Ability to read pitchers is about the only thing there you can really say with any verifiable validity, and that is just because there are only about 700 “real” major leaguers at any given time. And Barry Bonds only plays with half of them.
To get a feel as to how few people that is, did anyone here go to a small HS? I did, we had about 700 total kids, and I knew 95% of the people at the school and I recognized 100% of them by face and almost all of them by name.
And of course pitcher is just one position, although the position with the most players on any given team. But nonetheless, it just stands to reason that a veteran will be able to read the pitchers that he’s faced many many times and seen many many times throughout out his life, it’s a standard thing that veteran players read pitchers better, mostly because they’ve been batting against these guys for 10+ years.
Anyways I don’t think there is much evidence in support of a 40 year old man being able to realistically increase his EYE ability, most people start to suffer vision problems at that age.
Also I’m not quite sure why you guys think MLBers are “comic book” character looking.
The average major leaguer doesn’t weight all that much more per inch of height than any ordinary human being, in fact most of them probably don’t weight more than others of their height at all.
Baseball does favor the tall at most positions except catcher, taller you are you have a longer arm typically and have a small edge fielding (and when filtered through all the layers of talent that a MLBer is, those small edges mean making it the majors and languishing in the minors) pitchers also are generally recognized as being more advantaged the taller they are.
Now obviously skill comes into play as well, as with everything, but height is one thing that is just nice to have in baseball unless you’re a catcher.
So the average MLBer is 6’1-6’3ish. I’m shorter than most of my male friends at 5’10", I know a lot of people who are 6’1"-6’2" and a few that are taller. It’s not exactly an uncommon thing.
Most MLBers also weigh 200-220 lbs. That’s also not a crazy weight. And most of them don’t have bulging muscles. I can think of some famous huge MLBers, Dave Ortiz is a big guy, Roger Clemens is pretty big, Randy Johnson et cetera. But in general baseball players aren’t the 6’4" 295 lbs. mountains of muscle that football players are.
No, that only works for sports like competitive driving, where a huge part of the sport uses an external piece of equipment. The human body is supposed to be the talent (sorta) so that is to be left alone and the equipment like bats, pads, balls etc should be as standard as possible. There already is a level playing field, the juicers are trying to get around that.
Baseball is not about extending human physical achievement. It’s about beating the other team. Otherwise you’d score runs per metre of flight of the ball, not just that it went out of the park.
I believe it was 44 per 162. So, Barry Bonds hit 14 more homers per 162 games after 1999 (excluding the pre-'93 years), 9 more per 162 if we ignore the 73 homer year–and, BTW, I don’t believe we should ignore that year. It’s funny, Neurotik did the math I was thinking of today when I was chatting with my brother–i.e., the homers per 162 games is probably a weak stat compared to HRs per AB considering the guy walks 200 times a year. Even 9 add’l homers per 162 years is a statistically significant difference over the last 5 years, a significance that seems to have an explanation.
Yes, this is undeniable. Barry Bonds is a special player with or without steroids. But I don’t understand how steroids wouldn’t ratchet up his ability, his bat speed. That fact that others have similar brute strength without his ability misses the point. Additional brute strength PLUS his innate ability changes an MVP/sure Hall-of-Famer into the greatest hitter of all time, a status he did not possess prior to his discovery of the wonders of chemicals. Honestly, it is getting tiresome hearing people say how steroids won’t make a shlub a great player. No kidding. No one is arguing that. But it will make a solid player into an MVP (Caminitti) and an already-special player into a frigging super hero. Christ, Babe Ruth on 'roids would have probably hit 1000.
I guess we disagree as to how much steroids helped him to dominate, but we agree on these last points. We’ll never know. I strongly believe that there is no way he’d overtake Aaron without this help. He’d have a lot less homers–hell, maybe he’d be retired by now. It’s disgusting.
Oh, they helped. In fact, I think it defies believability to suggest Bonds’ steroid use never decided the outcome of a game. Think about that. Pete Rose is rightly villified, and we’ll never know for certain if his betting ever changed the outcome of a single game–perhaps it never did. There’s no question in my mind that Bonds’ cheating has decided many a game–his stats make that clear. Hell, I’ve seen quite a few in my time. Bonds will NEVER be the home run king for me (neither was McGwire). He should be banned for life, his records removed from the books. Fat chance that’ll happen.
