Baseball Records Are Facts

I agree with what you’re trying to say about Bonds – he’s the home run champion. I completely disagree with the angle you’re taking to prove it.

We put contextual limitations on stats all the time. Consider:

- Stats from a game that doesn’t complete 5 innings due to weather are wiped away, as though they never happened.
- The batting average of a player who doesn’t complete the minimum number of at bats is not eligible for the batting title.
- Errors are reviewed after the fact and changed to hits and vice versa.

So you can’t just say what happened is what happened and that’s the end of the story. We constantly consider context in the statistics.

This happens in other sports too. In track, wind-aided records aren’t honored and drug testing has stripped offenders of medals. In amateur football and basketball, recruiting violations have wiped out seasons and championships.

Everything we measure in sports is ultimately based on arbitrary definitions anyway, so don’t act like a baseball fact is a baseball fact and that’s it.

And again, I say this with the belief that Bonds is the home run champ and I believe there’s no legit argument otherwise.

The people have spoken, and Aaron is considered the REAL home run king. We can’t go down the road of moral relativism when talking about illegal substances, steroids also gave users a much greater advantage than greenies ever did. Big difference in muscle size and ability to recover physically. The fact that Bonds became a much more productive home run hitter while cheating says it all. His incredible numbers in the latter stages of his career are another indictment.

The sad part in all of this is the reality Bonds was well on his way to he Hall before ever deciding to cheat while with the Giants. It was completely unnecessary, and this decision only provided short term gain. Bonds not only tainted his legacy, but damaged the game, not to mention possibly shortening his own life.

We also can’t compare external factors like the color line, or stadiums, or eras, because the individual players had no control over those aspects of the game.

I understand fans of teams like the Giants wish to prop up their own players, but reality says otherwise. 100 years from now, Bonds will still the pariah he is today, while legends like Willie Mays will still be the true heroes.

I agree with what Wendy is saying, but I think it’s important to remember that the reason we have these numbers in the first place is because they were accumulated during games. Barry Bonds didn’t his 762 homeruns during batting practice or a derby. He hit them during games, when they impacted the games’ results. The Pirates and Giants won or lost games based on what Bonds and his teammates did.

That’s what I think is so misguided about any movement to “strip” Bonds of his record. If you’re going to de=legitimize his homeruns, then you also have to declare the games he hit them in as void. If you do that, then you have to void all of the other stats — by Bonds and teammates and opponents — that were accumulated during those games. Suddenly you’ve changed the number of wins and losses teams had, and altered the playoff picture. And when do you stop?

In other words, you can’t throw out Bonds’ homers without creating a butterfly effect. And when do you stop? Do you discount all of his homeruns, or only the ones you consider “excessive”? How do you decide that?

Baseball’s numbers are sacred not because they measure individual feats of strength, but because they tell the story of what happened during the games. And the games are what matters. I’m personally not willing to sacrifice that.

I never said Barry Bonds should have his name actually removed from the record books. Other players have cheated with steroids, and it was be cumbersome to go back and make numerous changes.

There simply isn’t any butterfly effect, I’m not suggesting you void the results in those games. Again, too cumbersome. Fortunately, Bonds was unable to deliver the second world title for San Francisco in his only WS appearance. And those were the most important games during his tenure. So people who are diehard Bonds fans, no matter how he tarnished the game, can reflect on those home runs. But the truth still counts for something, even if we don’t like it.

I don’t know why this is so complicated, because of the steroids, Bonds’ records simply are not sacred. Steroids are a completely different level than corking a bat, or cutting a baseball.

If people disagree with me about who the real HR king is, just do a poll. The results will speak for themselves.

Those 1919 White Sox faced the same question Barry Bonds did many decades later, and like Bonds, chose the wrong path. There must also be consequences for these wrong decisions, or why have standards at all?

Even if it is obvious.

Of course, everything has a context.

And while Bonds unquestionably hit more home runs than Aaron (or Home Run Baker for that matter), 100 different people are going to have 100 different opinions on whose achievement is the most impressive. Unfortunately, most of these opinions are not going to be very interesting.

Certainly the “I am shocked! Shocked to see that there’s steroid use going on in this establishment!” school of argument is naive and simplistic. Yes, steroids were against the law. So is driving 60 in a 55 MPH zone. I find the moral outrage and hypocrisy by these people both humorous and depressing. Athletes have been taught from an early age to look for any edge they can get. Just win, baby. During the 1990s (and before), there was no testing for steroids. Athletes knew they wouldn’t get caught and (at least) thought it could help their performance. And now we’re outraged that a large chunk of these athletes went down that path.

Me? I reserve my outrage for the slackers who let their teammates and fans down by valuing their long-term health more than their short-term success and refused to take them. Thank goodness there were probably so few of them.

And I take solace in my belief that the heroes of my childhood (the Mantle, Mays and Aarons) would have certainly taken advantage of these had they only been available a generation or two earlier.

But who was actually the greatest at doing something is an opinion. Bonds may be the factual record holder, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to think he’s the greatest at hitting home runs in MLB. He just “officially” hit the most. Of course, he also broke the law to do it.