In response to Jester, I feel the need to express my true joy at watching my beloved Mets play so far this year. While there is a lot of ball left to play this season, I think they've thrown down the gauntlet to the NL East (including the Nats) and have shouted "Catch us if you can!"
And now for good blogger fodder, I throw this out to the field - Should Bonds get a celebration for passing Ruth? I say hell no given that he juiced his way to the top. Personally, I'd love to be there to boo his ass when he does. His actions as well as those of others (in my opinion this includes Sosa and Big Mac) have done nothing but cheapen and ruin what was once arguably the most revered and respected record in sports.
For a second question, should everything Bonds has accomplished from 1999-current be stricken from the record books?
(of couse I'm assuming that he's being juicing since then; but given his unhuman like middle aged growth spurt, don't think this is too far off base).
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3 comments:
Thank you Stallion. I'm glad that someone took the initiative to post something.
As for your questions. I don't think that MLB should do anything to celebrate Bonds's inevitable passing of The Babe. While I agree that he is a loser that doesn't deserve it because he's a cheater, I actually agree with the reason that the Commissioner gave when asked this question. Selig said that there shouldn't be any kind of celebration when Bonds passes Ruth simply because Ruth doesn't hold the record, Hammerin' Hank does. Now, I don't believe that this is the real reason that MLB won't be celebrating Mr. Bonds's tainted accomplishment. If Major League Baseball could turn this into a good marketing event they would--Hand Aaron be damned! But Bud's official response has a lot of appeal to me. Though I love the Bambino as much as the next guy (well, at least as any card-carrying Yankee hater can), he doesn't hold the record. Though his number is, well, Ruthian, wouldn't celebrating the passing of this non-record just take the spotlight off of the real record holder. Why celebrate George Herman? We already blew that milestone out of the water.
As for the erasing Bonds from the record books... I love it in theory, but not reality. There are so many big-named players who's numbers are now in question because of the "juice" era. But we'll never know the truth about the vast majority of those players. How could we take out Bonds and leave in everyone else...and do we really want the kind of witch hunt that a methodical effort to exclude cheaters would ential?
Plus, we must remember that Baseball is a game where records have tradionally been affected by things other than the skill of the players. The true coniseur knows that players just couldn't hit for the same kind of power when the ball was soft as a watermelon. And we don't adjust career numbers for the change in the length of the season, do we?
There is no need to remove Bonds's numbers or even insert an asterisk--those who are informed have already inserted a mental asterisk on this one.
Let me just say that it is an absolute disgrace that Barry Bonds continues to saunter across a baseball diamond while Pete Rose continues to be banned from the game for life and excluded from the HOF.
This is pure hypocrisy.
Well put IPB; and I agree with you. Although betting on baseball is wrong, nothing compromises the integrity of the game more than cheating by giving yourself an unfair (& highly unnatural) advantage.
By the way, I know it's mean, but I sort of like that fact that I'm sure that Bonds is going to suffer from some sort of f'ed up disease down the road as a result of turning himself into a melting pot of sorts. What really burns me about his "alleged" use of steriods is that he was in my mind the most dangerous man in baseball before juicing. It's not as if he was a struggling minor leaguer looking to catch a break (not that this is somehow morally ok either). To me, Bonds decision was one based purely on being an ego maniac.
Jester, you have many valid points. I do think that Selig gave a safe answer. I do agree that under cleaner circumstances, MLB would have gladly capitalized on the occassion. As far as adjusting records, I look at things like baseball weight, season length as factors out of the players control. You need to recognize and celebrate those achievements based on the factors at hand and circumstances of the time (for example hitting 40+ homers in 1960 made you the big man in the game; we've since adjusted our thinking on that one). But, when a player undercuts the rest of the league by taking steriods, he eliminates the level playing field that all players of the era encounter. While I don't advocate a witch hunt, I do think the those who are record holders should be properly investigated to ensure the integrity of the record (This holds especially when they have clearly lied about steriods in the past). To give Bonds a pass in my mind sends the message that as long as one can shed reasonable doubt on steriods, cheating is ok. While I'm sure that many of the modern top HR hitters have juiced (Sheffield, Giambi, McGuire, Sosa, Mr. Viagra and Canseco to name a few), they get a pass from the witch hunt only b/c they're not in a position to challenge the record. Why go after an also-ran who even w/ cheating couldn't match Aaron's accomplishment.
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