[quote]Jason32 wrote:
I thought it was all due to clean living and hard training!
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/baseball/mlb/03/06/news.excerpt/index.html[/quote]
“Winstrol, a powerful steroid”
I’ve been doing a lot of research and nowhere does it say this. I guess SI knows better. LOL
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Bonds stats pre 1998 were good but not great. I think he hit .285 with fair power.
I don’t think he was close to being the top hitter in the game.
He was All Star material but maybe not HOF. It would have been close.
His stats after 1998 are amazing and probably the best of all time.
[/quote]
I completely disagree on the pre-98 comments.
He was entering his prime as a 30+ HR/110 RBI, .300+ batting average, drew a ton of walks, could steal bases, had close to .500 OBP and over 1.0 OPS - and before he lost his speed was an excellent defensive outfielder.
Bonds was clear, probably first ballot, HOF material before 1999. Before he bulked up he was a complete, five-tool player and considered one of the best all around players in the league.
I’m pretty sure Bonds took steroids - but they weren’t illegal in baseball - the fact that they are illegal in the US federal books is irrelevant. Baseball polices itself - therefore, for all our bitching and moaning about the ethics of his steroid use he’s going into the HOF because he wasn’t violating the rules of baseball. Maybe the sportswriters will “punish” him by not letting him in the first ballot, but he’ll get in.
The ones that clearly benefited the most from the roids in my opinion are McGwire and Sosa - those guys were totally one-dimensional players and if not for the spike in power numbers after they jumped on the juice - they don’t make the HOF.
Now did you ever wonder if the bottle of Andro McGwire so prominently displayed in his locker was a red herring to mask possible use of Test? You know if he ever tested positive for the Test, he could just say it was the Andro? I don’t think anyone would be that stupid to just leave a bottle of that stuff in plain view in front of drug-illiterate sportswriters, legal or not… Just a thought…
[quote]samsmarts wrote:
This article and that book are BS.
How the hell do they know Bonds actually told Anderson to “F off i will do it myself” when he actually adviced him against a cycle? Were these reporters there on the spot?
[/quote]
People believe what they want to believe, regardless of what is fact.
The guy can play, juice or not. The facts are if you participate in proffesional athletics the majority is on something, and you’d be wise to look into it yourself. You wouldn’t take a knife to a gun fight.
Yep, and now Major League Baseball is going to start selling " their own supplements" to the players, so the players wont use anything tainted! Its all about the money! The league has mandated that almost everything on the market except for Soy Milk, is against league policies and cannot be used, so what the hell are they going to sell? Now, when a player starts using the “supplements sold by the league”, and he starts playing like shit, he can blame the league for their crappy supplements, and he`ll be back on the juice…again!
[quote]slimjim wrote:
I’m on the fence with this…Bonds was a great player and a hall of famer before his use, but it is obvious the latest explosion was due to this. I don’t know where he should stand in the grand scheme of things now, especially in a sport so reliant on stats to judge their athletes.[/quote]
I totally agree here. Bonds was hall of fame material before the steroid explosion. A guy that can consistantly hit 35 hrs a year and drive in 100 runs is a stud. But, he has brought a ton of negativity to the sport by juicing.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
vaughn5000 wrote:
PGA200X wrote:
tarfu81 wrote:
I think that if any player was proven to have taken illegal performance enhancing drugs then they do not belong in the hall.
END OF DISCUSSION! Barry was NEVER proven to take ANYTHING illegal.
and it was never PROVEN that OJ carved up his ex-wife. C’mon.
What is your point? Regardless of what you think happened, you can’t bypass our legal system based on what you want to believe. If that is the case, why believe everyone found guilty truly is? You can’t pick and choose who is guilty or innocent if they are found innocent in a court of law.[/quote]
Barry has never proven to be INNOCENT of anything. Admittedly he has never been proven guilty of anything either. But the evidence of his steroid use is overwhelming and only the ignorant can ignore this. Either you are a Bonds fan and you will not listen to reason, or you are someone who has zero knowledge of steroids therefore ignorant.
I have used steroids just like others in T-Nation and watching Barrys transformation, its 100% obvious he used juice.
Ultimately I could care less that he was on X drug when he hit all these homers after the 98 season. What I find reprehensible is his attitude and his lying. If something does not go his way then its the medias fault. Barry takes no responsibility for anything and lying is worse than just about anything.
He should tell the truth and come clean. It will not help him in the baseball community but at least he will start being a man.
I have mixed emotions on the whole Bonds controversy. On the one hand- the guy was able to prolong his career by 7-8 years- in the process pocketing tens of millions of dollars. I likely would have done the same thing.
On the other hand- I dislike the fact that he’s been caught red handed and still won’t fess up to what he’s done (same goes for McGwire and Sosa). I have some respect for Giambi for admitting he took the juice. Given the fact that there will always be people who believe Bonds is clean- I’m guess I’m not surprised he won’t confess.
