cheapie

i'm sure mays feels differently but i can't hardly stand bonds and it sucks that he has tied mays with his terrible attitude and probable steriod usage.

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kei2

He hit #661 today, but in my mind you can't compare Mays and Bonds. They played in different times (and different steroid cultures), with different ballparks, with a different number of teams (and therefore facing different quality of pitching). ESPN showed some comparison stat like Mays was the only 100-RBI guy in the NL one year, and last year the NL had 17. It's like inflation, modern-day homers shouldn't count for as much. I don't like the fact that Bonds will now be compared with Aaron, Ruth, and Mays, either... but the baseball-uneducated will continue to do so. Heck, some baseball analysts will too, but I don't think it's a fair comparison by any means. They've both had great baseball careers, and there's no need to compare them. For my money, I think Mays was much better than Bonds is.

whitak24

bonds is a highly skilled player, but personally i think his accomplishments will be forever tainted by his highly suspicious relationship with the BALCO people.

i definitely hope he never passes Aaron's record. that would be a damn shame.

HmpDeeHmp

You all bring up good points, but don't you think it would be a shame if our generation never had a Barry Bonds to watch over the years? Amid all the steroid controversy and his lousy attitude, Bonds still has great athletic ability (not personality unfortunately ) and definitely makes watching Giants games fun and exciting. Besides, how many other players out there have the ability to change a game's complexion the way he does?

kei2

Nobody. He changes baseball games like Shaq changes basketball games. Teams have to play you differently when you have a player like that. That said, I think Bonds and Shaq are both jerks.

As far as MLB needing a star with great athletic ability, there's still Corkedbat Sosa, Vlad, Pujols, Abreu, Ichiro... I hardly think Bonds' absence would leave a huge hole in the talent pool. However, the league could probably benefit from a contraction to consolidate the talent. Pitching especially is diluted these days. Same goes for the NBA. Forget expansion, let's get some contraction.

Cantacuzene

I won't remember Bonds for these homeruns he hits now. 50 years from now I'll be telling my grand kids what a choke artist he was in the early 1990's with the Pirates. Supposedly the best player in baseball but bats like .125 in the post season enroute to losing to the braves 2 years in a row. And he had suck a bad attitude it brought the rest of the team down with him. Thats the Bonds I'll remember.

The only player of our generation who had the potential to be considered as good as or better than Mays, Mantle, Aaron etc. was KEn Griffey Jr. He was almost as good in the field as Mays, had the power of Aaron and hit for average like Mantle. Too bad injuries ruined him in his prime. If he had been healthy the past 4 seasons he would have over 500 homeruns by now with another 9 years left to play in his career. Darn shame. Pujols and Arod are the next two who could possibly be that good I'd say, but we'll see.

cheapchinese

what is so bad about bonds?? i'm one of those Baseball Idiots
Watching ESPN he seems pretty respectful in alot of ways. esp the way he treats willie. so...please do tell

HmpDeeHmp

Bonds has had a bad relationship with the media over the years, distances himself from teammates, doesn't get along with all of his teammates (ie Jeff Kent ), doesn't hustle as much as he should (ie defensively, running out ground balls, etc), likes to watch his majestic home runs clear the fence before running the bases.... the list goes on and on, but essentially he comes across as a prima donna of sorts.

However, he's still one of the most electrifying and exciting players to watch in all of baseball in my book.

kei2

He's cocky/arrogant, and besides that he puts himself before the team. Ever see him drive a hit to the warning track? For any other player in the league it would be a double, but he's (1) admiring the shot and then (2) in his home run trot, so he barely makes it to first base even if the outfielder plays it off the bounce. Same thing with a drive down the line into the corner. Casually jogging it out, costing the Giants bases. In NL ball that's huge. It puts you in danger of the double play and costs you a runner in scoring position. It's a mystery to me why he's won eight Gold Gloves, because he doesn't try his hardest in LF either. Did you happen to catch the final inning of the Giants-Padres game where Burroughs dropped a hit into shallow left for the win? Bonds started in and then, seeing he wouldn't make the catch, just jogged toward it and let it bounce in front of him. You'd see a diving attempt to catch the ball by a real fielder. Then there's the whole big conflict between Bonds and Jeff Kent a couple years back. As if the team's two stars couldn't just share the spotlight. And that's what it's all about for Bonds really. Being in the spotlight. Most players, when interviewed about a big homer after the game, would say something like "the important thing is that our team won the game," but that's the last thing you'd ever hear Bonds say. He's a great player, but I think he's a terrible team player. You'd think with all the walks he'd steal more bases, but since his power surge that's really come to a halt. Then there's the whole thing about BALCO, and how it's pretty likely he used performance-enhancing drugs to hit so many home runs. Skip Bayless (a bay area sports writer) noted that it's not normal for a player in his late 30s to be able to put on 35-40 pounds of muscle in a year--really unlikely that this bulking up would happen without the use of steroids. Protein and creatine (both legal) don't make you that much bigger that fast. Plus there's the implication that he's putting himself at or above the level of Willie Mays, and that's ridiculous. Times change, homers are a lot easier to come by nowadays, and he shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, and Willie Mays. Ridiculous.

