Barry Bonds 700 Club

[Andykev]

If anyone watched the game, SF GIANTS Barry Bonds entered the "700" home run club....it was nice to see it on T.V.

A few years ago, I couldn't name a player, or even knew when the season was.

Now, as I am older, maybe like my grandfather, I have begun to enjoy baseball above all other sports on TV.

 

[jamespowers]

Amazing what "natural steriods" can do for an athlete isn't it? LOL LOL
Geez, The Babe would have hit 1,400 with such natural products.

Regards to all,

J

 

[WesternHatWearer]

I am just wondering, if Bond's record for baseball gets an *, are we able to edit the thread title to include an * ?

 

[Stearmen]

Amazing what "natural steriods" can do for an athlete isn't it? LOL LOL
Geez, The Babe would have hit 1,400 with such natural products.

Regards to all,

J

With all the Steroids, professional trainers and the best workout equipment in the world, Bonds barely broke a fat, old, drunks record!

 

[Jack Vincennes]

And amazingly Bonds did it while facing black players, and pitchers that never would have used steroids (quiet over there Clemens). Baseball goes through remarkable changes about every ten years, and while old people like to wax poetic about the sanctity of its records that's bull**** and always has been. Things like the ball, the ballparks, the things going on outside of the insular world of baseball all effect the game. Ask Peter Alexander. He was perhaps the greatest modern pitcher of all time. He went to WWI. He was gassed. His war was one of horror. He came back after being traded by the Philadelphia Athletics to the Cubs where he pitched well but was only a shadow of himself dealing with epilepsy, night terrors, alcoholism, and somehow managed to live on opiates and whiskey until the old age of '63. Had steroids or modern medicine been available to anyone including Ruth, Hack Wilson, Ted Williams, they would have done it. Hell, Williams was a marine fighter pilot and well aware of the benefits of amphetamines. Baseball changes, ebbs, flows, if you don't like it come back in ten years it will be different but dont treat its records like a literal reading of the old testament. It only makes people sound like you are yelling at people to get off your lawn.

 

[LizzieMaine]

As far as I'm concerned, in my own Personal Record Book, Bonds and McGwire and Sosa and Clemens and the rest of that bunch simply didn't exist. I never could stand Clemens, even when he was supposedly clean and playing for the Sox -- he was a spoiled, fat-headed child in a grown man's clothes. I'd take Tim Wakefield on my team any day of the week over an entire staff of Clemenses.

Never mind Ruth. Henry Aaron was a real man, and a real ballplayer -- not for what he took or didn't take, but because of the kind of man he was and still is. The sleazy abusive thug Bonds wasn't fit to lick his shoes, let alone break his record.

That said, when I saw the title of this thread my first thought was that Bonds was finally coming clean and had confessed his sins on television to Pat Robertson. Now that would be a moment for the ages.

 

[Jack Vincennes]

Bonds never broke the rules and Aaron ate amphetamines like jelly beans. He is a good gent and he and Johnny Logan are old friends of mine. You will not hear Aaron speak ill of the steroid era, because he knows what the game is about. Johnny on the other hand will tell you fantastic stories about the Milwaukee Braves until the gin dries up.

David Ortiz (convicted what 3 times for failing tests), brought magic to the Red Sox nation and I was there for every post season home game since 2003 (Cubs fan married to a Sox fan). My scorecard only recorded the hits, runs. outs, and player changes. I didn't give a **** about who was juicing, who was drunk. It was nifty baseball. To fit the forum, moleskin trouser, tweed jacket, maybe a Barbour jacket if precip is a thing, and a Cooperstown ballcap 1946 Sox ballcap will cap you keep warm and dry. Ted Williams loved speed, but bourbon in the flask is a better idea as a fan.

 

[Jack Vincennes]

Did you bury your head in the sand for the 30 years Pete Rose played baseball? Where he won 3 WS and took the all time hits record?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I couldn't stand Pete Rose when he was playing. I was watching when he wrecked Ray Fosse's shoulder in a meaningless game, and from that point on I thought he was one of the biggest jackasses on the field. He was a classic "accumulator," the type of player who put personal statistics ahead of anything else, and I don't respect that at all.

It's not just the drugs that make me view Bonds with the lowest sort of contempt. It's the kind of human being he is, that is to say not much of one. He's a pumped-up egotistical punk, and I've never been able to stand that type of player. I used to sit in right field at Fenway just so I could throw stuff at Reggie Jackson, who was the same type of swollen-headed jerk. There have always been people like that in sports, and there have always been those of us who couldn't care less about their statistics -- what we really want to see is for someone to hit them in the mouth with the ball.

 

[Jack Vincennes]

Its always been that way. Were you tossing Coke bottles at Ty Cobb? Baseball is a degenerate sport. Cap Anson was a tremendous star and was so effusive he maintained segregation of the sport until modern times. Baseball is not a sandbox.

 

[Jack Vincennes]

There is nothing Reggie Jackson did that David Ortiz doesn't do on any given day. He recently gave a long, colorful airing of his feeling about the new rules. I know this forum is all about loving the past and I'm all about that, but being silly about sports is off the meter. Having been a life long Celtics fan? Its about winning. And being an asshole, Bird, Hav, Russel, Red, all of those guys were assholes. And they won. The Yankees, its hard to argue. Are they dicks, of course but they have 27 rings to show for their efforts. You may like the paddycake of wool flannel uniforms but generally all of those guys were assholes on the field and frequently off it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I don't have any use for Cobb. A mean-spirited, unpleasant man, and probably, if Smoky Joe Wood's testimony was accurate, a complicit fixer of games. And the same goes for Tris Speaker.