As for those who contend it has not been ‘proven’- short of a videotape of him injecting- what else do you need? If I were a prosecuting attorney- I could get a conviction on him in under 5 minutes.
[quote]sublime wrote:
Barry has never proven to be INNOCENT of anything. [/quote]
In America, you are innocent until PROVEN GUILTY, not the other way around, genius.
To follow what OARSMAN wrote, Barry Bonds was clearly a Hall of Fame player even if he had retired in 1998: 8 time All-Star, 8 time Gold Glove winner, 3 time MVP (and he was robbed in 1991). By 1998, he had led the league in OBP four times, SLG three times and OPS five times. He was top four in homers seven times, top four in RBI five times, top four in walks an astounding ten times and even had a season with 50+ steals. He was always a great player and no one who follows baseball should doubt it.
To follow that, Bonds hasn’t done anything that should require him to be excluded from the Hall of Fame. Even if he had more drugs in him than a Walgreens from 1998-2004, he wasn’t breaking a rule. Yeah yeah, I hear the comments from the peanut gallery already, but whether you or I approve is irrelevant. Cheating happens when you break the rules, and Bonds didn’t break the rules - there were no rules prohibiting what he was (allegedly) doing.
The HoF guidelines for election include integrity and sportsmanship amongst the criteria, which is where the anti-juicer arguments will be made. As far as integrity goes, Bonds probably lies through his teeth to the media, but that’s really not relevant to what he does as a player. That selection guideline is meant in terms of what might happen on the field, to eliminate guys like Joe Jackson. And in terms of sportsmanship… I’m certain that it isn’t just hitters who are juicing, so it’s not really even that unfair. To randomly pick a target, it seems odd that Roger Clemens can still hit 95 on the radar gun and post an ERA under 2.00 at the ripe old age of 42, doesn’t it? Maybe he’s an all natural phenom, but is that true of every other pitcher in baseball? Probably not, and since we’ll never know everyone who used, the HoF can’t hold it against the few who are confirmed or widely suspected of being users.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Bonds stats pre 1998 were good but not great. I think he hit .285 with fair power.
I don’t think he was close to being the top hitter in the game.
He was All Star material but maybe not HOF. It would have been close.
His stats after 1998 are amazing and probably the best of all time.
[/quote]
Ok, I need to say something about all this crap. First, I never played baseball except for one year of t-ball. It was boring. Beyond boring. As a 5 year old I decided to play soccer, which was boring too, but at least I could run around. In high school, my best friend played baseball, he was a catcher. We played on the football team together. Our senior year I was teasing him about baseball, so he made me come to the batting cages. I couldn’t hit anything. So I know that it is a difficult game, and I respect it.
Now, I have only been a causal baseball fan. I have lived in LA and the bay area, so I like the Giants and Dodgers. I know this is a sin, but at least when those two teams play each other, they fight or something so it is interesting to watch. So, I say all this to show I know nothing about baseball, and could give a shit about records and who holds them. But I do know that Zap is wrong here:
Now, I played football, wrestled, and threw shot/discus. My favorite sport to watch is basketball, because I am fat and short and cannot jump, so it is entertaining. I have done Martial Arts, and competed in powerlifting. Why the hang up over stats in baseball? Powerlifting and track are numbers based sports obviously, but those records change all the time, admist drug use and equiptment changes… but no uproar like baseball, no congressional hearings, no possible presidential canidates making it their agenda to rid the sports of juice. Baseball seems to be focused on NOT breaking records. I do not know, I am not attacking the sport, I just want someone to explain it to me. I was talking to my dad last night, and we could only think of 1 really famous NFL record: Dempsy’s 63 yard kick, because it lasted so long until Elam tied it.
Barry has been fun to watch. I was at Pac Bell when the Giants won the pennent, and I went to games during his first year in 93. He is an asshole and arrogant, and he is/will be/has been chemically assissted. I could care less – pro sports is entertainment. Not religion. He is entertaining. He plays hard, and earns his money.
Now, to the person who asked in cocaine could help an athlete play better, I only have two words for you: Lawrence Taylor.
-A
[quote]Professor X wrote:
sublime wrote:
Barry has never proven to be INNOCENT of anything.
In America, you are innocent until PROVEN GUILTY, not the other way around, genius.[/quote]
In a court of law at least, however, in the public/media eye these days it’s clearly the other way around.
Unfortunate.
But in the case of Barry Bonds - is anyone really surprised by this? This has been a long time coming.