PrObLy

Well, he would still steal an occasional base or two after he started his power surge....that is, until he got to the glorious 500...so he could be the 500/500 guy. He stole his 500th base early in the season LAST YEAR, and how many has he had since then? I'm pretty sure ZERO. I don't think that's a coincidence.

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kei2

Yeah that's exactly what I mean. He's not slow, he just doesn't care anymore.

zenbooty

Have you ever thought that maybe its because the guy's 39 years old? You don't keep them legs forever, and a player loses his speed before his strength.

I've never had a problem with Bonds. He's the best hitter in baseball right now, he can afford to be cocky. And kei2's absolutely wrong about his left field play. A real fielder isn't going to dive at a ball that's falling in front of him and risk it getting behind him, unless he was damn sure he was going to be able to catch it or at least stop it. You've got no case against him there. The guy wins 1 gold glove, maybe you can talk some smack about him not deserving it. He wins eight, now you look silly if you don't give the guy some respect.

And people who have a problem with his attitude just don't seem to understand him. I've never heard him speak badly of anybody, not even Kent, who's gone on to show what a mature individual HE is with some of his recent incidents. He simply wants to be left alone as much as possible while he does his thing. What's so terrible about that? I've never heard him complain about management, or talk badly of his team, or complain about his role. People who think he's not a team player need to give some better concrete examples of why they think this way.

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kei2

Did you happen to see it? No, you didn't. If you did, you'd know that it was the game-winning (walk-off) hit in the bottom of the ninth inning with a runner on third. A real fielder dives for that if there's even a fraction of a chance that it'll prolong the game. It doesn't matter if it bounces past you, because if it drops your team loses the game. It did drop, and he did let it bounce past him. I'm not surprised that he's won Gold Gloves, I'm surprised that he has eight.

zenbooty

Well you never mentioned these mitigating factors in your original post of the situation. And since you didn't, my skepticle mind immediately leads me to believe that you're trying to BS me here. But even if you aren't, I'll still trust the judgement of an 8 time Gold Glove winner and previous MVP over that of a fan sitting in his seat watching from afar. Sorry, but that's just how things work sometimes.

kei2

I did ask if you happened to catch it but yeah I should have mentioned all the details from the start.

cheapie

i was sitting about six rows up and saw the exact same thing. it was at the end of the season a couple of years ago and they were fighting with, ummm, i think it was the dodgers or somebody for a playoff spot. it was the end of the game and he didn't hardly go for a fly ball. a run scored and tied it up. the fans were booing and i couldn't believe my eyes. thankfully for them they ended up winning but still...

slaus

I dislike bonds because he bashes Ruth whenever possible. He wants to somehow make this a black/white issue. I think every player should pay some respect to Ruth because without him, there wouldnt be baseball.

kei2

Seriously... I know his bat helps us (the Giants) a ton, and his ability to draw walks does as well... but his apparent lack of effort costs us a lot of plays. I can't really decide what bothers me most... the aforementioned fly ball situation, or admiring a long fly ball that ends up going off the wall instead of out of the part, or the half-hearted jog to first on a would-be extra-base hit.

ShawnLee

I was wondering if anyone would bring this up. I remember watching baseball back in the day and wondering about his future. Go figure.

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cheapchinese

why's that??
i really don't know.. thats why i'm asking not trying to make an argument

i would think its harder somehow, cause they pitchers are getting better now...

Showtime

The good news for you bonds haters is that he may hit that invisible wall any time now. It happens to all the greats around his age. Now, how that affects his playing remains to be seen... But it only gets a lot harder from here on out and with testing it may hurt him more than others.

Of course Im a Dodgers fan and don't don't give a damn either way. I'd take him in heartbeat. Instant contention for my club.

-jel

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kei2

/me mutters something about having thought he posted a response to this hours ago, only to find that he didn't.

In my mind, there are at least three factors that make homers easier to come by these days: diluted pitching, increased commonality of home runs, and steroids.

