OK, I only read the first few and the last few posts, so I apologize if I'm being redundant here, but here goes.
Firstly, Barry Bonds may well indeed be using steroids, but what about the other 300 or 400 players? It's because he's the best player of this era that he has become the scapegoat for the steroid problem. His problems are compounded by the fact that he disdains the media, who in turn villify him and destroy his public image. Barry Bonds is a man who has never hit his wife, assaulted someone, or squandered his money on drugs, booze, and women, which can't be said about roughly 70% of the league. Yet the players who do any or even all of these things are often revered and all their faults are swept under the rug. Why? They're nice guys. They give interviews. The press displays them in a positive light, and if they are finally caught, it's displayed as a valiant struggle against his "demons".
That being said, no one can say whether Barry Bonds or Babe Ruth is better, because they played completely different games. People forget that Babe Ruth played in the live ball era (then again, he is the one who christened it). ERAs and AVGs were sky-high with the advent of more expansion teams (watering down the pitching talent) and higher-quality baseballs.
Barry Bonds plays in the steriod era, where every other hitter is juiced up in some shape or form. Barry Bonds has passed every single drug test he's ever taken, but of course there is the possibility that he's on something that is, for the moment, undetectable. Also, my dad was an acquaintance of Bobby Bonds, Barry's late father. My dad was shocked to see Bobby about four years after he retired -- he had gained about twenty pounds in pure muscle and his neck was as thick as a linebacker's. Bobby explained that it was a Bonds family gene; around the age of forty (give or take about five years) the Bonds men always bulk up. Now, could Barry have just gotten lucky and had the gene kick in around thirty-six? It's certainly a possibility, and my dad had no reason not to believe Bobby. Why would he retire, wait four years, and then begin to take steroids? It's not even worth discussing. Also worth mentioning is that Bobby stayed out of the public eye for a long time, and by the time he began being discussed in the news again (because of Barry's exploits), he had developed cancer and his body was reduced to its previous form, so not many people knew about the years that he was as big as Barry is now.
All things aside, Babe was the undisputed king of his era, and Barry is the undisputed king of this era. Babe hit 54 home runs when only one other
team managed this feat. Barry certainly isn't doing anything like that, but he has been shattering age-old records. He broke Babe's "untouchable" single-season SLG record, he
shattered the old OBP record, he broke the single-season HR record, he
shattered the single-season IBB and BB records, and even at the ripe old age of forty-two, he has every single pitcher in the league pissing his pants when he steps up to the plate. There has not been a hitter this downright
feared since the Babe.
There is no "best" of all time -- just that elite echelon of players who were the best of their times. But Babe and Barry were the only players to redefine the way the game was played in their respective eras. Babe brought about the "home run hitter", and Barry brought about whole new pitching strategies -- he was walked intentionally with the bases
loaded when the other team was only winning by
two, and this was before Bonds became the monster that he is today. Plain and simple, he puts the fear of God in the pitcher.
Well, that was a bit of a tangent, and maybe the longest first post here on Head-Fi ever.
Anyway, hello everyone.
