Barry Bonds* (Steroids)

[IJ Reilly]

With this possibility looming, baseball executives must be hoping that Bonds has a career-ending injury as soon as possible.

So that's why the Commissioner's office hired Tanya Harding as a consultant.

 

[stonyc]

I disagree on Shoeless Joe. It's been shown that he was something of a country bumpkin who played well enough in the Series to doubt that he was deliberately throwing it. But he knew of the offer to throw the Series and didn't stop it or notify anyone that it was happening. He was complicit in the scandal and deserves to be banned.

I guess we'll have to disagree.

From http://www.shoelessjoejackson.com:

In response to suspicions that the White Sox had thrown the series under the influence of sports bookies, baseball commissioner Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis banned Joe Jackson and seven of his teammates for life, sending a no-tolerance message regarding the presence of gambling in baseball. Of all the players, Jackson's involvement in the conspiracy seemed the least plausible, as his on-field stats were sparkling -- a .375 batting average and a perfect fielding percentage during the series. A jury later acquitted Jackson of the charges, and despite holding the third highest lifetime batting average in baseball history at .356, the legendary outfielder remains permanently barred from induction to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

This is why I think Jackson makes a good comparison to steroid/drug users of this era... He was banned because of:

1) his association with guilty parties (much like the association of Bonds with guilty parties like his trainer Anderson and BALCO founder Conte)
2) his inability/refusal to expose his teammates (much like Bonds' inability/refusal to admit to wrongdoing)

If Bonds et al. can be voted into the Hall, so should Jackson, especially since a jury of his peers cleared him of active participation in the fixing scandal. Keeping Jackson out of the Hall would be like me making the argument that someone like Jeff Kent should be kept out of the Hall because was a teammate of Bonds and he may or may not have known Bonds was juicing at the time and didn't expose him.

But back to your later points, I totally agree... PR-wise Bonds could make this very, very, very bad. Really, he already has.

 

[emaja]

This is why I think Jackson makes a good comparison to steroid/drug users of this era... He was banned because of:

1) his association with guilty parties (much like the association of Bonds with guilty parties like his trainer Anderson and BALCO founder Conte)
2) his inability/refusal to expose his teammates (much like Bonds' inability/refusal to admit to wrongdoing)...

I think that is a big stretch to make those parallels.

The difference is that we can prove with eyewitness testimony that Bonds did take steroids. It is not a supposition. He did it and he admitted it in the grand jury testimony. When was he lying, in testimony or to the press now?

Jackson was banned more for knowing about it and doing nothing to report it or stop it than anything else. Gambling is much a more serious threat to the integrity of any game than taking steroids and anyone who has any knowledge of a gambling influence on any game needs to report it somehow.

Yes, neither one was against the rules at the time of the violation, but which one would have more damaging long term effects on the game? I would argue that it was associating with gamblers and covering up a plot to fix the World Series.

 

[stonyc]

emaja, I see what you're saying... but to me Jackson feels more like a victim of his circumstances/teammates, whereas Bonds and others like him feel more like active perpetrators. Fair enough though, to both you and aloof... I can understand that Jackson stays out of the Hall, not as cheater, but for aiding and abetting so to speak.

Back to Bonds... hopefully more writers feel like this when it comes time to vote on Bonds (I'm guessing Selig won't have the cajones to ban him outright) and the McGwires/Sosas out there. I think for those who think that he should be voted in based on his pre-roids career alone, I think Verducci's comment here should be taken into consideration.

For those who argue that Bonds was a Hall of Fame-quality player before he started using drugs, I don't think in baseball you can build up a resume to a lofty point and then do anything you want to the game. Cheating the game is nothing that can be forgiven, whether it happens in your first year of baseball or your last year, like with Rafael Palmeiro. The 411 home runs, which is what Bonds had through 1998, don't give you carte blanche to do anything you want in baseball, including being a drug cheat.

He would have been a lock as a Hall of Famer before the 'roids... if jealousy of others is part of what drove him to 'roid up, sad.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Barry Bonds*

My opinion? He's juiced out the wazoo.

He was (and is) a very good hitter but he had a big jump in numbers that coincided with some very noticable craniofacial development, which is a big clue, though not in itself conclusive. Again just my opinion.

