Kuzul

Dear Barry,

I can now say it with a clear conscience: you’re a BUM, Mr. Bonds. I know, I know, you’ll probably tell me that there’s been no conviction yet and that the perjury/obstruction charges you now face are STILL bogus; after all, you’re Barry Lamar Bonds—home run king, big-shot.

You surmised that constant denial would make the steroid allegations go away; after all, the feds had never played “hardball” with a sports figure as big as you. I hate to break the news to you, Barry: facing a federal indictment is just a tad tougher than facing those big league pitchers whose ERAs you helped to inflate.

You took for granted that the American public’s thirst for heroes would simply allow you to cheat your way to legendary status, and you’d walk away unscathed. Well, you DID become a “legend,” Barry—I’ll give you that. But as the feds now tighten their grip, was it really worth it?

C’mon, Barry, were we NOT supposed to notice? Physically, your head AND body ballooned like current gas prices once the new millennium arrived. Your surliness multiplied, too, once people began to notice your physical appearance change from a lean, talented outfielder to a blown-up, chemically-changed freak.

Did you think that we’d ALL chalk that up to good nourishment, flaxseed oil, and working out just a “little” more than usual? Geez, Barry, you insulted SO many of us with your assumptions, the main one being that you mistakenly grouped tons of us outsiders with your clueless, inner-circle of supporters in terms of intelligence.

And were we NOT supposed to notice when your home run totals rose significantly after 2000—and simply chalk that up to an unknown phenomenon that renders better eyesight and reflexes after the age of 35? Shame on you, Barry.

Here’s what puzzles me, Barry: you were ALREADY well on your way to Cooperstown and immortality during the 90s—hitting tons of homers, driving in 100 runs every year and collecting Gold Gloves as if they were $100 Picasso masterpieces.

Why, Barry,WHY? WHY did you feel the need to go the illegal route and try to increase numbers that were ALREADY staggering? Tell me, Barry, was it the money? Did you think that you WOULDN’T become a rich man if you continued to play by the rules? Oh, now I think I know the real deal. I guess you wanted to be FILTHY rich and feed an ego that was bigger than San Francisco Bay.

And it surely seems that you were willing to do it at ANY cost, Barry—even so far as to have possibly used trenbolone, a steroid used to improve the muscle quality of cattle. I dunno, Barry, maybe when you brought your selfish, drug-induced freak show to cities throughout the league, fans should have yelled “MOOOO” instead of “BOOOO.”

You should have NEVER let it come to this, Barry; a few of us already KNEW there was a steroid problem in baseball even before the late Ken Caminiti was ridiculed as being “delusional” after bringing attention to it in that famed SI article. You could have come clean AWHILE ago and gone down in history as a player who bravely tried to clean up the sport.

Sure, the union would have hated you, Barry, but the American public would have embraced you. Remember one thing, Barry: Americans are a very forgiving bunch, but you surely went past the line when you insulted us along the way.

Shame on you, “Bar-roid” (thanks Steve Somers) for letting your former personal trainer, Greg Anderson, rot in the “big house” for more than a year while you bathed in accolades, kept the “denial machine” rolling, and partied it up along the lines of a fellow athlete-turned-criminal named Simpson.

I can only guess that your conscience exited your body at some point due to the influx of some strong, nasty substances, ones a bit stronger than just the “cream” and the “clear.”

Finally, you’re a BUM, Barry, for having sent the following message to youngsters throughout the land: It’s O.K. to compromise your body and break the rules because ‘roids rule; ‘roids will make you famous, rich, and help you do the extraordinary.

Therein lies your biggest crime, Mr. Bonds, the naive kids and fellow pro players out there who’ve followed suit simply “because Barry did it.” Speaking of kids, what about your OWN children, Barry? Will they be proud that their Dad made a mockery of the American pastime—that he cheated for some sick, egotistical reason that may someday bring THEM negative attention?

Barry, did it ever occur to you that your kids might need a terrific role model as THEY continue to mature, and NOT a Dad who soon may be playing left field for the prison team at Terminal Island? Tell me, Barry, seriously, will you someday tell your own kids that it’s O.K. to cheat, do drugs, and break the law? Please say no.

Don’t worry—you won’t do 30 years, Barry; we all must remember that you have no prior convictions. But your ego got in the way—and you’ll soon pay. You’re no home run king, “Bar-roid”, just the “Sultan of SQUAT” in my book.

Shame on you for tainting the game that I once LOVED (past tense). Perhaps the prison warden will have a sense of humor and put an asterisk on the back of your prison garb while you show your muscles off in front of adoring convicts. Just remember, Barry: it DIDN’T have to be this way. Shame on you.

