And I say that is horse shit. The only thing from that wife beating steroid using piece of shit that belongs in the HOF is the ball that got branded with the asterisk.
Originally Posted by JudasRising20:
The voters will eventually get younger. All the steroid-era players will get in someday.
Probably not through the writers voting on it. You drop off the ballot after a number of years. But you can make it to the Hall with support from the veterans’ committee. If you get enough steroid era players on the veterans’ committee, I bet they would support the likes of Bonds & Clemens. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Frazod:
The one thing I will say about Sosa and McGwire is that they really helped restore interest in the game, which had waned quite a bit after the '94 strike. Their home run race made baseball fun again.
Certainly doesn't make them HOF worthy, and of course Bonds was a better player than either of them.
Yeah, I agree totally. Baseball was must watch TV back then. And I'm not saying McGwire/Sosa are definitely NOT hall of famers, just that they're not in the same league as Bonds when accounting for defense and running as well. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Frazod:
The one thing I will say about Sosa and McGwire is that they really helped restore interest in the game, which had waned quite a bit after the '94 strike. Their home run race made baseball fun again.
Certainly doesn't make them HOF worthy, and of course Bonds was a better player than either of them.
We certainly didn't hear MLB complaining when they were breaking records, did we. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Molitoth:
Bonds was so feared that I just enjoyed watching him get walked.
The dude was a monster.
I've been watching baseball since the 60s. There has never been anything like the guy during his roid years. Any pitch in the strike zone was a homerun, literally. During the non-roid years, he was still one of the best ever both defensively and at the plate. Almost every drive to leftfield resulted in a single. Not the strongest arm, but he got to the ball so fast and got he ball in so quickly. [Reply]
Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry:
I don't give a shit if they use roids.
Baseball was honestly way more fun to watch when they did. The McGwire/Sosa chase was amazing and simply watching the mastery of Barry Bonds at the plate during those years was an incredible sight. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DRM08:
I hate when people say he’s arguably the greatest hitter. We have stats before Bonds took the juice. He was nowhere close to the greatest. He was around a 0.300 career hitter before the juice and suddenly it jumps to 0.350 or higher. He also had that ridiculous arm guard which helped him crowd the plate. Without the arm guard and the steroids, he was a 0.300 hitter and nowhere near the best home run hitter either.
The most impressive thing about Bonds was that he stole a ton of bases and was a pretty good fielder in addition to a very good hitter. He could have finished his career with 600ish homers and 600ish stolen bases if he stayed away from steroids. Bulked himself up to focus on home runs and it hurt his base running ability.
When do you assume he started juicing? Most people theorize it started after the 1998 season. If we agree that's accurate, he had 13 seasons under his belt at that point. In those 13 seasons, he was league MVP 3 times, an All-Star 8 times, Gold Glove 8 times and Silver Slugger 7 times. He averaged like 39HR/105RBI/30SB through that period. His OPS was above 1.000 for 7 straight years and above .900 the previous two. He had also accumulated 100 WAR at that point as well. There's only 30 guys in baseball history that accumulated a WAR for their entire career above 100.
I'm not trying to die on this hill and the guy isn't my favorite player ever, but to constantly hear the argument that he's not HOF material bc of steroids and read the above argument that he's "an average 300 hitter" pre-juice is annoying. No offense. [Reply]
Originally Posted by KC_Connection:
Baseball was honestly way more fun to watch when they did. The McGwire/Sosa chase was amazing and simply watching the mastery of Barry Bonds at the plate during those years was an incredible sight.
Steroids doesn't make anyone hit the ball better. it can make you stronger, or at least able to recover quicker and build more muscle but having more muscles doesn't make anyone a better hitter.
Bonds had one of the sweetest strokes in baseball history. he was knocking them out of the park before he ever allegedly started juicing. So was McGuire for that matter.
If the HOF wanted to right their ship, they'd have put Pete Rose in the Hall a long time ago. But they haven't, which is why I don't respect that hall at all. They're a bunch of whiny self-important bitches with a stupid agenda, so really fuck them and their hall. [Reply]