Oh well, I stand corrected. Maybe someone will rebreak the record soon so we don’t have to worry about all this crap?!
I think you’re being too hard on yourself. “And he says he never juiced” is pretty clear. What you wrote was wrong but it wasn’t imprecise.
But in Bonds’ defense, I’ll offer this. As others have noted, pitchers as well as hitters are using steroids now. That doesn’t make it right and it’s a doubly unfair disadvantage to the guys who are playing legit. But it means Bonds’ “enhanced” strength isn’t as unbalancing as his detractors claim. And size is only one factor in hitting. Steroids aren’t going to give anyone skill - they can make you hit harder but they can’t make you hit better. A large part of Bonds’ ability is talent and that often goes undercredited because of the steroid issue.
If he stays healthy, Rodriguez will blow the record away before he turns 40.
I think it’s just silly to compare records like this over vast amounts of time. As has been pointed out, way too many things have changed over the decades to make it the same record anymore. A home run today is just not the same thing as it was when Marris hit one, or when Aaron hit one, or even more when Ruth hit one. Comparing the numbers straight up just doesn’t work. Steroids or no steroids.
Ask me who the best home run hitter of all time is, and the answer is clear: Babe Ruth. He holds no major home run records anymore, but Jesus, the guy hit 60 home runs in 1927. That was more home runs than any of the other 7 teams in the American league combined! That’s not human.
But, of course, Ruth played without black players, thus with a smaller pool of pitchers. So, there’s reasons that it was easier for him. But, there were also fewer teams, thus there’s reasons it was harder for him. In the end, you go with your gut, and the records don’t have meaning over too much time.
You might be right, and I would put even money on his side, but it ain’t a done deal. Only a few years ago, Griffey’s name would have been in that sentence.
Barry Bonds is the only man who could make a BoSox fan cheer for A-Rod.
Am I wrong, here?
Babe does hold the ‘Fastest to 300’ record, IIRC. Someone named Jerry is second, and A-Rod is third.
Only because he has more actual talent than any of the steriod era players, so if one of them has to have the record, it should be him.
There’s no doubt he used steriods, but its still dumb of sixty and seventy year old men to be pissy about a sports record, regardless if they have a legit gripe or not.
I hate single-word posts, but in my opinion, the record should come accompanied by the following.
This is true, but I’ll bet you a steak dinner A-Rod breaks the record before his 40th birthday.
This is assuming cows, baseball and the board still exist in six or seven years… 
While I was on a plane when he hit the record-breaking HR, I was in my hotel room when he tied the record. Bud Selig was on hand for that, and he had been following bonds for like 11 games. Because he wasn’t there when he broke the record, it doesn’t mean that the commissioner didn’t approve. He followed him around for 11 games for Christ’s sake.
FTR, since I’m a lawyer, I will not believe the record is tainted until I see hardcore factual evidence, not a lot of circumstantial evidence that he indeed juiced up.
Part of hitting better is hitting harder. Steroids can’t make you hit more accurately or more frequently.
Part of Babe Ruth’s successful homerun record was that he would swing at just about anything. He had a lot of strikeouts too.
When Ruth played for Boston, was he up against the Green Monster or was that built later?
I know that some steroid use can drive you batshit. What are the potential side effects of HGH? Why don’t TPTB test for it?
By the time I was twelve, I had figured out that the “Everybody else does it too” argument just doesn’t hold up. It doesn’t matter to me if Barry Bonds has the personality of Ty Cobb or of Jackie Robinson. If he earned it, I want him to have it. If he didn’t, I want Hank to keep it. Everybody was excited when Hank broke the record. All of us ran the bases with him.
Nah, I agree with you and would put the money on it. Particularly because A-Rod has been remarkably healthy over his career.
Selig has no right to be pissy. All of the steroid controversy (from McGuire to Bonds) has happened under his watch, and he hasn’t done a damn thing about it. He’s an abysmal failure of a commissioner.
Confessions are circumstantial evidence?
The Monster’s always been there, as far as I know. Most of Ruth’s stint with the Sox was as a pitcher though, so it wasn’t all that much of a factor. He also batted left, so he wouldn’t have hit it that way much.
Less important than how much farther someone could hit the ball on steroids is the fact that steroids will improve stamina, allowing somebody to perform at a high level deeper into the season (not suffer normal September fatigue) and to play until they’re older than they might otherwise.
Bad form. Most lawyers on this board refrain from waiving the “I am a lawyer” flag especially when it is irrelevant.
Case in point: I think it was '04, probably '05, Timmy Chang had the best completion record, or maybe the highest touchdown record, but also had the highest number of interceptions. In NCAA football that is.
Fastest to 300 in terms of what? Age? Games played?
In terms of age, it’s A-Rod.
In terms of games played it’s amazingly difficult to figure out.
McGwire. Ack!
Anyway, really, I’d disagree in part. Baseball should have tackled the steroids issue LONG before Bud Selig was commissioner. Fuck, if the Ben Johnson scandal didn’t wake you up to the idea that “Hey, this steroid business might be bad for our sport,” what would?
Baseball at the time was obsessed with rooting out cocaine, which has jack shit to do with baseball, doesn’t make you a better player, and in my honest opinion should not be the right of any employer to test you for unless your job involves the safety of other people (e.g. truck drivers.) Cocaine was a self-made scandal where baseball’s own obsession with it is what, in alrge part, drove the media frenzy over it. Meanwhile, steroids, the REAL problem that actually has something to do with SPORTS, were being ignored even as Olympic athletes flamed out and were caught as cheaters in from of a billion viewers. Baseball was worried about the wrong damned things.
Drugs have taken a 20-something guy who hit 28-30 home runs and helped him peak at 37+ years of age. When you are on the juice, hitting farther isn’t the only thing you can do. When you are on drugs, you can stand there at 41, 42, 43, etc and snap the bat around like a toy whip. There are drugs, such as Winstrol, that will make your senses jump out of your body and make the pitch seem like it is in slow motion. Things that are fast seem slow. Your body seems like it is made of high strung snap rubber. Your senses are beefed up. You have no concerns but raw concentration and this brutal confidence that they could throw a titaniumm greased pee at over 150 MPH at you and you’d snap the bat and drop it into Pacific.
Some other 42 y/o is having trouble standing in the batter’s box, and his right tricep is strained and he feels slow, trying to compensate for lost strength and speed with experience and craftiness. He can muster .280 b/a this season, if he could get the right spot in the line up and be taken out when the pitching matchup his bad. And he is a career 305 hitter who took care of himself and took on weight training and martial arts to keep fit.
Grandpa Bonds hits his stride, peaks beyond prediction/reality, as he pushes 40 and his bulbous skull pushes it’s way out faster than the universe expanded after the Big Bang.
Dudes got stretch marks that’d make HGH human powerlifting experiments from East Germany proud.