Interesting read

One of their points is that Hank Aaron benefited because they lowered the mound when he was 34 ....

but Bonds hit against the lower 10" mound his whole career! That point is not very well thought through.

nice article. kind of gets you thinking about innocent until proven guilty. i know i'd want it.

ROB

I think the point they are making is that Aarons HR totals jumped after the change


This simply cites how each eras had differences

Move over Henry.

bonds would not be any where close to the record if he did not take steriods everyone knows that.

There is no excuse everyone else took steroids. Sure alot did because they knew they could get away with it or felt they neded to compete at the MLB level. IF MLB baseball have testing like they do at the minor league level bonds and a ton of other players would be banned from MLB baseball. If bonds breaks the record, put a needle next to his number.

Nefty Perez was suspended 25 games because tested possitive. His ave is 174 with not HR. Obviusly, just taking steroids don't break the records.

quote:

Originally posted by Racab:
Nefty Perez was suspended 25 games because tested possitive. His ave is 174 with not HR. Obviusly, just taking steroids don't break the records.

Perez tested positive for amphetimines, not steroids.

Andy, I rarely agree with you but I do agree with your post

quote:

Originally posted by Racab:
Nefty Perez was suspended 25 games because tested possitive. His ave is 174 with not HR. Obviusly, just taking steroids don't break the records.

The obvious point here is not that steroids will allow you to break records. The point is that steroids help you. Whether they help you lead the league in HR's or just help you to remain the last man on the bench, they help you.

A good comparison would be pitchers who doctor the ball. Nobody cares if the 10th man on the pitching staff is cheating, but when Mike Scott was leading the Astros to the pennant in the late 1980's, all of the fans in America were paying attention and trying to see if he really was cheating.

As for the Time article, it reminded me of why I don't read that magazine. His arguments against Ruth were ignorant and completely wrong. For some reason, some people like to change the way history really was so they can make whatever point they are trying to make. These incompetent writers have no problem denigrating Ruth's monumental career with incorrect facts.

Here are some accurate historical facts.

If Bond's had the advantage of the lower mound his whole career and Aaron had it part of his career, how long did Ruth have it? That's right, not at all.

The writer's argument that Ruth had a small park to hit homers in is laughable. The dimensions of Yankee Stadium at any point in Ruth's career show that centerfield and right centerfield were much deeper than Yankee Stadium is today.

It has already been proven that if you use the current dimensions of Yankee Stadium against all the balls Ruth hit to deep center and right center, Ruth would have over 1,000 home runs. And that's only comparing Yankee Stadium. Since almost all ballparks are smaller now, Ruth probably hit many long outs on the road that would be home runs today.

As for Ruth never facing black pitchers, MLB statistics show that African American pitchers have given up the highest percentage of home runs in MLB history when compared to white, Hispanic or Asian pitchers. So I would expect Ruth's home run totals to be even higher in integrated baseball.

Of course, Ruth had advatages as well. The live ball at its inception, smaller pitching staffs(with starters staying in the game longer) and more days off.

Players in the old days probably had more things working against them, in general, than players do today.

One other aspect that nobody mentions---todays hitters face at least two or three fresh arms in every game whereas in the eras gone by they faced one h pitcher a game

The only real point that can be made is that the steroid using hitters have had to face steroid using pitchers. So the hitters and the pitchers both cheated, does that make it right? Does that make them proper role models for our youth?

Ruth, Aaron and Bonds all played at different times and under different circumstances. The all-time home run record is relevant only to players in the same time frame. What is telling is how long it takes to get passed up. I don't think Bonds will hold the record for long compared to Ruth or Aaron.

Now after actually reading the article I go with 1,3 & 5.

Personally, I'm pulling for A-Rod to pass Barry as quickly as possible so we can get this thing behind us... but the point I want to make is that Baseball never fined or suspended Barry one time.
In fact they acted like it was a union vs. owners issue until everyone marched up to Capitol Hill and raised their right hand. Then the testimony of that dad from Texas whose son died spun the whole thing into a real story instead of the bullcr5p that MLB was trying to pull.... so now they are treating Barry like he's Steve Howe... we know he used, but apparently he only used what he could and when he could...
Oh, and I agree with y'all about the Time article being awfully weak for a national publication. The scribes that cover my high school games could do a better job.

I realy don't understand how candid are some people in this site. If you suppose that Bonds, Mcguirre, Sosa etc took steroids and for that reason you want not to reconize their records, and because you don't know if they did it or not, you make new heros supposing that they are clean, you are going to suffer a great desilusion when some day we all learned the cold and hard reality. 95% of all baseball players took some kind of steroids or testosterone, or Human or Annimal hormone. The same way that Armstrong did it to win 7 times the France tour, lot of saints will fell from their altars. Not only in baseball but in all sports. So, who here in this site is sure that Biggio, Jeter, Arod, Vlad, Manny, Ortiz, Thomas, and many others can throw the first stone?

Excellent point, Racab. We really don't know and probably never will. Why are so many power hitters' HR numbers down this year? Better testing? Better pitching? Who really knows.