Regarding Sports

Barry Bonds and the Hall of Fame

Like most people, I simply don't like Barry Bonds. First, he's never come across as a likeable guy in the media. Second, I'm from L.A. and so I naturally hate anything to do with the San Francisco sports teams (knee-jerk reaction, sorry!). So with all the steroids allegations coming out, it's pretty easy for me to hate the guy and to want him stripped of all his records and achievements and generally banned from the game. Honestly, the idea of him inevitably surpassing Babe Ruth this year, and Hank Aaron next year, if not this year, just sickens me. Barry will never be beloved, and half of people's reactions to his steroid scandal will always be because of this.

But today I read Jim Caple's latest entry into the media frenzy that is the Barry Bonds steroid scandal, and he really made me think about this whole thing. He brings up some points that others have made about how many of baseball's records have been tainted, because of the ban on colored players, because of cheaters like Gaylord Perry, and because of changes to the ball/pitching mound/rules/etc. Since I'd heard all these arguments before, I don't know why I started thinking about this only just now. Maybe it was because Caple isn't really arguing one way or the other about Bonds, or maybe it's because he put together enough things about how many records are tained. But I found myself arguing the following: Sure, maybe Babe Ruth's 715 HR's shouldn't be considered so great because he didn't play against black or hispanic pitchers. But the reason we celebrate Ruth is because, over the course of his career, he so obviously towered over everyone else who was playing at the time, all of his peers. Hey, there were hundreds of other ballplayers who played alongside Ruth and faced the exact same pitchers that he did in the exact same ballparks using the exact same bats and balls, and none of them went yard 715 times, none of them had the outrageous slugging percentage that he did, none of them were nearly as good as he was. That's why we celebrate him, and that's why he's in the Hall of Fame.

And then I realized that that same argument applies to Barry Bonds. Yes, it's obvious now that he used steroids. And yes, without steroids, there is probably no way that he could be breathing down Ruth's neck and within striking distance of Aaron's record. But let's be clear here. There were probably lots of ballplayers out there who were using steroids at the same time that Bonds was, but NONE of them did what Bonds did. Bonds joined the 400/400 club before taking steroids, and nobody has joined him (in fact he's now the sole member of the 500/500 club). Bonds's OPS is so ridiculous that he's in his own league. McGwire at the height of his career featured a 1.229 OPS, certainly an astounding number. But Bonds crushed that with a 1.379 in 2001. And a 1.381 in 2002. And finally a 1.422 in 2004. Babe Ruth never had an OPS as high as Bonds had in 2004, nevermind anyone who played at the same time as Bonds. In fact, Bonds has had an OPS over 1.0 for the past 14 full seasons that he's played (15 if you count the few at-bats he had in 2005). Nobody has ever done that. Sosa had four seasons with an OPS over 1.0, McGwire had seven, nowhere near fourteen straight. Ruth had only 11 total seasons like that, and they weren't consecutive. Bonds is one of the few players who has a career OPS over 1.0 (among all players with at least 5000 at bats). You can count the others on your hands, and they are all in the Hall of Fame, except for one who is still currently playing.

Quite frankly, if you look at Bonds's stats, they absolutely tower over anyone he is playing with. Just like Ruth's did. Does that mean he deserves to pass Ruth and Aaron and have the career home run record? No, he cheated to get there. Does that mean he deserves to have the third highest career OBP, behind Williams and Ruth, and the fourth highest career slugging percentage, behind Ruth, Williams, and Gehrig? No. He cheated to get there. Does that mean he deserves to have the most walks, and the second-most doubles, of anyone who ever played the game? No. He cheated to get there.

However, does that matter when considering him for the Hall of Fame? Given that baseball turned a blind eye to steroids use for over a decade and allowed all these cheaters to prosper, it's simply impossible to throw out everyone's stats on suspicion that they were cheating. We are forced to accept that these statistics will stand, no matter how they were obtained. And judging by those statistics, Bonds stands head and shoulders above his contemporaries. And that is the most important criteria for determing Hall of Fame eligibility. Unfortunately, Bonds belongs in the Hall of Fame.

posted by Chris @ 11:30 PM