In Defense of Barry Bonds

POSTED BY Kenneth England, 07 August 2007

What an over hyped mess this Bonds home run chase is. Now, its no surprise that Bonds is one of the most hated athletes on the planet (perhaps of all time) mostly because of his attitude toward the press and fans of baseball who don't reside in San Francisco. Of course, most people will claim they hate Bonds for "what he represents" in baseball, clearly indicating the belief that Bonds achieved his numbers using performance enhancing substances.

Now, it is true that Bonds has never tested positive for anything illegal. Ever. This doesn't particularly impress the cynical, however, that feel that the cheaters have stayed ahead of the testing. This may be true, but for those who believe in the essence of being American, people are innocent until proven guilty. Any anger towards Bonds is illogical. It is either a manifestation of an emotional hatred of Bonds, or a hatred of this modern era of baseball which Bonds has become the figurehead of. I am here to say, however, that it doesn't matter if Bonds (or anyone else for that matter) took steroids.

Think I'm crazy? Well, let me dig myself deeper then. I will go on record to say that the involvement of steroids, even if everyone in the MLB were on them, is not even a drop in the bucket when it comes to offensive records dropping. There are several other bigger reasons why these records are falling.

For one thing, the pitching mound is much shorter than it used to be, following dropping the height in the 60's. Losing those few inches of height gives pitchers much less leverage than they used to have, and therefore less velocity and movement than used to be possible. The closer you bring a pitcher down to the level of the hitter, the more you turn him into a JUGS machine. Combine this factor with the serious watering-down of the overall quality of pitching with the expansion of new team after new team, and you have a situation where the pitching is no where near the caliber it used to be.

Another reason for the gargantuan offensive numbers is the size and configuration of modern parks. Gone are the cavernous monstrosities that fields like Ebbets used to be, in are the tiny T-ball fields like the one built in Cincinnati, affectionately known by locals as the "smallpark." Even the years between ten and twenty years ago when still-air, tomb-like launching pads like the Metrodome were in style contributed to inflated home run numbers among older sluggers like Bonds. Compared to the massive parks of Ruth's day, today's parks are a joke to hitters.

Let's not forget also that today's baseball players are year round athletes unlike the old days. Professional conditioning and studying video breakdowns of pitchers year round gives modern athletes a massive edge over the players of yesteryear. Forget steroids, just having the modern workout facilities also gives a major edge in terms of perfecting their physique for their job. No pun intended, but the science of hitting has grown exponentially since Ruth, or even Aaron's day.

We need to face it, all these factors have contributed to a hitters era the likes of which had never been seen in baseball before. No wonder offensive numbers have gone astronomical. To place it all on steroids is incredibly naive, and frankly a little stupid. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the idea of using steroids any more than anyone else does, but the weight and discussion placed on it at the exclusion of all other factors is flatly ignorant.

Don't punish Bonds for the failure of the game as a whole. He is, at the end of the day, one of the greatest hitters the game has ever seen, with or without steroids. Steroids doesn't give you the ability to rack up nearly 6,000 combined walks and hits. Steroids doesn't give you a developed batting eye, a work ethic or a sweet swing... all of which Bonds has, in spades. Don't blame Bonds for making it too easy to hit a homerun in the majors.... blame the commissioners office for the trends of the last 40 years.

And yes, for all the factors listed above, Aaron is still the true home run king. But if want to put an asterisk by Bonds' name, better make room for about a dozen asterisks in the ledger.