See, the thing is, I don't root for the stars. I don't particularly like or respect most of them -- there are a few exceptions, such as Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Pee Wee Reese, Dominic DiMaggio, Roberto Clemente, people like that. And there are people whose peccadillos I can overlook because of some other genuinely admirable quality -- Pete Reiser and Tony Conigliaro come to mind. But the players I genuinely like and root for and respect are the nonentities, the little guys who stick in the major leagues by the skin of their teeth, the baseball proletarians. When I think of 2004, I don't get all gooshy thinking about David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez. I remember Bill Mueller and Dave Roberts. Give me the Tommy Umphletts and the Jim Gosgers and the Joe LaHouds and the Tom Satrianos and the Syd O'Briens and the Doug Griffins and the Bob Montgomerys and the Doug Mirabellis -- they're the ones I can identify with and get behind, and when somebody like that comes out of nowhere to win the game that's where I remember why I love baseball. It's the one major sport where you can be a nobody and still end up being somebody.

And, honestly for me, as a lifelong Red Sox fan from a family which has been rooting for the Sox since 1901 thru good times and bad, how could it ever be about "the winning?" It's about knowing that whatever happens, win or lose, there'll be another game tomorrow.

 

[emigran]

Unfortunately, or more realistically speaking... sports "stars" are just like "Rock 'Stars" ...bad boys with tattoos (not knocking... I have 'em), who drink and cavort and wreck hotel rooms and abuse groupies...
Too bad 'cause Baseball is my favorite sport of all...These are certainly interesting times we live in... but don't get me started.

 

[Frunobulax]

I couldn't stand Pete Rose when he was playing. I was watching when he wrecked Ray Fosse's shoulder in a meaningless game, and from that point on I thought he was one of the biggest jackasses on the field. He was a classic "accumulator," the type of player who put personal statistics ahead of anything else, and I don't respect that at all.

It's not just the drugs that make me view Bonds with the lowest sort of contempt. It's the kind of human being he is, that is to say not much of one. He's a pumped-up egotistical punk, and I've never been able to stand that type of player. I used to sit in right field at Fenway just so I could throw stuff at Reggie Jackson, who was the same type of swollen-headed jerk. There have always been people like that in sports, and there have always been those of us who couldn't care less about their statistics -- what we really want to see is for someone to hit them in the mouth with the ball.

Well, I'm not a big fan of Bonds and don't like much of the steroid situation - and I am glad that MLB has addressed it. But I have to ask, what specifically has your hackles up regarding Bonds' personality? He may be a jerk, but in my book, bo more than Steve Carlton, who also shut out the press.

In addition, I'm a big Pete Rose fan, having grown up with the Big Red Machine in mt backyard. There's a lot to love and hate about Pete, but Mr. Fosse never held a grudge, and was a friend of Rose's. I'm not one to think that, just because it was an exhibition game, you shouldn't play full-out. And it was no mystery, even in 1970, how Rose payed the game.

And frankly, anyone who would throw things at an on field player, well...glass houses and all that.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, I'm not a big fan of Bonds and don't like much of the steroid situation - and I am glad that MLB has addressed it. But I have to ask, what specifically has your hackles up regarding Bonds' personality? He may be a jerk, but in my book, bo more than Steve Carlton, who also shut out the press.

His relationships with his wives and mistresses. Threatening to cut out your girlfriends's breast implants because you "paid for them" is not something bound to generate any kind of respect from this corner. He's a contemptible human being.

As for Rose, meh. Heard all that before. In my eyes, it was a sleazy move, and Baseball finally got around to banning that kind of takeout a year or two ago.

Most of what I threw at Reggie was mouth, although a few wadded up napkins went in his direction. I think he was a big enough fella to stand up to that.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Bonds never broke the rules...

That's just delusion.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Well, I'm not a big fan of Bonds and don't like much of the steroid situation - and I am glad that MLB has addressed it. But I have to ask, what specifically has your hackles up regarding Bonds' personality? He may be a jerk, but in my book, bo more than Steve Carlton, who also shut out the press.

In addition, I'm a big Pete Rose fan, having grown up with the Big Red Machine in mt backyard. There's a lot to love and hate about Pete, but Mr. Fosse never held a grudge, and was a friend of Rose's. I'm not one to think that, just because it was an exhibition game, you shouldn't play full-out. And it was no mystery, even in 1970, how Rose payed the game.

And frankly, anyone who would throw things at an on field player, well...glass houses and all that.

Rose is a disgrace to the game, and it'll be one of the darkest days in baseball history if he's ever re-instated.

 

[WesternHatWearer]

The hackles are up because I asked if Bonds' records receive an * do we have the means to alter the thread title to add an *. Plain and simple.

 

[LizzieMaine]

At this point, I don't really care what the commissioner's office does or doesn't do. The commissioner is just a rubber stamp for the owners, and has been since they got rid of Happy Chanlder. The owners were perfectly happy to look the other way when Bonds meant cash in their tills, so they're just as contemptible to me as he is. Regardless of what the "official" record is, if someone asks me who the Home Run King is, my answer will be Henry Aaron.

 

[WesternHatWearer]

Every sport has players who attempt to gain an edge; this may be within the rules of the game and it may be outside the rules of the game.

As for Bonds, he may have avoided much of the contempt he faces, had he owned his actions/decisions. He may have even been voted into the HOF in his first year of eligibility.