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When the Reds reached the postseason in 2010, it was as if a 15-year siege had come to an end in Cincinnati. At long last, an organization stuck in the trenches of the National League had crossed over the breach.   

 Joey Votto’s 2010 season will resonate in Reds lore as the end of an era of losing in Cincinnati, and potentially a signal of things to come for a young and talented core.

 However, it also begs the question: in a Cincinnati Reds organization with such a storied history, where does Votto’s impressive third season rank?

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More than anything else, what makes baseball America’s pastime is its rich history and tradition of legendary names, all bound together across decades by a beautiful game.

That same history also lends itself to all manner of debate, from whether there will ever be another 300-game winner to what the standing of alleged steroid users like Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Manny Ramirez should be included in the annals of Cooperstown, given how many great players in past eras got by, more or less, on their given talents alone.

When it comes to determining the “best” or the “greatest” in a particular category, the debate tends to get more heated, even if the terms of the discussion are more vague. One such debate, which doesn’t get as much love as that of “best hitter” or “most dominant pitcher”, is that of smartest hitter.

What makes a hitter smart, you ask?

It’s tough to define it too clearly, otherwise the debate would be too closed and skew too far in one direction or another. However, in general terms, a smart hitter is one who hits for a high average, gets on base often and doesn’t strike out all that much.

One could add more dimensions, like a hitter’s ability to recognize a particular pitch or a hitter’s “sense” of time and situation, but such factors are nearly impossible to measure, especially for the ones, like Honus Wagner and Ty Cobb, who few today would ever remember seeing in person.

With all of that said, let the debate begin!

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The Steroid Era has been one of the most exciting movements in all of sports.  It provided baseball fans like me growing up as a kid in the 1990’s with life-changing home runs to watch.

These unbelievable seasons of home runs, delivered by a lot of our favorite players, seems surreal in 2011. It’s almost like it never happened.

When I was a youngster, I didn’t understand the magnitude of what McGwire and Sosa, and Canseco did. Now in 2011, people are shocked by a 50-homer season.  

Looking back, my top ten memories of notorious athletes as a baseball fan are as follows…

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In honor of Martin Luther King Day, and to honor African American players in the major leagues, I have compiled a nine player lineup of the greatest African American players in baseball history.

There were a number of tough decisions in naming the team, and the likes of Ken Griffey Jr, Joe Morgan, and Frank Thomas, among many others didn’t make the cut.

So here it is, the starting nine African American players in honor of Martin Luther King Day.

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The magic number is 762, set by the great Barry Bonds.

He banged out 762 home runs over the course of 21 phenomenal seasons. And as soon as Bonds hit 756, baseball players all over the world aspired to be the one guy who “caught Bonds” the way Bonds “caught Hammerin Hank Aaron.”

While 762 may be a long, and I mean very long shot for almost everyone, there are a few chasers still going.

Many say Alex Rodriguez who sits at 35 years of age and has 613 homers will be the guy to do it. But he is going to need 150 more and how much longer can he keep up his 30 a year pace?

The next closest active guy is Jim Thome and he’s over 40 years-old, so he’s not exactly pushing Bonds.

Albert Pujols is only 30 and has 408 dingers over the course of his career, but still, that’s 354 more, which would mean over 35 a year until he’s 40…not looking likely.

So who will ever even come close to Bonds, with or without steroids? Probably no one.

But I feel that their are seven distinct young stars in the MLB who might have a shot at hitting at least 600, if not the famed 762.

Four are current major leaguers, and three are up-and-comers in the minor leagues.

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The sooner the mass public accepts the fact that steroids were ingrained into the fabric of baseball during the “Steroid Era,” the better.

There was no test for it. It was a part of the game.

Now every time someone hits a home run, eyebrows raise across the MLB and the same question runs through every expert’s mind: Is he juicing?

While steroid usage has certainly decreased dramatically in recent years, the success of these 25 guys make it pretty easy to assume that something was going on behind the scenes. Without further ado, here are the 25 most highly suspected juicers in baseball.

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This is a difficult time for many of those who believe the game will forever be tainted by the Performance Enhancing Drug era.

I refuse to call it the “Steroid Era” as many of the so-called cheaters never actually took a steroid. If you’re going to label something, it may as well be accurate.

I will admit that some of the things MLB players did during this time disgusts me. It’s not so much the fact that they cheated, but that they were so smug and arrogant that they thought they could get away with it.

So here we are with Hall of Fame ballots in our hands with blank looks on our faces. How are we supposed to vote? From this point on, how are we supposed to determine which players from this era deserve enshrinement and which deserve to be left outside with their noses pressed against the windows of the Hall of Fame?

