Jon Carroll, Barry Bonds, and Steroids

by slapshot578 on May 19, 2006 2:36 PM PDT

Did anyone see sf chronicle columnist Jon Carroll's defense of Barry Bonds and discussion of sabermetrics?

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/05/19/DDGKAIHCPP1.DTL

He cites two different economists assertion that credits expansions not steroids with the homerun explosion. Carroll doesn't exonerate Bonds of cheating through steroid use, but believes that his steroid use did not contribute to his surging offensive numbers. Rather, the forces of league expansion which stretched pitching resources thinner. Weaker pitcher entered the league, which is responsible for the offensive explosion of the 1990s. One could also throw in the argument pertaining to the league's desire for increased offensive numbers, which would draw disgruntled fans back to the ballpark after the 94 strike.

All this Barry Bonds fingering has actually made me a bigger proponent for #25. As a good little A's fan, I never liked Bonds, from his skinny days as a 30-30 to the 2001 homerun king mutation. However, blaming one man for cheating while countless other players committed the same crime is ludicrious. Bonds was already destined for the Hall of Fame, while players like the late Ken Caminiti or Bret Boone juiced up even before Barry started juicing to raise themselves beyond minor league mediocrity.

Piggybacking onto Carroll's article, steroids did not also radically skew the game, in terms of offensive numbers. Bonds still remained one of the game's stars and non users like A-Rod or Jeter still remained prolific players, despite the supposed advantage of steroids.

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amen

on this part:

"[..]blaming one man for cheating while countless other players committed the same crime is ludicrious. Bonds was already destined for the Hall of Fame, while players like the late Ken Caminiti or Bret Boone juiced up even before Barry started juicing to raise themselves beyond minor league mediocrity."

seriously.

Oakrand.

by ConditionOakland on May 19, 2006 2:54 PM PDT reply actions

Caminiti

was hardly minor league mediocrity ... and Boone wasn't really, either ...

but, otherwise, I agree ...

And while "Ruth did it on hotdogs and beer" he did it against pitchers who also only used hotdogs and beer.

Devo's newest project And his blog

by devo on May 19, 2006 3:00 PM PDT up reply actions

It is true Bonds was a great

player before steroids but what made it diffent is the power it gave him at an advanced age.
Carroll is correct about expansion but absent steroids Bonds would not have hit the homers he did.
You can see now that he hits a lot of long fly balls that don't go out, just like he did before steroids.
Nobody, but nobody gets better at 36 than they were at 27, but Bonds doubled his homers at an advanced age.
He was usually good for 30/40 HRs in his prime, then all of a sudden he was hitting 70 and they weren't all against diluted pitching. All of a sudden he was hitting 450' HR's when before he was hitting them 350-400'. At least as a young rookie McGwire hit 51 HR's before the juice. Bonds never came close to that until he was 36. When a guy's head size goes from 6 3/4" to 8 1/4" after 32 years old you know it is not eating milk shakes, otherwise my head size would have doubled.

by china bob on May 19, 2006 4:11 PM PDT reply actions