Roger Maris drank an awful lot of coffee. Caffeine is a stimulant, and may have effected his game. Babe Ruth was a known drunkard. Alchohol is a drug, and may have effected his performance. Who do you have left to root for?
The difference here is whether or not Bonds was cheating. That’s not yet a known fact; steroids weren’t against the rules until at least 2002, and maybe (they aren’t real clear on this point) 2003.
However, Bonds took steroids to deliberately gain an unfair advantage. Maris did not, and neither did Ruth. Ruth drank because he liked to drink; it wasn’t like he was subverting some rule to gain a pharmacological edge.
The thing here is that it doesn’t matter if roids gave Bonds 1 extra homer or 100. He’s tainted for all time, and given his position in the game’s history, that means baseball is significantly tainted. Baseball is a game of numbers and history, and Bonds has now polluted those numbers in a way that’s completely unprecedented. The single season home run record is ruined now. The career walk record, ruined. Seven MVPs, ruined. People will never really believe he was as good as the numbers say; his 2001-2004 MVP Awards will have an unspoken asterisk next to them now, forever, and eventually, so will his 1990 1992-1993 MVPs, since people will forget that he didn’t start juicing until the late 90s. And if he does pass Aaron, baseball’s holiest record will be dirty until an honest player passes it - which might never happen.
The importance of numbers to baseball fans really defies comparison in any other sport. I sincerely doubt that 90% of reasonably interested hockey fans know what the record for points in a season is without looking it up (though they can likely guess it’s held by Wayne Gretzky) but to a baseball fan, the home run record is a statistical holy grail. To ruin that… Bonds has seriously damaged baseball. Well, not just Bonds; let’s give blame where it’s due. Why weren’t roids banned 30 years ago?
I agree with you, almost 100%. I love baseball, and I am disgusted that the crown jewel of achievements is now ruined. Where I disagree is in the significance of steroids being banned by MLB. They were illegal, and that should be enough. MLB doesn’t ban hitters killing the opposing pitcher if the pitcher’s really good, but we’d all agree this illegal act is, well, bad form. There’s a reason Bonds et.al. consistently denied steroid use when asked of it previously. The lack of an MLB ban was not material. It was cheating, and we all know it.
But if Barry Bonds murdered someone, that wouldn’t cast doubt on his 73 homer record. Lots of players - including a few Hall of Famers, like Paul Molitor - have done illegal drugs like coke and smack, but their records are not questioned, because they weren’t cheating in a way that casts those accomplishments into a doubtful light - taking coke doesn’t seem to help you play baseball, (or as Bill James put it, Dave Parker didn’t lose his batting eye from playing too much Scrabble, if you know what I mean.) O.J. Simpson murdered his wife, but it doesn’t bring his statistics and the games his team won into question. You might not want to rejoice in OJ’s accomplishments, but at least you don’t doubt them.
There’s a difference between a ballplayer doing something WRONG, and a ballplayer doing something that challenges the perception of the sport’s integrity. It’s wrong to be a racist and a jerk, but Ty Cobb’s being a racist and a jerk do not cast doubt on his career numbers, or the pennants he led the Tigers to. On the other hand, gambling is morally ambiguous, but gambling on your own games DOES bring the legitimacy of those games into question. If Bonds had murdered a pitcher then you’d hate him but at least you could say that other other 24 guys on the 2002 Giants won the pennant honestly. Now, I’m not sure you can say that.
If a behaviour is specifically relevant to baseball, MLB should address it. MLB doesn’t have to have a rule against murder because there is no reason they should have such a rule. There’s no purpose to it. But they should have had a rule against steroids, and it’s now obvious why.
Well, why is it cheating? It’s hard to take a clear and unrelative stance on what exactly is “fair” use of benign stimulants, nutritional supplemence, or artificial enhancements (contact lenses? ankle braces?) and what isn’t. I agree that there should be concern about the legitimacy of the game, etc., but I also think the whole conversation is lacking a certain reflective discussion on what it means to artificially enhance performance. I have a hard time understanding why it’s wrong to use steroids (besides the fact that they are bad for you) but OK to take pain killers or use other drugs that help you play better in certain situations, or various nutritionally supplements that help you bulk up fast. What do steroids really do? They help you work out longer and bulk up, but they don’t actually hit home runs or score touchdowns. They’re dangerous and people who take them are stupid, but I don’t see that there really is this huge line between steroids and pretty much everything else athletes do to their bodies…
But putting all that aside, and ignoring records, what recent World Series victories need to be taken off the books?