In my opinion the players have to be taken on a case by case basis.

It is patently unfair to just take the players from the PED Era and lump them all together in one uniform group. There are some players that have never been linked to a PED, but have had guilt projected upon them nonetheless. I’m in favor of protecting them because they are being hunted as well.

I am going to look at not only PED users, but also those who have been unfairly targeted by some as being guilty by association.

I know this is a passionate subject for many, but passion should not suspend a person’s rationality. Unfortunately for many, it does.

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Now that we’ve had time to digest the latest results of the Baseball Hall of Fame voting which welcomed two new members, Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyeven, we examine the possible solutions to fixing the voting system.

Last week, controversy surrounded the steroid users or suspected users and therefore they got in some cases surprisingly low percentages, like Jeff Bagwell’s 40 percent and Rafael Palmeiro’s 11 percent. 

Now while one hasn’t tested positive for performance-ehnaching drugs (Bagwell), the other has and he deservingly so received a result quite less than McGwire who received roughly 23 percent of the vote his time around. 

See the difference? McGwire might be getting more because of his impact in the late nineties but one can easily point to discrimination at the hispanic Palmeiro for getting such low numbers his first time on the ballot and he has over 3,000 career hits, an automatic formula for entrance into Cooperstown versus McGwire’s .263 career batting average. 

The bottomline is the Hall of Fame voting system is flawed and many fans don’t know how it really works. For comparison, the voting system is similar to that of the absentee ballot for politicians in that it gets mailed to you for you to vote and send back.

The BBWAA, or Baseball Writers Association of America are currently the only ones who vote for the potential Hall of Famers. However, the current voting system, keeps things too secret without really knowing who voted for who and if they voted at all. 

Here are the five solutions to improving the voting system so that it becomes a lot easier to understand and becomes more in tune with the fans who watch the game: 

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Robert Alomar and Bert Byleven have been elected to Cooperstown this year. Both men narrowly missed out on being elected last season.

Alomar spent time with seven different teams during his Hall of Fame career. It is amazing to that a player of his caliber bounced around so often and never spent more than five seasons with one team. Alomar was a 12-time All-Star and won 10 Gold Gloves as a second baseman. In addition, he also won four Silver Sluggers and was the 1992 ALCS MVP, as well as the 1998 All-Star Game MVP.

Alomar received 90 percent of the writer’s votes this year. It should also be interesting to see what cap he will be wearing on his Hall of Fame plaque.

Byleven will also be enshrined in the Hall of Fame this year. Byleven had a lengthy 22 year career in which he played for five teams. He did spent half of his career with the Minnesota Twins. Byleven won 287 games in his career and also ranks fifth on the all-time strikeouts list with 3,701. He was selected for two All-Star Games during his career.

Byleven received 79.7 percent of the votes this year after narrowly missing out and receiving 74.2 percent last year.  It has been argued that the advent of sabermetrics greatly helped Byleven’s Hall of Fame chances. This certainly makes sense as he lacks some of the awards and milestones (such as 300 wins), that many Hall of Fame pitchers have. Byleven actually has the 13th highest WAR for pitchers in MLB history, which certainly helped his case.

There were only two other players who received more than 50 percent of the writers’ votes. Barry Larkin received 62.1 percent of the votes and is someone to keep an eye on in next year’s voting. Jack Morris received 53.5 percent of the votes, which is only slightly more than the 52.3 percent he received last year.

The other story of the voting is tied to players who have been involved with steroids.

Mark McGwire, despite his outstanding career and the fact that he at one point held the single season home run record, was only able to garner 19.1 percent of the votes. Additionally, McGwire’s 583 home runs rank as 10th all-time and he was a 12-time All-Star. McGwire publicly admitted this year that he took steroids.

Rafael Palmeiro was only able to get 11.0 percent of the writers’ votes. Palmeiro is 12th on the all-time home run list with 569 homers. He is also a four-time All-Star. Palmeiro went in front of a congressional committee and testified that he had never used steroids. Just months later, Palmeiro was suspended for violating the MLB’s steroid policy.

Jeff Bagwell was able to get 41.7 percent of the writers’ votes. There is a lot of speculation going around that Bagwell took steroids, but it has never been proven. Bagwell is a four-time All-Star and is also one of the few players with at least 400 home runs and 200 stolen bases.

It is clear that the baseball writers have taken a strong stance on steroid users. McGwire and Palmeiro, both who have been proven to have used steroids, struggled to get votes. Bagwell, who was never physically linked to steroids, was able to get a good percentage of votes for his first year on the ballot. It should be interested to see if this trend continues in the future and how it affects the voting on players such as Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez. 

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