Barry Bonds = Y.A.

[teamnasty]

"The players who faced the toughest competition were the ones who were playing after integration but before expansion and the huge infusion of TV money into the game"

Actually no, its the opposite. The infusion of huge TV money into the game is one of the four factors making the game today the very toughest at all from a competitive standpoint. Integration, free agency, professional player development systems (minor leagues plus drafts), and the infusion of billions in TV dollars expand the player pool and attract the best athletes to the game, period. In Ruth's day the owner's had such leverage on which races could enter the game and at what salary/working conditions that outstanding potential athletes frequently chose accounting or janitorial work instead. It may have been a more innocent time (a point I debate), there may have been no in your face athletes on ESPN every day, the common man may have felt more kinship to the older ballplayers....but the competitive nature of the game was actually a joke compared to now. An absolute joke compared to now. A higher mound and tobacco juice on the field , with due respect, dont give the nod to Ruth.

I defy anyone who reads these blogs, Bonds fan or Bonds hater it doesnt matter, to attack the basic idea that professional baseball would be a relative joke if you removed all nonwhites from today's game AND killed free agency AND capped salaries at $250k or so AND got rid of amateur drafts and the minor leagues. Might as well send the NFL players home also and invite undertalented scabs to replace them...I'm sure some scabs would put up dominant stats, but we wouldnt waste half a second thinking they were "legit".

[longgandhi]

More money in the game has meant more players are protective of their careers causing an enormous increase of days on the DL because they don't want to risk career ending injury by playing through pain as they did in Ruth's day. This creates more opportunities for the best players to face replacement level players or worse.

Also, it's not just baseball that has seen the dramatic increase in money; all sports have, and by percentage every other sport (except perhaps boxing) has seen a greater increase than baseball. Baseball is no longer the only choice for the best athletes to make big money.

As for your "competitive nature" argument, that is a joke. Players on rival teams hated each other - Jackie Robinson retired rather than be traded to the Giants - and Ty Cobb sharpened his spikes to intimidate infielders. Those are extreme examples but the norm wasn't nearly as cozy as today's players chatting amiably with each other at first base.

You only need to read some of the previous posts to see the defiance against your arguments that you seek, especially now that you are equating Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Honus Wagner, Lou Gerhig, Jimmie Foxx, etc. etc... that you are equating those guys to "scabs". I think you just lost all ground that yours is the "logical" argument with that gem.




[quote:ad7b5f5fb1="teamnasty"]"The players who faced the toughest competition were the ones who were playing after integration but before expansion and the huge infusion of TV money into the game"

Actually no, its the opposite. The infusion of huge TV money into the game is one of the four factors making the game today the very toughest at all from a competitive standpoint. Integration, free agency, professional player development systems (minor leagues plus drafts), and the infusion of billions in TV dollars expand the player pool and attract the best athletes to the game, period. In Ruth's day the owner's had such leverage on which races could enter the game and at what salary/working conditions that outstanding potential athletes frequently chose accounting or janitorial work instead. It may have been a more innocent time (a point I debate), there may have been no in your face athletes on ESPN every day, the common man may have felt more kinship to the older ballplayers....but the competitive nature of the game was actually a joke compared to now. An absolute joke compared to now. A higher mound and tobacco juice on the field , with due respect, dont give the nod to Ruth.

I defy anyone who reads these blogs, Bonds fan or Bonds hater it doesnt matter, to attack the basic idea that professional baseball would be a relative joke if you removed all nonwhites from today's game AND killed free agency AND capped salaries at $250k or so AND got rid of amateur drafts and the minor leagues. Might as well send the NFL players home also and invite undertalented scabs to replace them...I'm sure some scabs would put up dominant stats, but we wouldnt waste half a second thinking they were "legit".[/quote:ad7b5f5fb1]

[teamnasty]

Again, you drop the ball and fail to dispute the general idea that eliminating all minorities from the modern game would dilute it to the point of being basically a Triple A plus competition with a few shining stars who would post monster Ruthian stats. Your reference to "posts in prior blogs" is chimerical; there are no such posts which defeat the "timeline" argument that I and sabermetricians and Bill James make about the superior competitiveness of the modern game.

The "scab" comment of mine was not to equate old time players to modern day scabs but to evoke readers memories of how the NFL went to pot when its best players walked away. And in Ruth's time a large portion of the best available players werent even given that chance; rather they were banned from playing at all by their race or uniterested in entering because of the feudal economic conditions imposed by the owners.

I have lost no moral high ground to you in the slightest and have as much right to post on here as you. You just cant seem to stand that I hold a different opinion than yours. Whereas I think its great that you engage me. But save the righteousness for church.

[longgandhi]

Does the recent infusion of Japanese players diminish the accomplishments of Joe Morgan or Mike Schmidt? If adding a number of non-white pitchers would have reduced Ruth and Gehrig to Triple-A players, then Morgan and Schmidt would barely be regulars, if that, in today's game by your definition. Sure, there were a number of pitchers who would not have made the cut after integration, but there isn't any evidence that number exceeds the number of subpar pitchers who got ML jobs due to expanding the league by 14 teams, 4 of them during Bonds career, 3 of which were in the NL and two in his own division.