While we can't blame Bonds for the problem of widespread use (others have pointed fingers at Selig and I'll add mine), I think that history will not be terribly kind to him - if he did steroids it will come out eventually, and even if there is no definitive proof it will cast a shadow on his legacy: a tragedy if he was clean but again I am very sceptical of his prosfession of innocence.

Performance-enhancing drugs are antithetical to athletic competition and the scandal really leaves a bad taste in my mouth - but what are we going to do about it? The right thing to do would be to have a zero tolerance policy, even at the risk of some unjust bannings due to false positives...but two things I can think of work against this solution:

1. Many athletes undergo surgery at various points in their career, and there are lots of opportunities for false positives if drug testing were to become much more strict.

2. I forsee a "zero tolerance policy" being blocked or obstructed by powerful people involved or finacially interested in MLB.

Bonds* in Cooperstown? I don't know.... but my guess is no.

 

[jeremy.king]

Bonds is a punk but I think that MCGwire/Sosa are getting off easy. They are just as guilty.

Without getting too far OT, there isn't any evidence supporting the claims that Big Mac and Slammy were juicing. BM admittely took Andro, which at the time wasn't a banned substance, and Slammy was too busy corking his bat. Evidence such as an increase in stats and sudden increase in body mass are just circumstantial. While reportedly, Bonds has people testifying he was "cleaning" with the "clear" as well as documentation of his supposed doping. He even admitted to taking pills that he didn't know the contents of - seems irresponsible to me - also a big difference.

Anyways, I have totally lost faith that any of my favorite players from "back in the day" were complete PED free, but then I still enjoy watching bash the sh*t out of the ball.

Finally, for those conspiracy theorists out there, remember how MLB was unpopular after the famed strike and remember how cool it became again when Slammy and Big Mac were crushing 450+ ft homers...you don't think that MLB was involved at some level - perhaps looking the other way???? And to think at the time they were performing studies to see if the makeup of the ball was changed to produce more homers...Easy way to distract people from seeing the real reason.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Evidence such as an increase in stats and sudden increase in body mass are just circumstantial. While reportedly, Bonds has people testifying he was "cleaning" with the "clear" as well as documentation of his supposed doping. He even admitted to taking pills that he didn't know the contents of - seems irresponsible to me - also a big difference.

It isn't just body size in Bonds' case...his brow ridges got noticably more robust and his mandible appeared to develop. These are classic signs of certian kinds of doping although there can be pathological explanations as well (a thyroid disorder for example). The evidence is still circumstantial, I'll agree, but I think there is a case.

Finally, for those conspiracy theorists out there, remember how MLB was unpopular after the famed strike and remember how cool it became again when Slammy and Big Mac were crushing 450+ ft homers...you don't think that MLB was involved at some level - perhaps looking the other way???? And to think at the time they were performing studies to see if the makeup of the ball was changed to produce more homers...Easy way to distract people from seeing the real reason.

I totally agree - but it is so much easier to damn a person than an organization. I do hope that we get to to the bottom of things, so to speak. Baseball is a sport, but also (and more importantly, as far as the people running it are concerned) a very profitable business.

 

[jeremy.king]

It isn't just body size in Bonds' case...his brow ridges got noticably more robust and his mandible appeared to develop. These are classic signs of certian kinds of doping although there can be pathological explanations as well (a thyroid disorder for example). The evidence is still circumstantial, I'll agree, but I think there is a case.

That was my point, the evidence against McGuire and Sosa is more circumstantial, while Bonds' haters have more hard facts to use against him - although its pretty easy to fake documents...

 

[emaja]

That was my point, the evidence against McGuire and Sosa is more circumstantial, while Bonds' haters have more hard facts to use against him - although its pretty easy to fake documents...

Sammy's head sure took on an odd shape around the same time that Bonds' did. They were both on the stuff and we as fans looked the other way. You're in Fox Lake and you saw the crush of "Sammy Mania" in those years as did I when I lived in Chicago then. Every Cub fan knew - absolutely knew - that Sammy was on it too, but we didn't care - or would never admit it at the time. Neither did the Cubs or MLB.

There was plenty of money to be made by plenty of people with sterioids being used to pump up bodies as well as ratings and the enthusiasm for baseball recovering from the strike. Everyone knew and no one cared because the bucks were too big.

 

[Abstract]

....he is a career .285 hitter who hits about 30 dingers a year. Not great, but merely above average.

Yes, he is talented, but you don't go from averaging 33 homers a year to a one-year breakout of 73 without more than a little chemical enhancement.

