I don't know if steroids make a huge difference but the difference between a good player and a great player is rather small. Sometimes all a good player needs it is little extra muscle and strength to become great. When Ben Johnson doped out after winning the 100 meter run his reputation was sullied and later destoyed entirely as he kept using the drugs. If the drugs are legal, fine. But if they are not then stop taking them!
Nearly a year later, Barry Bonds just hit homerun number 704 (correct me if I'm wrong). Just an update on an old thread
Ortiz is closing in on 50 as well. The way I see it, it is tough to make comparisons between hitters of this era and eras before this, just becuase of so many things that have changed. Steroids are a very unfortunate part of the game today, but they are a part of it.
barry has 4 dingers in 7 games, 707 total.
get the feeling he might just call it quits at the end of this season if he hits 8 more to pass ruth...
A Bonds homer is like an Enron business move....So fraudulant that it just makes you sad..
Bonds swung and missed three times in one at bat his first game back....first time in multiple seasons.
That's just nasty.
I don't think Bonds will call it quits after this season. For one, he is signed with the Giants through the 2006 season. Secondly, I think he has made it his own legacy to his father and his godfather to go out on the very top. My gut feeling is he will play another season and he will break Aaron's record.
I couldn't scroll back far enough to read who had said something about "prove to me that he is not using steroids...blah, blah, blah" What the hell is that? Are people all automatically guilty now until they are proven innocent? Has anyone....anyone at all been able to prove that he IS guilty? You know they've tried.
Lady J, no offense, but anyone who knows anything about fitness sees it's pretty damn obvious he's on steroids. I'd bet every single penny to my name he's on roids, or has been a heavy user of drugs.
He's a pro athlete. He's worked out for most of his whole life. Athletes do that.
He put on a TON of weight, namely muscle, when he was in his 30's. There hasn't been any huge progressions in nutrition or fitness between the early 90's and late 90's. Guys don't just put on 30-40 pounds of LEAN muscle in a period of a few years at that age naturally, if they've already been hitting the weights for a number of years.
It would be like if I all of a sudden put on 20lbs of lean muscle. I've been lifting for 8 years and have put on a good deal of weight, gradually and naturally, and I can tell you I couldn't spike up 30lbs over the next few years naturally. It's impossible.
Not to mention I've talked to guys in pro baseball that have told me there's a huge percentage of guys juicing.
wasn't there was a news story a while back (can't seem to put my hands on it) where he said he'd be satisfied passing ruth, but didn't wanna pass aaron outta respect or something?
He said something like that, yes. He wants to knock Ruth off.
yeah.
i think the media tried to make it into a racial thing...
Well Bonds has played the race card a few times himself.
He has used roids...Duh, his head is huge! But that makes so matter to me. Everybody is doing it, so why has he become the whipping boy? I think its because he is a outspoken black guy in a predominantly white fanned sport. We have writers bashing Bonds while they embraced Mcgwire years ago, was it not obvious he was roiding? We have fans bashing Bonds while they ignore the fact that Raphie Palmerio lied to us all, and we know that to be truth. Bonds is simply the best ever.
i don't remember there being any roid-talk during the mcgwire/sosa slugfest of '98...
Exactly, because you had an Irishman and an Uncle Tom Dominican. It's ridiculously obvious why everyone hates Bonds to me.
Uh, well I used to talk about how painfully obvious it was that Sosa and McGwire were juicing.
C'mon, doesn't anyone remember the Andro crap with McGwire? The media was relentless over a legal and useless supplement.
Relentless? The media is relentless with Bonds, the media reported the andro thing, nothing more.
C'mon....don't throw this into a race thing.
The media tore him apart for being a cocky bastard. Either way, I could care less. Bonds is one of the greatest ballplayers you'll see in your lifetetime, if not the best.
And yes, the media did tear into McGwire for the Andro incident. And, Andro is useless, it's the equivilant of eating paper.
The race question is way beside the point. Of course it applies to a healthy percentage of racist Americans. But plain old baseball fans don't want to see Bonds break Hank Aaron's record, and the last time I checked, Aaron was black. And he didn't use roids. People are rooting for old-school baseball as much as they are decrying the steroid era.
I have yet to see valid support for the race argument. Calling Sosa an "Unlce Tom Dominican" borders on racism--why don't you explain what it means to act black.
Nobody liked Giambi, but he admitted his steroid use. Palmero lied and now he's done for good. Bonds is lying.
