So after my last posting, it seems that some of my fans (well, George, at least) are requesting that I give my opinion on Barry Bonds and his breaking of Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record. So, here it is.
I do not like Barry Bonds as a baseball player at all. I will give one example to illustrate just why I do not like him. In the first game that Jonny and I went to in AT&T Park Rockies , someone from Colorado
However, that being said, I do not feel that any sort of asterisk should be put next to his records in the record books just because of these steroid allegations. The game of baseball has undergone a lot of different trends and shifts since the National League was founded in 1876, and a glance at the record books will show this. For example, when you look at many of the pitching records, such as career wins or starts, you will see that many of the record holders played in the Dead-ball era, a time before Babe Ruth made the Home Run a “sexier” part of the game. During this era in baseball, games were played in parks with fences that were very deep, such as the Polo Grounds in New York and Forbes Field in Pittsburgh
Cy Young has the record for wins with 511 (he pitched between 1890 and 1911, the heart of the Dead-ball era.) The closest active player is Roger Clemens, who is at 353 and in 8th place all time. If Clemens were to make a serious bid for Cy Young’s record, he would have to win 15 games per year for the next 11 seasons. Given that Clemens is 44 years old and probably won’t pitch until he’s 59, we can say that Mr. Young is safe. You see, in Cy Young’s time, pitchers would pitch more frequently, and usually pitched all nine innings, whereas today most starting pitchers pitch every fifth game and rarely go for more than seven innings. As a result, Cy Young holds a bevy of other records, such as complete games, innings pitched, batters faced, and losses (and Pud Gavin, another hall of famer from the Dead Ball Era ( he pitched between 1875-1892,) is second in most of them, too.) Other pitchers from the dead-ball era comprise the bulk of the top fifty on all of these record lists. (This is why Bert Blyleven, who has 287 Career wins and is 5th all time in strikeouts (both of which are ahead of many hall of fame pitchers,) really deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, considering the era he played in (and all the bad teams he played for.) But, that's a whole other blog posting.)
The spitball, however, was one of the biggest factors that made the Dead-ball era what it was. It is illegal now for a pitcher to alter the ball with sandpaper, petroleum jelly, or any other foreign substance that helps a pitcher put a crazier spin on the ball, thus making it more difficult to hit. The spitball was banned in 1920, although several spitball pitchers were grandfathered out (remember the World Series last year and the controversy over the smudge on Kenny Rogers' pitching hand?) This is considered cheating now. Therefore, you could argue that all pitchers who pitched before 1920 should have an asterisk, because pitchers today don't have the same advantages.
In addition to this, certain batting records are equally safe (if not safer) – namely, triples. Deeper fences in the ballparks before World War II made triples far more common than they are today. If you look at the top fifty career triples hitters, only two, the immortal Roberto Clemente and Stan Musial, played after World War II. The top active player on the career triples list is Steve Finley of the Rockies , who is 90th overall. The all-time record holder is “Wahoo” Sam Crawford (a hall of famer, by the way,) who hit 309 triples playing for the Reds and Tigers between 1899 and 1917.
Bonds played in the steroid era – there were lots of players, and many very talented ones, using steroids. On top of all of this, better training methods and shorter fences in the ballparks have made the long ball more common. This is a trend in the game (albeit an illegal one.) If they decide to put an asterisk, Cy Young, Pud Gavin, and "Wahoo" Sam Crawford also deserve asterisks. In fact, all of the records deserve asterisks - they all must be considered in the historical context of when they were set.
Not to mention that baseball was segregated during this time period. It's hard to believe that someone like Satchel Paige would not have set more than a few records, had he been allowed to pitch the bulk of his career in the Major Leagues, among many others. So, you could argue that any records before 1947 deserve asterisks.
If Bonds had been the only one using steroids, then all the righteous indignation would be justified. However, he was not – he’s the best hitter from an era when many players were juicing and hitting the ball deep - the context of the time in which the record was set. Therefore, Bonds one day deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, next to other unpopular and controversial figures like Ty Cobb. This is my opinion.
