This entry was posted on Saturday, November 24th, 2007 at 10:40 pm and is filed under What I Think. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
What happened
“A federal grand jury indicted baseball slugger Barry Bonds on Thursday on charges that he lied to a grand jury when he said he never knowingly used drugs to boost his performance. Bonds has said the record he set in August “is not tainted,” but the indictment sparked fresh criticism from fans and sportswriters who say Bonds doesn’t deserve to be recognized as professional baseball’s career home-run king. (The Columbus Dispatch)”
Who can argue the fact that this takes talent, especially the milestones that Barry Bonds has acheived. I don’t recall seeing Sammy Sosa, Jose Canseco, Mark Mcgwire or Ken Caminiti coming close to the records that Barry Bonds has set. Barry Bonds is a 7 time MVP, has 762 career homeruns, and has the single season record of 73 home runs.
Barry Bonds in my opinion, deserves to be in the hall of fame.
“Sure, everyone’s angry now, said Joe Saraceno in USA Today. But fans, team owners, and the media “didn’t care one whit what Bonds took” as long as he kept slapping balls out of the park. So if you’re looking to blame someone for letting steroids become “the scourge of the game” that tainted baseball’s “hallowed record books,” don’t point the finger at Bonds.”
I agree with Joe Saraceno on this one. If people despised Barry Bonds so much, why would they continue to fill the stands night after night and game after game. Why wait to indict Barry Bonds until after the season is finished? It’s because they wanted to wait when the money finally stopped rolling in. I admit, I will be a little bit biast here because I am a huge San Fransisco Giants fan. But non the less, this boils down to the revenue stream. This had so much commercial appeal, why would the team owners, media, and the fans stop this dead in its tracks. This was the most exciting moment for major league baseball.
I had the priveledge to be at the San Diego Padres vs. the San Fransico Giants game and see Barry Bonds tie the record at 755. The only time I heard the fans really boo, was when the Padres decided to walk Bonds, or they weren’t throwing him strikes. Everybody in the stadium was on their feet, waiting to see what was going to happen. Even the San Diego fans applauded Bonds when Bruce Bochy pulled him out of the seventh inning.
Even if Barry Bonds did use HGH, or any other anabolic hormones, steroids didn’t break Hank Aaron’s record, talent did it. Just like I mentioned above, I didn’t see Sammy Sosa, Jose Canseco, Mark Mcgwire or Ken Caminiti come close to what Barry Bonds has conquered.
