Barry Lamar Bonds...

[cyclonenum1]

...will soon be the new all-time Home Run King of MLB. Taking away the widely accepted notion that he is personally a jackass...what do you think of his baseball career and his accomplishments? How do you feel about the allegations of using performance enhancing substances?

Personally, I have long thought that Bonds is the best offensive player of his generation and one of the best offensive players of all time. His stats tell that story pretty clearly.

As for the steroid allegations (I don't think there has been anything proven at this point), my sense is that they are probably true. But in light of the allegations that a majority of position players and probably an even a greater percentage of pitchers are "juiced" as well, I'm not sure how much this should be held against him.

I'm curious as to your thoughts. Again, we all know the guy is a jerk, so let's keep the discussion to his accomplishments and the issue of performance enhancing substances.

 

[ISUFan22]

A "cheater". Period.

I look at using steroid and other illegal substances like it - similar to plagiarism.

Sure, you did something to achieve that output. However, you "cheated" along the way, therefore - your accomplishment is hollow.

Another example would be an employee stealing some idea/function from one employer and taking it to another (employee didn't even create this function/idea). If people don't know, they think it's great. Yet if they're made aware, they won't think nearly as highly of you - even though the results are the same.

 

[chadm]

A "cheater". Period.

I agree he is probably a cheater, just look at his picture when he was 25 until now.
My personal opinion is if he wasn't such a a-hole to his team mates and reporters his whole career he would have made it past the steroid/hgh negativity. He obviously has talent, the question is where do you draw the line when it comes to other player's cheating?

 

[isuno1fan]

I admire Barry for everything he has accomplished on the field. There is NO question he is one of the best players of all time....PERIOD. Look at what he has done this year will all eyes on him and being in his 40s. The guy is hitting .362 right now and on a 60HR pace.

He MAY be an a** and he MAY have taken steroids (for a brief period of his 20+ yr career), but regardless...he is a friggin' awesome ballplayer and that is a FACT...plain and simple.

 

[BryceC]

Obviously a great player. Great numbers, and probably would have had excellent numbers even without the juice.

Regardless, I think when he breaks the record it's going to be a black eye for the league. He'll blame it on the media as to why people don't embrace him, baseball homers in the media (like Jayson Stark and Peter Gammons) will continually say he hasn't been caught and we should just assume he's clean, etc etc. The fact is that everyone assumes he's dirty, and there is substantial evidence supporting this claim.

Personally it's really not a big deal to me. If someone does great things by cheating, it lessens the accomplishment. He might have the record, but Hank Aaron will have the integrity and respect of his peers and baseball fans. He'll be remembered for being a great ambassador of the game and a good man. Bonds will be a guy that had the record for a while and I imagine he'll be the example propped up when discussing the steriod era.

I think I'd rather be Aaron.

 

[arganbright2]

Greatest baseball player of all-time. Hands down! Everybody wonders why he is rude and doesn't do interviews and its because everytime he does, it goes back to steroids. I went to a couple Giants spring training games and Barry was the most polite player on the whole team. Granted it was probably a show but he talked baseball, signed autographs, and told jokes for a half an hour. When Jose Canseco came out with his book, it was funny to see guys like McGwire, Palmeiro, Bagwell, and Boone leave the league. They don't talk about them being on juice because they are white and are media darlings. Hell, Palmeiro tested positive and nobody talks about that.

 

[CloneFan65]

From my point of view it's only cheating if you break a rule. Before 2003 there was no rule against using performance enhancing drugs in baseball. It may not have been legal if it was done in the U.S., but it wasn't cheating. I'm not a fan of Bonds the man, but I think it's too bad his on-the-field accomplishments aren't being celebrated more.

 

[chadm]

They don't talk about them being on juice because they are white and are media darlings. Hell, Palmeiro tested positive and nobody talks about that.

Oh great the race card. Is Palmeiro white?

 

[joepublic]

Like fan22 said, "A cheater. Period." Until he turned into a drug freak, he was one of the best offensive players in the history of the game. But that wasn't good enough.

 

[mike4cy]

Cheater.

 

[cybsball20]

Steroids may have been against the law, but it was not against the rules... I would guess half of his home runs have been hit against pitchers on the juice and most of your favorite players, Football and Baseball have done some kind of illegal substance to get ahead... Don't you think its odd that the NFL Players Union wont let them ban HGH? Why do you think Roger Clemens takes off the first half of the year, so he can get his 'pre season workout' out of his system...

 

[BryceC]

My other favorite argument, the great "wasn't against the rules" argument. Who gives a crap.

I would guess half of his home runs have been hit against pitchers on the juice and most of your favorite players, Football and Baseball have done some kind of illegal substance to get ahead...

