Barry Bonds
Barry Bonds is my second favorite baseball player of all time, and the man who, some time in 2007, is going to pass Hank Aaron as the greatest home run hitter of
all time.
He takes a lot of heat from the press, but so did Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle in their
day. You have to be great to even get this much attention from the press, so that says something about the man. He's been a consistent producer on both the offensive
and defensive sides of the field, though, like many others, I still remember the heartbreak I felt when he couldn't throw out Sid Bream from left field to end the
Pittsburgh Pirates unlikely run towards the World Series in 1992.
Over the past few years, there has been a lot of talk about Barry Bonds possibly being on steroids, and it all came to a head when he passed
Mark McGwire for most home runs in one season (73) in 2001, when steroid talks were starting to
really heat up.
Let's take a quick look at this steroids thing, then get back to baseball.
Did Barry Bonds "willingly" take steroids? This is an interesting question, one that hasn't been answered, nor probably ever will. We do know about
this stuff called "the clear", and some have speculated that someone like Barry Bonds would never have trusted anyone who just said 'rub this on
your body' because he's supposedly the untrusting type. Still, there hasn't been anyone, including those convicted of marketing illegal steroids,
who have implicated him in anything; heck, one of his trainers has sat in jail more than a year in total rather than be forced to say anything bad about Bonds.
Second, there's all this talk about how much bigger he is than he was when he was playing for the Pirates. Funny, but I didn't hear anyone accusing
Michael Jordan of being on
steroids his last couple of years playing with the Washington Wizards, as he was easily a much bigger man than he was when he first stepped into the NBA.
Third, people associate steroid with bulk because that's what they know, but supposedly more pitchers use steroids than any other position player, and there's no
indication that pitchers have become bulkier than they used to be.
Fourth, steroids may make someone stronger, which may mean they may hit a ball further, but all of the people who have been accused of using steroids were already big
guys who were capable of hitting home runs to begin with. That, plus there's not a steroid available that can help a player hit the baseball to begin with. Though I
didn't take steroids, I remember the first year I started lifting weights when I was bowling, and how, for that year, I had no control over where the ball was going and
my average decreased from 183 to 145; it was embarrassing, and that was just from an increase in muscle mass. So, if all these guys are taking steroids, then they have
way more talent and body control than one could imagine.
And finally, fifth; whether they were or weren't, it wasn't illegal at the time for ball players to be using whatever it was they were using. This is the most
significant thing of all, because, at the time, baseball was known more for abusing stimulants of different kinds than anything else, because of how many games they play
and the preponderance of night/day games, along with double headers, and players were far more hopped up on those things than steroids.
So, with that out of the way, back to baseball. Even if one wishes to negate the last five years of his career, supposedly the "roid" years, there's no denying his
talent and legacy. Seven MVP awards, 1st all time in walks, still over 500 home runs at that juncture, eight Gold Gloves, only man in history with 400 home runs and 400
stolen bases,… if that wasn't enough right there to put him in the Hall of Fame as one of the greatest of all times, then who cares that he's also 2nd in extra base
hits (1,412), 3rd in at bats per home run (13.0), 4th in RBI (1955), 5th in total bases (5,842) and runs (2,175), and 6th in on base percentage (.444), and slugging
average (.610); is there more?
Roberto Clemente is my favorite baseball player of all time; Willie Mays is
the greatest baseball player in my lifetime, but
Barry Bonds is the
greatest, and my favorite, baseball player in my adult life. And that's all I care about.