Well actually, Roger Maris wasn't a great home run hitter either, and then one year.......BAM!


Bonds........Bonds' record SHOULD have a big asterisk beside it. I don't want him in the Hall of Fame, either. The Hall of Fame is for the greats of the sport, and it would be an insult to have this guy's name beside a guy like Kirby Puckett's, who, while being a complete dick in real life, was a great player on the field with seemingly less physical ability than Bonds ever naturally had.

He shouldn't be rewarded for cheating the game and the fans.

 

[mkubal]

Is baseball really required to ban steroids if they're already illegal to begin with?

For example, a player can't take an M16 onto the field, mow the other team down and then win by forfeit. Sure it doesn't say in the rules that you CAN'T kill the other team to win, but that doesn't make it acceptable. Baseball's lack of a specific ban doesn't trump U.S. law and it's not an excuse. I know it's a silly example, but it works.

I wish we could wipe all these recent records and start over.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

That was a silly example, and some PED are legal, especially those that are used to treat disease and have performance-enhancing side effects.

 

[jhu]

Is baseball really required to ban steroids if they're already illegal to begin with?

For example, a player can't take an M16 onto the field, mow the other team down and then win by forfeit. Sure it doesn't say in the rules that you CAN'T kill the other team to win, but that doesn't make it acceptable. Baseball's lack of a specific ban doesn't trump U.S. law and it's not an excuse. I know it's a silly example, but it works.

I wish we could wipe all these recent records and start over.

anabolic steroids are not illegal in the usa since they have legitimate medical purposes.

 

[IJ Reilly]

anabolic steroids are not illegal in the usa since they have legitimate medical purposes.

No, but they must be prescribed by a doctor for a legitimate medical purpose. Any other use or method of obtaining the drugs would be illegal.

 

[MacAztec]

is that what they taught you at football practice? noiiiiiiiiiiiiice brah!

No, I know 3 baseball players, close friends, that got full ride scholarships for Baseball to Division 1 schools. We have talked about this a bunch of times.

Roids will make you stronger. They will not help your swing. Your swing, and how far you hit the ball are two different things. A baseball swing is just like a golf swing, it needs to be perfect.

Bonds has a perfect swing. He has great eyesight. And can you please show me somewhere where it says Roids help your eyesight? Because it doesn't.

 

[stonyc]

No, I know 3 baseball players, close friends, that got full ride scholarships for Baseball to Division 1 schools. We have talked about this a bunch of times.

Roids will make you stronger. They will not help your swing. Your swing, and how far you hit the ball are two different things. A baseball swing is just like a golf swing, it needs to be perfect.

Bonds has a perfect swing. He has great eyesight. And can you please show me somewhere where it says Roids help your eyesight? Because it doesn't.

Read the exerpts, one of the steroids he took improved his eyesight.

You're missing the point... everyone here acknowledge's the fact that he has a great/perfect swing. However, add steroids to a perfect swing and what do you get? 73 homeruns.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

You're missing the point... everyone here acknowledge's the fact that he has a great/perfect swing. However, add steroids to a perfect swing and what do you get? 73 homeruns.

73 dingers and an asterisk next to your name forever.

 

[stonyc]

My bad Aztec, mis-read the paragraph... it was HGH that improved his eyesight.

With the help of Winstrol, Bonds was so muscular that he could hit the ball as far as McGwire. But even after the elbow healed, Bonds wasn't right in 1999. He felt muscle-bound and inflexible and had trouble turning on inside pitches. He also complained of back and knee problems and about his eyesight, saying he couldn't pick up the rotation on the ball. Bonds' vision always had been astonishing -- perhaps the complaints about his eyes were psychosomatic, a reflection of the worry he felt about his elbow injury, the pressure he felt to perform at the highest level. <snip> Bonds especially liked growth hormone. It allowed him to maintain his impressive musculature without intensive training. That was important because he was doing well to manage 15 or 20 minutes of pumping iron each day during the season, and that wasn't nearly enough to keep one's body looking like a locomotive. But with HGH, Bonds remained buff and more energized to train, yet he felt more flexible. There was an added benefit to the new drug regimen: Bonds stopped complaining about his eyes. At age 35, he felt better than he had in years.

 

[aloofman]

Roids will make you stronger. They will not help your swing. Your swing, and how far you hit the ball are two different things. A baseball swing is just like a golf swing, it needs to be perfect.