This might be the case, and this is one of the reasons that I don't like pro sports as much as college sports. Especially pro baseball. While Bonds hasn't been caught by the pathetic testing policy of baseball, it's well documented that he's probably done it. If some of "my favorite players" had done it, they would cease to be some of my favorite players. In fact, I wouldn't like them anymore as a sports figure or a human being.

 

[mwitt]

From my point of view it's only cheating if you break a rule. Before 2003 there was no rule against using performance enhancing drugs in baseball. It may not have been legal if it was done in the U.S., but it wasn't cheating. I'm not a fan of Bonds the man, but I think it's too bad his on-the-field accomplishments aren't being celebrated more.

Baseball didn't have a written rule about it, but steroids are and were illegal at the time in this country. Is that good enough for you?

 

[CloneFan65]

Baseball didn't have a written rule about it, but steroids are and were illegal at the time in this country. Is that good enough for you?

No. What if Sosa went to another country during the off-season to train and use steroids? (Not saying he did. Just a hypothetical.) Would that be OK then?

 

[Michael Lastuvka]

Steroids never enhanced his second-to-none hand-eye coordination. With that said, they DID benefit his power. I guarantee he isn't approaching 755 if he didn't do steroids.

Regardless of all that, I still enjoy watching him and always have. He's one of those rare guys that, in any given at bat, can do something special. Without all this steroid stuff, he'd be considered baseball's Michael Jordan. He and McGwire did amazing things to bring the game where it is today after the strike.

 

[mwitt]

Steroids may have been against the law, but it was not against the rules... I would guess half of his home runs have been hit against pitchers on the juice and most of your favorite players, Football and Baseball have done some kind of illegal substance to get ahead... Don't you think its odd that the NFL Players Union wont let them ban HGH? Why do you think Roger Clemens takes off the first half of the year, so he can get his 'pre season workout' out of his system...

Who cares if the pitchers were juicing? Since when has two wrongs made a right? How is it fair to guys like Griffey Thome, or Frank Thomas who have hit all of their home runs the right way? (Granted, we are assuming they have been clean. But we have no reason to believe otherwise.

Your Roger Clemens theory is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard. I'm not saying he's clean, but you claiming it's why he sits out is ignorant.

Steroids are widely used, especially by pitchers, to help their bodies recover because pitchers need to be able to go every four days. Drug usage in the offseason wouldn't do that.

 

[Wesley]

Heard he drinks muscle milk by the gallon.

 

[cybsball20]

Who cares if the pitchers were juicing? Since when has two wrongs made a right? How is it fair to guys like Griffey Thome, or Frank Thomas who have hit all of their home runs the right way? (Granted, we are assuming they have been clean. But we have no reason to believe otherwise.

Your Roger Clemens theory is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard. I'm not saying he's clean, but you claiming it's why he sits out is ignorant.

Steroids are widely used, especially by pitchers, to help their bodies recover because pitchers need to be able to go every four days. Drug usage in the offseason wouldn't do that.

If you think Thome has never done steroids than you are the ignorant one, I have heard more than a few stories from former JC teammates of his... Having played minor league baseball and been around this kind of thing I know exactly WHY pitchers take steroids. I also know there are two common types of steroids used in baseball, one for endurance and recovery and another for bulk and strength... The latter takes quite a bit longer to get out of the system... If someone were to take them in say, october-november and build up strength, then taper off, they would be out of the system by the all star break...

This might be the case, and this is one of the reasons that I don't like pro sports as much as college sports. Especially pro baseball.

There is ALOT more drug use in college than you can imagine...The whole NCAA drug testing is a joke...

 

[cyfan964]

I personally think when people say look at him when he was 25 and look at him now is a horse sh## statement. Myself, along with all of my friends, put on a lot of weight between those years and had we been lifting as much as professional athletes do, you wouldn't have been able to tell a difference between us either. Now I'm not saying he didn't do steroids, because he might have, but to say he did just based on physical appearance is poppycock. And yes I used the word poppycock.

 

[ekim121]

I honestly don't care one way or the other whether he used steriods. My only desire is that if he had used, that eventually he comes out and not only admits that he did them, but takes ownership and offers his reasoning for using them. I see steriod use as the logical extension of enhancing the athlete. No one ever called it cheating when athletes started training in the off season. Similarly, no one called it cheating when people started taking protein shakes/dietary supplements.

If the standard is that steriods are harmful to your body, my response would be that every sport is to some extent harmful to your body (for questions on this see Mark Pryor, Steve Yzerman, Troy Aikmen, etc). If they want to do something to make themselves more capable during that short time they'll compete, more power to them.

I enjoy seeing feats I've never seen before, and Barry breaking Aaron's record is just one more amazing feat which should be duly celebrated.