I am possibly going to end up with two posts here, but they are too inextricably linked to take on their own so bear with me. And if this proves that I sit down to write with little or no plan, then so be it. If you assumed otherwise I appreciate the thought but it is nowhere near as organized as all that. (I remember having a first essay for one of my college writing classes that was titled “Process? What Process?”. Don’t you judge me.) It was announced today that Jeff Kent is going to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. This only bears on my thinking because, first, that produced the news without announcement that Barry Bonds was once again not selected. Second, I am annoyed because while Kent may or may not be deserving – something only the unfathomable minds of the various people who vote for the MLB Hall can speak to – as a rabid Dodgers fan during his halcyon days with the SF Giants, I utterly despised the guy. Like really hated him in the wildly irrational way of sports fans making judgements on people they don’t know. I gleefully remember being at a game at Candlestick in which Kent went 0-4, committed an error that allowed what would prove to be the winning run for whoever their opponent was, and got tossed in the ninth inning. It almost made sitting in that igloo posing as a baseball stadium worth it. That is how much I loathed the guy. So I might have preferred he not get into the Hall but feel pretty petty for thinking that thought. Some things die hard I guess, but boy, do I digress. I am far more affronted by Barry Bonds’ latest exclusion. There are approximately 192 ways to get into that possibly increasingly irrelevant but still revered institution, and Bonds is down to, I believe, only one final hail-mary next year. I find this patently absurd, manifestly stupid, hugely unjust and should he not ever be inducted, which seems highly likely at this point, it would shred whatever remaining credibility the place might cling to.
Let me clarify that I was never a fan of Bonds. I didn’t like his attitude, he was widely considered to be a crappy teammate and just came across for the most part as a jerk. And he played for the Giants which automatically put him on my bleed-Dodger-blue shit list. But oh my god could the man hit a baseball. Like better than anyone ever, literally and provably. Some numbers for your consideration, without going full Elias geek on you.
MLB Records held: career home runs, single season home runs, career walks, single season walks, career MVPs, career Silver Sluggers, single season slugging percentage and OBP. Those are easy and a smattering of his top career spots. He also has the most extra base hits by a lefty and is 4th in total RBIs, 6th in on base percentage and among players who hit 600 plus home runs, all nine of them, he is 4th in average at .298. The three players above him? Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Hank Aaaron. Their names might ring a bell.
He led the majors in walks 12 times, was walked more than 100 times in 14 seasons, and was walked intentionally 120 times in one season. He was more than once walked more times in a season than entire divisions. If that doesn’t establish him as the most feared hitter in baseball consider that Roger Clemens once walked him with two out in the first inning of a scoreless game. Randy Johnson once intentionally walked him with runners on first and second. Randy Freaking Johnson. (Speaking of the Big Unit, Bonds hit .306 against him.)
How about some contemporary comparisons? Unless you live in a cave you have probably heard of Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge. Both are being thrown around in the greatest-hitters-ever conversation so lets talk on base percentage. Those two mutants in 18 seasons combined have only topped .440 OBP twice – for a season mind you. Bonds career OBP is .444 and he hung a .480 in his final season at 42 years old. That MLB record single season number? A paltry .609. The mind reels.
Bonds numbers are ludicrous, absurd, outlandish, even laughable – in the sense of it is impossible not to laugh when learning some of them. How about context for a couple of the numbers above? Career intentional walks, 688. Second place is Albert Pujols with 316. Career MVPs, 7. Ohtani just won his 4th. Almost half of Bonds total hits – 49.1% – were extra bases.
And let us remember that he also stole 514 bases meaning he is the only player in the 500HR/500SB club. Oh wait, he is the only player in the 400/400 club. And to wrap up this simply silly statistics show: the most times a pitcher faced Bary Bonds without letting him reach base? Six. And this man, who dominated baseball for longer and more thoroughly than any other, is not in its Hall of Fame. How could that be, you ask from your cave. Because he took steroids.
Steroids are illegal in MLB and Barry Bonds took them. He broke the rules. So stipulated, your honor. And so did a whole bunch of other baseball players who, depending on your feelings regarding performance enhancing drugs and their impact on skill based sports, may or may not have benefited from that use, and to varying degrees. In Bond’s case, and for other high profile guys like A-Rod, Canseco, McGwire, etc, they may benefited into records and huge contracts. Which brings up two gripes regarding steroids being Hall disqualifying.
