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Oh, I mean don't get me wrong, Sosa is a beast, and I love watching him get a hold of one and sending it out of the yard....I remember when him and McGuire were going at it that year...I admit it was all fun to watch and made me a bigger fan of the game. ~
^^^
i loved that homerun race...
i watch the cubs anyway and that made it that much more better to watch it....
Griffey is awesome. Imagine if he hadn't been injured so much in his career? He'd be right up there in HR. And yes, Rose should be in the Hall. There are many players of questionable character in the Hall (Ty Cobb) including racists and criminals. Gambling, to me, isn't even really that bad. He's paid his dues for whatever transgressions he made.
The fact that this mindset (which is way, way off base) has become so prevalent among baseball fans is one of the reasons I don't really like baseball all that much anymore, even though I loved it as a little kid. The thing that most baseball fans either don't realize or refuse to accept is that Bud Selig has tarnished the game a lot more than Bonds, or any other player, ever did.Quote:
Originally Posted by Its a Plant
Simply put, Barry Bonds is not a cheater because he's never failed a test for steroids (In case you were not aware, Bud Selig refused to introduce any sort of steroid policy whatsoever until 2004, even though his tenure as commissioner began about the same time as the post-1994 offensive surge in baseball). He's also never even been charged with any crimes relating to performance-enhancing drugs, let alone been found guilty. And even if he did take steroids, he certainly was not even close to the only player to do so. However, we'll never know exactly who was on steroids, thanks to Selig.
Another thing, you simply cannot tell who is on steroids just by looking at them except in the most extreme of situations (like the guys on fitness magazine covers who have more muscles than humanly possible). I mean, Barry Bonds is not the only baseball player who has excelled in his mid to late thirties while putting on some weight (You could make the case that Roger Clemens' success into his early forties and his substantial weight gain over the years are just as indicative of steroids use as in the case of Bonds, and Clemens has had allegations against him too). And if you still think you can spot the juicer from the non-juicer, well consider the fact that NOBODY believed that Rafael Palmeiro was on steroids before he got caught, even with Jose Canseco's accusations; baseball aficionados loved to point to him as the posterboy of the sweet-swinging, non roided-up power hitter. Also, a lot of the guys who have been caught for steroids have been smaller guys that nobody would have suspected (Alex Sanchez, Matt Lawton, etc).
The bottom line is that, by all accounts, steroids were extremely prevalent and basically accepted in baseball for decades, until Bud Selig decided that enough years had passed since the strike that the league could survive a steroid scandal and instituted a steroid policy in 2004. The fact that Barry Bonds has been singled out the way he has just because he's the best player of the so-called steroid era shows just how naive the average baseball fan is.
Now I'm off my soapbox.