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Home Run Kings?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by kingcreole, May 22, 2007.

?

Assuming Barry Bonds breaks the record, who do you view as the true home run kings?

  1. Barry Bonds and Barry Bonds

    12 vote(s)
    41.4%
  2. Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  3. Roger Maris and Hank Aaron

    13 vote(s)
    44.8%
  4. Babe Ruth and Babe Ruth

    4 vote(s)
    13.8%
  1. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    The fact is there isn't a "ton of evidence" steroid use was prevalent in the '90s and certainly not into the present. You will find when the dust settles, and this will probably be years from now, that usage has been far lower than the irresponsible conclusions (guesses?) that have been reported without any back up. If there was so much great evidence out there, George Mitchell's report would be a snap and the Novitzky gang would have real prosecutions and convictions rather than fabricating confessions and making up stories to leak.

    This isn't to naively suggest that steroid usage didn't creep into baseball. Of course it did. I suspect, like many, its origins in the game coincide with the growth of weight-lifting. Afterall, steroids have been part of the weight-lifting culture for decades. It's also among the reasons steroids hit football and certain Olympic sports much harder and much earlier.

    Singling out baseball generally and Barry Bonds specifically represents, to me, the height of the hypocrisy in the coverage of this very genuine issue. The mock outrage from the moralists among us is pathetic.
     
  2. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    And with no spnited shot, either
     
  3. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    Baseball made its bed. Baseball must lie in it: Bonds and Bonds.

    He has the records (assuming he gets 11 more), and we can't change the past now. What happened, happened, for better or for worse. And I do hope we find out exactly what happened, for the sake of history. Just so we know. Just so we can better understand exactly what we saw during that blindly glorious summer of the Great Home Run Race ... and afterward.

    Doesn't mean I'll respect it as much as I would Aaron and Maris. But I will recognize it. It happened, after all, and it's equally blind to pretend that it didn't.
     
  4. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    You're knowledge of and passion for baseball history has given you, by far, the best sense of perspective I've seen on the issue. Always interesting thoughts.
     
  5. jakewriter82

    jakewriter82 Active Member

    Great point.
    He still hasn't failed any drug tests, but the cloud of suspicion continues to grow so who knows.
    Also no one can convince me that steroids gave Bonds the records. Giambi admitted he used steroids, and he never came close to the single-season record. They could've aided Barry but he was already a talented hitter, so I say Bonds and Bonds as the home run kings.
     
  6. Oz

    Oz Well-Known Member

    Which is why I voted Bonds and Bonds. Can't have it both ways.
     
  7. Smallpotatoes

    Smallpotatoes Well-Known Member

    People can think whatever they want about the records. In all probability, Bonds did use steroids for a good portion of his career but for a good portion of his career baseball didn't test for them and he has yet to test positive.
    The problem I have is once you start erasing records without any concrete proof an athlete broke the rules, where do you stop? Is it just home run records? What about Gold Gloves, batting titles, etc.? Is a strong suspicion that a ball player used steroids enough to take away a record or an award or do you need more proof?
    It's a team game. Should the Giants be stripped of their 2002 NLCS title? Should the Yankees have their 2003 ALCS title taken away because Jason Giambi admitted to using steroids?
    Switching to football, somebody mentioned the Steelers of the '70s. Does anybody feel their four Super Bowl titles should have an asterisk next to them in the record books?
     
  8. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    That's my biggest problem with it, smallp.

    Rob Neyer or Jayson Stark or somebody had a great column a few years back on this issue of "taking away the records." How do you do that? Will it be like the Fab Five, a talented, memorable Michigan Wolverines team that my eyes and my memory vividly recalls that I watched, but the record books tell me didn't happen? Bullshit. I saw it. You can't erase it.

    I can't find the column right now. But the gist of it was this:

    So let's take away 73 as the home-run record, because obviously you can't trust any numbers that were compiled during the Steroid Era.

    Of course, you also have to take away 70 (McGwire), 66 (Sosa), 65 (McGwire), 64 (Sosa) and 63 (Sosa), because you can't trust those, either.

    61 (Maris) was hit with the benefit of expansion pitching, so that's suspect.

    60 (Ruth) was hit during the Segregation Era, so you can't count that. Same goes for 59 (Ruth), 58 (Greenberg, Foxx) and 56 (Wilson).

    Now we're back to the Steroid Era: 58 (Howard, McGwire), 57 (Gonzo, A-Rod) and 56 (Griffey, 2x). Toss 'em all.

    Which makes the rightful home run record ... 54.

    But who's the record holder? Mantle is out (expansion year). Ortiz is out (steroid era). Ruth is out (segregation era).

    All hail Ralph Kiner. :D
     
  9. Herbert Anchovy

    Herbert Anchovy Active Member

    Nice breakdown, dude.

    My mama could live with Kiner. She always loved Ralph.
     
  10. Tom Petty

    Tom Petty Guest

    buck, you are comparing roids to expansion.
     
  11. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    No, I'm not. And it ain't my column in the first place.

    The point is, it's designed to show the lunacy of trying to take away somebody's numbers as if they didn't happen, on the basis of hindsight or circumstantial evidence or revisionist history.

    Every era has its faults -- making some things easier, some things harder -- and this era does, too. What happened, happened. We can't erase it ... and we shouldn't try.
     
  12. Tom Petty

    Tom Petty Guest

    come on buck, using the words was kinda using them to make a point. and yes, folks who gain from selling drugs have the possessions they bought with drug money taken away from them every day. and if i rob a bank of $50k and they catch me, they will take the money back from me.

    bonds is jacking records and i never will acknowledge he's the home run king in my personal life, and i'll make damned sure to influence both the heartbreakers into believing as much as well.

    petty and the heartbreakers 3, buck 1. ;D
     
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