But by all means feel free to continue championing Barry Bonds' cause on moral grounds.

[AeroDave10]

For those who are interested in learning more about Babe Ruth, I am currently reading a very cool book called "The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs". It uses newspaper accounts and other sources from his time to detail Ruth's career and how he grew into a living legend. After reading this book, I think most will gain an even greater respect and appreciation for Babe Ruth and his accomplishments. I was particularly surprised to see how many additional games Ruth participated in outside his counted statistics. He and his teammates would play exhibition games during the season, and Ruth would go "barn-storming" practically every off-season. His love of barn-storming actually cost him more than a month (he was suspended) early in his career. However, most of the book discusses just how frequently he would blast legitimate 500 ft. HRs. I know this part of the discussion has been mentioned before, but Ruth hit 506 2Bs and 136 3Bs, many of which by today's standard in ballpark size would have clearly been homeruns. This also fails to count the number of 400+ ft. flyouts that would have either cleared the fence or been off the wall for extra bases in today's ballparks. Lastly, Ruth was an outstanding pitcher who later became an outstanding fielder with a great arm, and the only reason he didn't bring home more hardware (Cy Youngs, Gold Gloves, MVPs, etc.) was because they just didn't exist as they do now.

[Burley Norseman]

He is one of the top players of all time. You have to remember that alligations need to be proven. We can all surmise what he did, but with the law of the land we have to give him the benefit of the doubt till he is proven otherwise.

[teamnasty]

Norseman is right but I assume Barry's guilt for purposes of argument and still evaluate him as the best player, not person , but player. The question then becomes how much, if at all, steroids benefitted him. And on this issue --- which has been blogged here many times before -- I remain highly skeptical of the conventional wisdom that he received some huge advantage from it. He tore his muscle and missed most of 1999 because he supposedly used steroids...so how many homers would we have to add to his totals if he didnt use roids? The costs and benefits of roids are still largely unknown -- or at least unquantified -- and to the extent sabermetricians have studied the issue they have found a negligble if that advantage, to the tune of .006-.010 points of slugging and obp. See baseball prospectus numbers book for further discussion. Then after all that is said and done you have to assume that Barry's opposing hitters and pitchers werent using it, or that few of them were, which may be the most laughable part of this debate. I know my position is contrary to the conventional wisdom, but there you have it.

[teamnasty]

It's also an open secret that all teams have agreed to not sign him to play again. He's clearly a much better hitter still than the likes of Frank Thomas et al, but he doesnt get so much as a knock on the door. So this blackballing, for good or for ill, also must be taken into account when we look at his career numbers, which obviously could be padded for a few years more as a DH. How many homers would he end up with if allowed to play?

[longgandhi]

I debated replying to Teamnasty's latest contentions because each time I do, his arguments grow more absurd and devoid of facts. Yet I do feel compelled to address several ridiculously gross over-statements.

First, Bonds missed 60 games in 1999, not "most of the season". Yet he still managed to hit 34 homers which was just 3 fewer than he hit in 156 games in 1998, an expansion year.

Secondly, there is no such study, sabremetric or otherwise, that concludes that the effect of PEDs is only a few points in slugging and on base. If someone claims they have such a "study", they are grossly overstating because, for one, no one has a complete list of all the players who have used performance enhancing drugs. Their data sample would be highly subjective.

Thirdly, even if they did have a list, they do not know what each of the players were actually using unless they somehow got confessions from all of them. There are as many types of anabolic steroids, PEDs and stacking combinations as there are makes of automobiles and their impact on performance is as varied. Trying to equate two player's performance because, y'know, they both used "steroids" is like trying to equate a Ford Pinto with a Bugatti Veyron because, y'know, they are both cars.

Fourthly, there have been at least a dozen studies on the effect of PEDs when used properly and what they have shown conclusively is that even without exercising they improve athletic performance. They are available in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Endocrinology and several other highly respected medical sources. So you'd have to prove that being able to run faster or jump higher or throw harder or swing the bat more quickly has no positive effect on baseball performance to show that PEDs have only a negligible effect. So either all players who work out don't know what they are doing, or you and those so-called sabremetricians don't know what you're talking about.

As for the collusion point, there may be some validity to it. However, there aren't too many employers anywhere that would hire a new employee if they knew he was going to stand trial soon and potentially be sent to federal prison. Frank Thomas doesn't have that stigma. I don't see many advertisers lining up to get Bonds to endorse their products. Are they in on the fix, too? Maybe he's just an *** with a mountain of legal troubles that no one wants to deal with. That is a reasonable conclusion, too.

[2cityfan]

I am not a Yankee fan.. But Babe Ruth has to be considered the greatest player ever... Besides the home runs he hit in the dead ball era, + hitting for average, and huge OBP.. He came up big in World Series play as both a hitter and a pitcher.. Just look at his pitching statistics... There is not another player in history that was so dominant as both a pitcher and a hitter...

No doubt Bonds was a great hitter, but what was his World Series ERA?