To RickJay: My point was simply that we needn’t gnash our teeth and wonder why, oh why, steroids weren’t banned sooner, as if that would have made a difference. My point was that steroids were (and are) ILLEGAL. And MLB needn’t ban every illegal activity in order for those activities to be considered outside the realm of appropriate behavior.
I’m not asking for a ban on murdering the opposing pitcher (which was offered as a silly analogy). I’m just pointing out that such a circumstance couldn’t be excused by saying, “Well, Barry may have poisoned Randy Johnson prior to the game. But who are we to cast stones? After all, MLB never banned this act.”
Come now, this is a critical philosophical question to be answered. Can’t we all agree that poisoning Randy Johnson prior to a game would simultaneously inflate the hitter’s stats and be considered bad darts?
I think poisoning Randy Johnson is no different than stealing signs or putting that “little something extra” on the ball (which I’m sure Randy has never done, eye-roll icon). If they don’t catch you, it isn’t cheating!
If Randy does catch you, and has a ball handy, however – you deserve what you get. You have about one third of a second to duck.
You may be misinterpreting my point. I am not for a moment suggesting that Bonds be held less in blame here, or that what he did is less wrong because MLB was stupid not to ban steroids. Of course it’s dishonest and wrong, as evidenced by the fact that players deny doing it. I don’t believe that “blame” is a fixed pie. It’s possible for two parties to be 100% at fault.
But what I am trying to point out here is that MLB DID screw up here, and oh boy did they screw up badly. Let’s assume Bonds is a rat. Fine, he’s a rat, that case is closed. But the problem that interests me isn’t Barry Bonds, it’s Major League Baseball. MLB should have seen this problem coming a mile away, but it’s caught them completely by surprise, and so they never do anything about it and now it’s a PR disaster of proportions unlike anything since 1919.
You can say all you want that MLB shouldn’t have had to ban steroids, but the proof’s in the pudding; they did not ban steroids and now it’s a frickin’ disaster. That choice was ultimately the wrong one. It’s not like other sports hadn’t struggled with this, or that baseball is the first sport to be hit with a drug scandal broadside. HAD they taken action long ago, or at least in 1998 when people started asking questions, perhaps this problem would not be what it now is. However, as usual, baseball was reactive rather than proactive, and they shall now real a whirlwind.
Now there’s a problem with the sport’s image that’s really, really bad - in fact, I don’t think everyone really appreciates how much long term harm will come from this.
I think you can find the border between acceptable and unacceptable by seeing where athletes will falsely deny usage and where they would confusedly wonder why you’d even ask (e.g., “No, no I have never used steroids,” versus, “Um, yeah, I’ve had contact lenses since high school.”) I realize this isn’t legal or scientific, but it is illuminating nonetheless.
I dunno. I know that in 2003 the AL may have had a different representative in the WS if Giambi hadn’t hit two home runes in game 7 of the ALCS. Not that that’s the Marlins’ problem, but, well, that’s the issue–steroids have made the whole outcome of the 2003 playoffs questionable.
Again, I agree. I love the game, and I honestly can’t envision how it will pass through this stink intact, how anything can be the same as it was. I am disgusted by the thought of the fireworks and applause that MLB will attach to Bonds passing the home run record, probably in 2006. There is only one thing that could happen that would fix this, but it would require courage and integrity, characteristics sorely lacking in the Commissioner’s office. Investigate (a la the Pete Rose investigation), then ban the scoundrels. But it won’t happen. We’ll have a home run “record” that quite possibly can’t be humanly surpassed, on the record books forever, as a monument to mendacity and baseness. I may have mentioned this before, but I am disgusted.
I admit nothing. This superglue is for my blister, and the emery board is for my nails. It’s not my fault the joke flew right by your head. I’ve had control problems lately.