First, if Joe Schmo, an average journeyman filling out the roster, or even an everyday player making a contribution, juiced to good effect and was thereby able to bump his stats a bit or lengthen his career, MLB was basically okay with that. They turned a blind eye to steroids for decades. It was difficult to enforce and since as long as they didn’t bother the playing field wasn’t tilting very much anyway, why bother? They even continued to look away when it started to help higher profile, read popular, players who were having more exciting seasons because that was good for attendance and TV. They didn’t get stuck until the steroid guys started breaking records and pissing people off. They didn’t investigate Joe Schmo, which means he never got caught, which means he never got punished – for breaking the exact same rules as the guys listed above. So is it just a measure of degree?
Second, sticking with Mr. Schmo, is that he could have juiced himself silly and he never would have become one of those guys. Steroid use in powerlifting is one thing. If you can work more and recover faster and build more mass as a result you can lift more weight. Fine. Joe takes steroids, works out more, recovers faster and still can’t hit a curve ball. Can Barry, A-Rod and Co. potentially hit it further? Maybe. And I do mean maybe. Physics only takes you so far. I can state from personal experience that I have swung the same bat at the same ball from the same pitcher and hit it way further, repeatedly, than guys who were bigger and stronger than me. It is technique and timing and vision and all sorts of other things that will never come out of a syringe. I will say confidently, even arrogantly if you like, that those bigger, stronger guys can juice all they want and never hit the ball further than me. (I used to be able to hit a softball a very long way and am proud of that – sue me.) Go back and look at those stats above and tell me how many of them relied only on PED use. Consider a scenario shared by the late great Dave Parker (RIP Cobra), a Hall-of-Famer who was also the Pirates hitting coach for years.
In a four-game home stand vs the Giants during Bond’s period of dominance Barry came to the plate ten times in the first three games and they did not throw him a single strike. I’m not talking intentional walks necessarily, but not a single ball in the zone. (A box score can be very deceiving in that officially it means he was 0-0 in three games, because a walk doesn’t go into your average so they can’t list him as 0-10. But he was on base ten times!) Consider how terrified they were of him to put him on base every single time rather than risk throwing him even one strike.That held true for his first two at bats in the fourth game as well. In his third at bat of that game, for the first time in four days and somewhere around probably 30 innings, they threw him a strike. And he jacked it out of the park. Parker said it was the greatest display of hitting he had ever seen or even heard of in his career. Steroids schmeroids. You can guess how many more strikes he got.
I have two more problems. The first is that pitchers were juicing too. Hell, Roger Clemens will probably be barred front the Hall as well, but while the same logic applies to him – being stronger doesn’t mean you can throw a back-door slider over the edge of the plate at 3-2 with two outs and two men on in a two run game – it does mean that any advantage you want try and give to hitters juicing evaporates in the face of pitchers doing the same thing. The other is the massive hypocrisy of MLB surrounding drugs at large. They let known cocaine users – addicts – take the field and that drug is illegal everywhere, not just in baseball. Hell, Steve Howe pitched while he was out on bail for suspected coke dealing after they had already suspended him for blow like four times. But he was a Rookie-of-the-Year and an All-Star so it took ten years for them to ban him from the game. And, shit, if they busted every MLBer who smoked grass they couldn’t turn a double play. But if you take legal drugs that might make you play better – might! – then you’re tarnishing the game. Bite me. But before I go further into steroid use as a larger issue – I won’t make this any longer by falling into the feared interlinked topic – I will wrap up Bonds.
Anyone who could’ve voted for him and didn’t needs to be struck multiple times with a ball-peen hammer and then be tied to a chair and forced to watch people climbing down from high horses over and over again. The writers have an overdeveloped opinion of their own importance and a misplaced sense of duty to “protect the game”. This is the same group that includes guys who have said they will never vote for anyone in their first year on the ballot because “everyone should have to wait out of respect” for the greats. Who ias going to protect the game from you? (Mariano Rivera was the first unanimous first ballot selection – it took until 2019. Which morons didn’t think Suzuki or Jeter shouldn’t get in?) As for the various players’ committees, see the above and add in “jealous much?”. I am going to close by borrowing from NYT Athletic staff writer Grant Bisbee.
“The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is still a place without a Barry Bonds plaque in its wing honoring the best baseball players of all time. That’s like a Cartoon Rabbit Museum without Bugs Bunny, a Household Spice Hall of Fame without ground pepper or a Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame without Iron Maiden* — unimaginable to the point of parody.” My thoughts exactly. Stay tuned for my rant on steroids in football. Thanks for reading.
*[Note: he must be a big Brit metal fan and making a point because Iron Maiden is not in the Rock Hall. I personally am more annoyed by Jethro Tull and X (!) but don’t get me started.]