Bonds has a perfect swing. He has great eyesight. And can you please show me somewhere where it says Roids help your eyesight? Because it doesn't.

There's more to it than that. Steroids greatly improve workout efficiency and injury recovery, which both affect a hitter's swing throughout the course of the long season. It really isn't possible to totally separate muscle strength and health from the eye-hand coordination that major-league-level hitting requires. A hitter's swing and how far he hits the ball are intimately related. The fact that your college ballplayer friends are great at hitting a baseball doesn't mean they understand why they can hit a baseball so well.

Even if you could separate steroid-powered strength from hitting coordination from a physiological point of view, they still affect each other when it comes to actual performance on the field. Higher bat speed (which is what power-hitting is really all about, and Bonds has really developed) is often the difference between a a fly ball clearing the fence and a fly ball being caught by an outfielder. It's often the difference between a line drive going past the first baseman for a double or being caught for an out. It's often the difference between a hard ground ball that a second baseman fields cleanly and one that he can't handle well enough to throw to first in time.

All of these real-game scenarios affect batting average, slugging percentage, on-base percentage, and the raw numbers that go with them. To say that a 'roid-less Bonds would still bat .370, just with fewer home runs, is a fallacy. All the numbers are related. His homer frequency causes his high walk rate, which causes him to score more runs, which hugely impacts every inning he bats in.

Now, if you want to claim that steroids doesn't help his amazing pitch selection, then I'm with you. His ability to make solid contact so often from very few decent pitches is mind-boggling and takes a level of focus and discipline that even most major-leaguers don't have. If you want to claim his steroids don't matter because steroids weren't against baseball rules at the time, I can accept that too. And the argument that baseball executives, the fans, the Giants, and every other team knew players were using steroids and we all passively encouraged it, is shamefully true. But the assertion that steroids don't help a hitter hit isn't true at all. Steroids wouldn't help you or me hit home runs because we don't have the coordination and reflexes to hit a major-league fastball in the first place. Bonds and others already have those abilities. And steroids help improve them.

 

[MacNut]

If bonds is so innocent like he says why wont he sue for slander, he won't cause he doesn't have a case.

 

[IJ Reilly]

If bonds is so innocent like he says why wont he sue for slander, he won't cause he doesn't have a case.

Slander is very difficult to prove in U.S. courts. He'd have to prove not only that the writers of the book were wrong, but that they knew they were wrong, and that they were deliberately attempting to damage his reputation.

 

[QCassidy352]

Roids will make you stronger. They will not help your swing. Your swing, and how far you hit the ball are two different things. A baseball swing is just like a golf swing, it needs to be perfect.

Bonds has a perfect swing. He has great eyesight. And can you please show me somewhere where it says Roids help your eyesight? Because it doesn't.

They will not help your swing mechanics, but they will:
1) turn fly balls in to homeruns
2) increase your bat speed, allowing you to wait on pitches longer and more accurately judge them, turning strikes in to hits

Steriods give you more strength and more bat speed, resulting in both more strikes turning in to contacts and outs turning in to hits/homeruns. Bonds has a great swing, great patience, and lots of other natural advantages, but there's a reason he had about 16 at-bat/HR before 1998 and about 8 in the years after.

 

[Deepdale]

73 dingers and an asterisk next to your name forever.

The record books should follow this icon based format with respect to Barry Bonds:

 

[Abstract]

Read the exerpts, one of the steroids he took improved his eyesight.

Well yes, something Bonds took improved his steroids. I kinda understand what MacAztec is saying, but this guy was taking the type of substances that they're calling "designer." These aren't for guys like you and I, even if you do play football. You had to be one of the elite to even bother taking the stuff he was taking......stuff that wasn't even traceable 4 years ago. Can you imagine that?

 

[stonyc]

Well yes, something Bonds took improved his steroids. I kinda understand what MacAztec is saying, but this guy was taking the type of substances that they're calling "designer." These aren't for guys like you and I, even if you do play football. You had to be one of the elite to even bother taking the stuff he was taking......stuff that wasn't even traceable 4 years ago. Can you imagine that?

I made a mistake and corrected it a few posts later... it wasn't the 'roids that supposedly improved his eyesight, it seemed to be the HGH. Which makes it sooooo better now.

He took some 'roids apparently that were never even approved for the medical market... which made them undetectable because nobody even knew to test for them (Olympic drug testing agencies included).