Barry Bonds finally broke Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record last night, dooming all of us to several days of inane and simplistic arguments on talk radio shows as to whether Bonds’ record should include an asterisk because of his use of steroids during the latter stages of his career.
For a more balanced view regarding Bonds and his steroid use, take a look at previous posts here, here, here, here, here and here over the past several years. In the end, Bonds is a product of his environment.
Update: Kuff agrees with me, and sabermetrician JC Bradbury provides a reasoned view on Bonds. Lee Sinins provides this statistical analysis (pdf) of Bonds’ career. And here is the video on no. 756:
Houston's Clear Thinkers
Longtime Houston attorney Tom Kirkendall's observations on developments in law, business, medicine, culture, sports, and other matters of general interest to the Houston business, professional, and academic communities.
Tom,
I love to read your blog and have found your coverage of the Enron witch trials insightful and courageous. But, I can only see celebrating Bonds breaking the Homerun record as rationalizing an ethics violation.
While Mr. Bonds should be recognized as one of the greatest players in baseball, the argument that steroids cannot enhance a players ability hit a ball harder or more frequently is weak at best.
The better argument and one that justifies the accusation of [cheating] is more a formula than a miracle elixir.
An example of this would be- a career .200 hitter with 50 rbi’s and 9 hr’s a year + steroids = mild bump in average and power
or
.290 to .320 hitter + steroids = marked increase in rbi’s and homeruns.
why? Well, Bonds is the best example, in that he was already a very good baseball player. Smooth swing with powerful technique. Taking such superior batting skills and add steroids and you have the ingredients to hit a homerun every 8 at bats instead of every 16.
The argument that many, many players used steroids should not be considered an argument in his defense. Each and every player who decided to partake in the use of steroids had to ignore their conscience for the desire to improve their baseball abilities.
The bottom line is a highly skilled and gifted player took banned substances to make him stronger and quicker. He could only have indulged in this process for one reason and one reason only- to hit more homeruns. Sadly, I cannot see another reason for an athlete as great as he was doing something like this.
Yeah, what NewportRealtor said.
Actually, Bob Costas basically destroyed any argument that the Bonds Apologists could come up with (not that I think that you, Tom, are a Bonds Apologist, but perhaps more of a Bonds Minimalist). Say what you want about Costas (smug, too much of a traditionalist, etc.), he knows baseball and is able to address any key issue in this debate.
And steroids do help in any athletic endeavor. There is a vast myth that it only helps bodybuilders or football linemen. Then why would a sprinter, or a cyclist, or a baseball player take steroids? Because it aids in muscle recovery. And don’t forget that one of the drugs Bonds allegedly took improved his eyesight, improving his already-great hand-eye coordination.
The records will never be removed. Spitballers (like Gaylord Perry) still keep their career totals. The results of the 1919 World Series still stand even though Chicago threw the Series. But in the end, we all know Gaylord was a cheater and the White Sox laid down for Cincinnati.
Ultimately, we, the fans, know Bonds is a phony. Bonds might have more home runs than Henry Aaron, but he isn’t better than him.
So many issues, so little space. 🙂
I agree that Bonds, as the point man in this entire imbroglio suffers far more scorn than he deserves. There is voluminous evidence that Bonds is a drug-cheat, however Barry doesn’t synthesize drugs that are undetectable in testing, study the pharmacology, sneak them in from Mexico, write the weak steroid testing protocols, collect his team’s revenue, or count the tickets sold due to home runs.
It took an army of unethical doctors, trainers, drug dealers, BALCO executives, and lawyers to pull this stuff off (lawyers less so).
The press is vilified in the meantime because they are the messengers being shot, and because they do tend to obsess on the steroids mess. However, we in the professions have foisted the ethical and moral challenges concerning the steroids issue onto the media. As I mentioned above there is an unethical doctor (or trainer) for each unethical doping athlete out there.
Excuses for drug-cheats abound; I have tried to expose some myths, but more pop up all the time.
http://blogs.britannica.com/blog/main/2007/08/barry-bonds-and-the-urban-myths-about-steroids/
As far as these steroid-era feats being ‘genius’ then that bus is getting larger every day. Genius must be applied to Juan Gonzalez, Brady Anderson, Luis Gonzalez, and yes the late Ken Caminiti, so I don’t think these feats of strength amount to genius as much as they amount to pharmacological enhancement.
So where are we left now? At a crossroads.
Is baseball just not the hallowed game we all thought it was? Perhaps. Some accept baseball cheating as much as they accept corruption in Gov’t. Baseball might just be pro wrestling with a bit more uncertainty, if the chemical enhancement of athletes continues on.
It may be that the world wants the cyborg athlete. We may need to face that. If so, then strap yourselves in for a wild ride through medical/behavioral global warming. Events such as the premature deaths in pro cycling, or the homi-suicides in pro wrestling will become more commonplace as the pharmacological nuclear athletics race heats up.
Does this pro-PED use affect the youth. Don Hooton down there in Texas thinks so; I tend to agree with him.
The last point (to be merciful and cut this short) would be about whom the drug cheats really cheat. Of course they defraud the fans who expect some semblance of fairness. The drug cheats also cheapen the past players (as pointed out by Dale Murphey and Nolan Ryan)
Drug-cheats also offend against the ‘clean players’. For instance the self-proclaimed ‘best player of his generation’ was playing second fiddle to Junior Ken Griffey. Chart out the year by year stats, and one can see that Griffey put out superior numbers until something happened to Bonds about age 33 (that something being PEDs and weight lifting). Grif, demonstrating the course of a natural player, suffered through injuries and declining performance seen with age. The ‘best player of his generation’ meanwhile defied gravity.
Thus, I agree Bonds gets much more abuse than he deserves. However, this is a needed juncture in time where sports fans need to seriously consider what they want for the future.