The league has some great pitchers now (Pedro, Randy, etc), but there's so many teams and so many pitchers that on average pitching quality is down. Even when a guy's great (like Pedro, Randy, etc) he only pitches every fifth game for his team. I'm pretty sure that on average pitching quality has declined sharply since the days of Ruth, Aaron, and Mays.

There's just way many home runs now. McGwire 70 and Sosa 66 a few years back, Bonds 73. Before that, the home run record had stood for what like 60 years? Then it's broken twice? Ridiculous. So many guys belt 40 home runs a year these days. Back then, 40 was pretty rare. I mean there's so many more home runs these days, so many more 100-RBI guys and 40-HR guys. I think it's like inflation. Maybe it's the games in Denver's thin air, maybe it's the smaller ballparks, but there are more home runs now (meaning the past few years and the present) than ever before.

Legal or not, players these days use performance-enhancing drugs/supplements that were not available in the old days. McGwire utilized androstene and creatine (both legal at the time) to break the HR record with his 70. Bonds is suspected of using 'roids provided by BALCO. Sosa... nothing in the news about him really, but how many people actually believe the broken bat incident was the first time he's ever hit with a corked bat in a game? Asterisks for everybody. What I mean by that is you can't compare modern hitting numbers with old hitting numbers. Too much has changed.

cheapchinese

this might come stupid, but what do you mean by diluted pitching??
is it that there is too many teams, and not too many good pitchers to come around?

if thats the case then i kinda understand now...

man... how i wish i was born in that era.. just to watch some of those baseball....

(not trying to start a fight here Jello)but Dodgers ain't that fun to watch anymore.. well ever since Nomo left... for me at least

kei2

Yes, too many teams for the talent to be consolidated. Thus on any team's five-man rotation, I say there's probably two good pitchers (on average). Back in the day the percentage of great pitchers was higher, and they didn't work just every fifth game. No way there was a five-man rotation and deep bullpen for each team. They should contract the freaking league to have fewer teams. Same with the NBA. Pick a team to eliminate and allow the rest of the teams to draft their players.

Merlin

While I agree that home runs are much more common now for a myriad of reasons (roids or just a modern emphasis on weight training, better overall health, modern bats - yes, a wooden bat today is better than one from 35 years ago, smaller ball parks, and everyone simply swinging for the fences strikeouts be dammed) diluted pitching is not one of them despite how popular that reason is among announcers and former ballplayers.

Today there are indeed many more teams than there were in the past however, back in Ruth's time the talent pool was also considerably smaller. The sport only took white guys from the United States. Ruth would never have faced Pedro M. or Mariano Rivera. As the game has grown and added teams it has also rather dramatically increased its talent pool to first include blacks in the early 50's then later players from all over central America and the Carribbean. And today we are close to sourcing players from all over the world. Also, in the past the ability to develop talent was not what it is today. You have baseball universities located in the Dominican Republic to grow talent. That's the primary reason so many MLB players come from there. So yeah there are many more pitchers today but since they come from a much larger talent pool the overall skill level has not been diluted.

If you want home runs to go back to historicaly normal levels (which MLB does not want since home runs sell tickets - they think) you've got to start by pushing fences back to the types of depths that were normal in the 50's and 60's. A good start. You've got to get roids out of the game. Get rid of body armor (sorry Mr. Bonds) Use a slightly deader ball in Colorado (yes, some adjustment must be made for the altitude. And put some limitations on the technology in the bats.

Will any of this happen? Not as long as they think we got to see a game simply to see home runs. Yes, they will make a half hearted attempt to get roids out of the game but do you think they are really going to kill the goose that lays the fattest golden eggs.

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whitak24

i think the "is pitching diluted?" debate has factors that go both ways.

as kei2 mention, with expansion and deeper pitching staffs, the truely great pitchers are spread out more, meaning that batters often face supposedly inferior pitching.

however, as merlin mentioned, there is a much larger talent pool today. which definitely increases the chance of finding more naturally great pitchers.

another huge factors, in my opinion, is the depth of rotations and bullpens. it used to be that starters often went the whole game or almost the whole game. and they would pitch on maybe 4 days rest. now, you're looking at facing a fresh pitcher at least twice per game and possibly 3 or 4 times. and generally, a guy who is fresh is going to be a tougher pitcher to face than someone who is in his 8th inning of work.

i think the other major factor is that the overall level of athletic achievement and ability has increased dramatically in all sports over the past 100 years. athletes are bigger, stronger, faster, healthier, and better-trained. coaching has become a science, and with high-tech video systems scouting is at an unprecedented level. so i think you have better pitchers, but you also have better hitters.

which is why ultimately, it is impossible to compare numbers across decades.