlier this summer Aaron was quoted as saying; “I don’t have any thoughts about Barry. I don’t even know how to spell his name.”
I have vivid memories of Hank Aaron going after Babe Ruth’s mark. Aaron was not always great with the press himself. He sometimes came across as stoic. There were a lot of stories about the hate mail he received during the chase. It became a platform for debate on race issues. When Hank hit #715, a fan tried to grab him after he rounded second base. Everybody’s first thought was, maybe it’s one of those bigots trying to kill him, an idea that was quickly diffused by the announcers. The point is, it wasn’t the age of innocence.
That being said, the guy I saw on the Jumbotron last night isn’t the Hank Aaron I remember. This is the Hank Aaron that’s etched in my mind.
The cheesy little crown is what made that card special in 1974. No other player had a card like that. At the end of the day, what you had was a smiling ballplayer and that is what seemed important to a ten-year-old.
What Bonds has done, whether he used or not, is an amazing accomplishment. There are some valid points like; he was facing pitchers that were cheating too and, none of the other sluggers accused have come close to his career numbers. However, now at the end of the day, regardless of how the investigations end up, is exactly the opposite of what Barry Bonds claims. What we have is a tainted record.
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Tags: Barry Bonds, Bud Selig, Hank Aaron
Andy D wrote,
I stopped following baseball around 2000, when the league started talking about getting rid of a few teams. However,..
I don’t think the record is tainted. He may or may not have used steroids, and like you said, many of the pitchers he went up against may or may not have used steroids. If the steroids were a huge advantage, more players would be chancing the home run record. The record is special because there aren’t more players able to reach that milestone.
Good article though. Very interesting.
Link | August 10th, 2007 at 4:06 am
Pribek wrote,
Andy D,
This is why I say the record is tainted.
All of the records and all of the statistics are really for the fans.
Even though there are always conditions that affect the numbers from era to era, the numbers are a place to start the dialogue of comparing players from different times.
Steroids are not the only outside factor that affects the high amount of homers in the modern era. Weak pitching, small ballparks and a lively ball are definitely part of the equation.
How many more would Ruth have hit if he didn’t play pitcher and took his swings at a dead ball during the first part of his career? How many would Ted Williams have ended up with if he didn’t spend his best years in the miltary?
How many would Aaron have hit if he wasn’t facing Drysdale, Koufax, Seaver, Gibson, Palmer and the like on a regular basis? This done in the huge cookie cutter ballparks of the day.
In conversation, we can make some sort of compensation for factors like these.
The differences with steroids are; 1. All of the other variables are something that the ballplayer has no control over. Steroids are the first variable that the ballplayer brough on of his own volition.
2. Because we have no proof of who used and who didn’t, we don’t know which numbers are valid.
Bonds record is tainted but really, he is the poster boy for an entire 15-year period that is tainted.
Link | August 10th, 2007 at 1:20 pm