[quote]irishrock wrote:
On the other hand- I dislike the fact that he’s been caught red handed and still won’t fess up to what he’s done (same goes for McGwire and Sosa). I have some respect for Giambi for admitting he took the juice. Given the fact that there will always be people who believe Bonds is clean- I’m guess I’m not surprised he won’t confess.[/quote]
Giambi didn’t admit to anything more than Bonds did - steroid allegations in both of their situations came in the form of leaked grand jury testimony. What Giambi did was get in front of some cameras and make a vague ‘apology’ to the media. The thing is, if you watched that circus, you notice he NEVER said what he was apologizing for and (very explicitly) he NEVER admitted using a steroid. It was vague apologies for ‘the situation’ and ‘embarassing the Yankee family’, etc. Basically, he was backed into a PR nightmare because he sucked so badly in 2003-04 that he needed to throw himself on the dubious mercy of the NY sportswriters. If he had kept swinging the bat like he had in his MVP season, he wouldn’t have had to ‘apologize’ for anything.
[quote]vermilion wrote:
irishrock wrote:
On the other hand- I dislike the fact that he’s been caught red handed and still won’t fess up to what he’s done (same goes for McGwire and Sosa). I have some respect for Giambi for admitting he took the juice. Given the fact that there will always be people who believe Bonds is clean- I’m guess I’m not surprised he won’t confess.
Giambi didn’t admit to anything more than Bonds did - steroid allegations in both of their situations came in the form of leaked grand jury testimony. What Giambi did was get in front of some cameras and make a vague ‘apology’ to the media. The thing is, if you watched that circus, you notice he NEVER said what he was apologizing for and (very explicitly) he NEVER admitted using a steroid. It was vague apologies for ‘the situation’ and ‘embarassing the Yankee family’, etc. Basically, he was backed into a PR nightmare because he sucked so badly in 2003-04 that he needed to throw himself on the dubious mercy of the NY sportswriters. If he had kept swinging the bat like he had in his MVP season, he wouldn’t have had to ‘apologize’ for anything.
[/quote]
Thanks for the info- I could have sworn Giambi admitted- but as I think about it now- you are right- all he did was issue an apology.
[quote]OARSMAN wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Bonds stats pre 1998 were good but not great. I think he hit .285 with fair power.
I don’t think he was close to being the top hitter in the game.
He was All Star material but maybe not HOF. It would have been close.
His stats after 1998 are amazing and probably the best of all time.
I completely disagree on the pre-98 comments.
He was entering his prime as a 30+ HR/110 RBI, .300+ batting average, drew a ton of walks, could steal bases, had close to .500 OBP and over 1.0 OPS - and before he lost his speed was an excellent defensive outfielder.
…
[/quote]
They showed his pre 98 stats on Comcast Sports or ESPN last night.
His average was below .300 (I think .285) and his RBI was under 100 per year (I think 97 per year).
Does anyone have real numbers for him?
I don’t dispute he was an excellent player pre 98, but he was not baseballs best hitter during that period.
He has become the best hitter of all time post 98. Pretty dramatic when you think about it.
Since its the media, you most also have your ‘daily dose’ of steroid evils. Bon appetit!
(From the article)
“In addition to detailing the drug usage, the excerpt portrays Bonds as a menacing boor, a tax cheat and an adulterer given to (probably because of the rampant steroid use) sexual dysfunction, hair loss and wild mood swings that included periods of rage.”
I found ‘periods of rage’ to be rather incongruous with being a ‘menacing boor.’ I personally can’t remeber a boring moment viewing a big guy having a wild mood swing while his hair falls out.
-k
[quote]vermilion wrote:
irishrock wrote:
On the other hand- I dislike the fact that he’s been caught red handed and still won’t fess up to what he’s done (same goes for McGwire and Sosa). I have some respect for Giambi for admitting he took the juice. Given the fact that there will always be people who believe Bonds is clean- I’m guess I’m not surprised he won’t confess.
Giambi didn’t admit to anything more than Bonds did - steroid allegations in both of their situations came in the form of leaked grand jury testimony. What Giambi did was get in front of some cameras and make a vague ‘apology’ to the media. The thing is, if you watched that circus, you notice he NEVER said what he was apologizing for and (very explicitly) he NEVER admitted using a steroid. It was vague apologies for ‘the situation’ and ‘embarassing the Yankee family’, etc. Basically, he was backed into a PR nightmare because he sucked so badly in 2003-04 that he needed to throw himself on the dubious mercy of the NY sportswriters. If he had kept swinging the bat like he had in his MVP season, he wouldn’t have had to ‘apologize’ for anything.
[/quote]
The funny thing is, those same reporters who now applaud Giambi as a stand up guy for suffering the abuse, all because he started hitting again, are villifying Bonds.
Maybe Bonds should start sobbing like a shrunken McGwire did. He won’t though because he is arrogant and brash and I like that he is that way. Hope he hits 80 this year.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
People believe what they want to believe, regardless of what is fact.[/quote]
truer word were never spoken…
85 - 97 BA .288
96 - 2004 BA .324
85 - 97 Ave 34 HR per year
98 - 2004 Ave 47 HR per year
The guy went from a very good all around player to possibly the greatest hitter of all time when he started juicing.
This was at an age when his dad had to retire.
Makes me want to juice.
So what if he did. I know plenty of guys taking the same stuff that could never turn around on a 95 mph fastball and smack it 450 feet.