I used like my shoes tight and I would get 11 or 11-1/2 shoes. Eventually I preferred looser shoes and now I wear 13s. Shoe size is not an absolute indicator of foot size. There are other reasons we know he used PEDs, like the people who provided it and his own admission (maybe he still denies knowing what he was given, I don’t recall and I doubt that was all there was to it).
Yeah but what was the change in your hat size?
Just those 3? Why just those three? Because they have established records and they allegedly took steroids? It has been established that some took steroids, others have not been proven. Unless I don’t recall something, it has never been proven that Bonds did.
The numbers of hits, homeruns and whatnot are a record of what happened on the field. Was it a level playing field? No, and it hasn’t since the beginning of baseball. Some of those contributed to all-time records like 762 homeruns. Whether you like it or not, Bonds has that record. It’s what happened and what was recorded in the official league books. You are saying to wipe all that and pretend it didn’t happen.
Maybe Pujols cheated in some way or even Judge. Heck, maybe Aaron and – gasp! – Babe Ruth did too. It’s a competitive environment, even more so today with the money involved. Many, many players in the past have tried to get an advantage, not always following the rule of law which is another way of saying they cheated. So let’s all forget that the past 150 years didn’t happen. It’s like slavery and other unpleasant things of history, some just want to pretend it didn’t exist. Burying our heads in the sand is not a solution. Acknowledge that it did happen, learn from it and enjoy the game.
Bonds eventually did admit (in court proceedings) that he took PEDs, though he (at least at that time) maintained that his trainer had tricked him into taking them, and that he (Bonds) thought he was being injected with flaxseed oil and an arthritis balm.
Judge must be “on something”. Not just that he’s hit 61 home runs which is near historic levels. It’s because he’s so far ahead of everyone else. The next guy has hit only 44 (Scharber), a difference of 17. You know the last time that’s happened? Babe Ruth, 1928 with 54, Jim Bottomly had just 31. And Judge is doing it in a year when the homer rate is down, lowest in seven years. Plus, nearly leading in batting average when that stat is at its lowest.
What about Albert Pujols? He’s 42 and having his best slugging year since 2011. That’s not suppose to happen. Maybe he should have an asterisk.
The logical end to such things never ends, of course. If we ignore McGwire, Bonds, and Sosa, do we wipe out the accomplishments of their teams in those years? Do we take away Bonds’s and Sosa’s MVP Awards and negate Chicago making the playoffs in 1998?
If “well, he wasn’t caught officially, but we’re pretty sure” is enough, are we removing David Ortiz from the Hall of Fame? Jeff Bagwell? Ivan Rodriguez?
Clearly, not enough of today’s players are following Ruth’s training regimen, of beer, cigars, hot dogs, and sex. 
One wonders what kind of accomplishments he would of had if he ate healthy, trained hard, and rested more.
One of the amusing things I’ve seen in response to Yankee fans who claim the record is 61 due to steroid usage from McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds, is asking should the Yankees World Series in the 1990s and 2008 be invalidated due to evidence of steroid use from Clemens, Cano, and A-Rod? That suggestion is usually met with silence.
Have you seen Albert Pujols this year? He’s pudgy and slow, exactly how a 42-year-old baseball player should look. If he’s taking anything he needs to ask for his money back.
I remember hearing grumbling from some pitchers that the arm guard allowed Bonds to crowd the plate without fear. 
Besides, the arm guard wouldn’t protect him from a fastball in the temple. LOL
Isn’t the goal hitting better rather than looking good? Yes, moving back to St Louis as well as his final year jumpstarted his motivations… but his OPS+ in a season hasn’t been this high (151) since 2010, when he was 30. Questions are bound to come up.
The arm guard absolutely allowed him to do that. There’s not much argument that it didn’t. Bonds wasn’t leaning into pitches to get hit, but he definitely crowded the hell out of the plate to better reach the outside of it.
Yes, but being “pudgy and slow” is an indication that he is markedly out of shape, and that can produce injuries and a lot of down time. Several of my White Sox players fit that description, and we’ve had numerous “out of shape injuries”. We’ve had several players injured running to first base. Really?! I"m sorry, but if you can’t run to a base without pulling something, you are out of shape. We had one player injure himself SWINGING AT A PITCH. What a joke.
My point is that it not only affects individual performance but team performance as well.
Yes, but the discussion was in the context of PEDs. Being pudgy and slow doesn’t mean you aren’t taking PEDs… Bartolo Colon was suspended for PEDs after all!
Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1927 beat out every other team (and would have his own teammates too if Gehrig didn’t hit 47) so I demand an asterisk for any HR record that was beaten by another team that same season.
This is of course a ludicrous couple of statements.
In order to judge how much steroids helped Bonds and McGwire, we would have to know approximately what percentage of the players they were competing against were also using steroids, which we don’t. If it was a very small percentage, then their cheating clearly helped them a great deal. If it was, as I suspect, a very large percentage, then they were just the best players of the steroid era, just like Pete Rose was one of the best players of the greenie era and Ruth and Gehrig were among the best players of the segregated era.
I think illegal steroid use is a point against a player in the Hall of Fame context, and I wouldn’t have a problem with keeping a borderline candidate out for it. But unless you can prove that only a tiny handful of players in the 90s were using steroids, it’s ridiculous for them to keep the very best hitters of that era out of the Hall.
Agreed. Those are strenuous activities that even the most well-conditioned athletes can suffer injuries from. Especially given all the wear and tear their bodies undergo over the course of a game or series.