Ultimately, August 7, 2007 will go down in history as the day Barry Bond became the temporary home run king. While heads turned and the ball bid the park adieu, Barry Bonds will not reign on the home run throne for long. Nevertheless, congratulations are in order. We are talking about a man that became a lot more muscular, won seven National League Most Valuable Player awards, eight Gold Glove awards, one N.L. batting title, and he played in one World Series. Bonds also became the most polarizing player in baseball.
Nevertheless, baseball has more to do with hand-eye coordination than strength. And with a single, violent swing of his bat, Barry Bonds made baseball history Tuesday in San Francisco, climbing one home run closer to the immortal Hank Aaron.
If you’re a technocrat and want to get all technical, there’s no arguing that Bonds has forcefully redirected 756 pitches into home run territory over his 22 major-league seasons. Yet according to the ziggurat of evidence compiled in the book “Game of Shadows” (http://www.gameofshadows.com/), Bonds also ingested performance-enhancing drugs during his peak slugging period, making some of those home runs less authentic. Question is, how many? How many of Bonds’ home runs are honest? And how many came courtesy of his reported juicing?
If Bonds is proven guilty (which I believe he will be, but no time soon) then I think they should void his homeruns from the 98 season (the height of the scandal) to the 2005 season (which is when I presumed he stopped or moved on to a new steroid). Which means that 73 home run record in 2001 for most homeruns in a season, should be wiped away with due diligence. This seems to me the best and only way to solve the problem and would effectively return Hammer’n Hank Aaron to his rightful position as king.
Across the land, baseball fans, including me who played and watched the game, are unsure what to make of 756 because of the players who achieved success on their own natural abilities. Bonds’ alleged use steroids beginning in the late 1990s, only adds fuel to a late-career explosion in offensive production that is unparalleled in baseball history. Even as Bonds took aim at Aaron’s record this summer, a grand jury continues to investigate him for possible perjury and tax evasion charges stemming from his involvement with an alleged steroids ring.
So, let the debates about the authenticity of Bonds’ record begin. It will be here for a while. It took Bonds more than four years to reach 100 home runs, and almost three more years to get to 200, in July 1993. He hit No. 300 in April 1996, and then needed another two years and four months to reach 400. He hit his 500th on April 17, 2001, then reached 600 in August 2002. No. 700 came two years later.
Regardless, I will let those that choose mourn 755 elsewhere. I will let the authorities claim foul play was involved in its demise. But for today, I will grin and bare and say all hail Bary Bonds the new home run king!
References:
No comments:
Post a Comment