MLB’s best record wasn’t enough to keep a selfish Barry Bonds happy


Production isn’t enough for a contract Imagine the salary a free agent could demand coming off of an All-Star year in which he led the league in walks and on-base percentage while slugging 28 homers. Teams would line up for his services, hoping to add that rare combination of offense to their lineup. There was one such a free agent available in the off-season of 2008, but nobody signed him that winter. In fact he never played another inning in the major leagues. Such is the life when you’re Barry Lamar Bonds. Stories abound about of his black lounge chair and extra locker in his corner of the clubhouse at Pac Bell Park. His trial for obstruction and lying to a grand jury started last week with an admission of taking steroids and a far-fetched defense of never knowingly doing so. With his prickly personality, and prima donna attitude, Bonds can be a tough guy to like. He was no fan of the media. And as it turns out, he wasn’t always a fan of official scorers either. The early days of the defensive shift During his playing days, Bonds pulled the ball with such consistency that teams employed a defensive shift. The […]

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Judgment of Steroid Era comes every year at Hall of Fame


(Editors’ note: Mike Piazza was inducted into the Hall of Fame on July 24, 2016.) Can the game’s story be complete without a plaque of the baseball’s all-time home run leader? Doesn’t the man with the most Cy Young Awards deserve induction? How about the catcher with the most career homers? All have been on the ballot, yet none is enshrined. The allegations pointed toward Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are well-documented. The case for Mike Piazza remains less clear. Certainly his numbers are certainly Cooperstown-worthy. Amassed in any other era, his 427 homers and .308 lifetime average would be enough to garner the catcher a bronze plaque. Piazza’s six seasons with at least 100 runs batted in, 12 all-star appearances, and ten Silver Slugger awards certainly seem Cooperstown-worthy. In today’s Hall of Fame voting process, however, numbers aren’t enough. That’s where hypocrisy begins to creep in. During the steroid era, the Baseball Writers concerned themselves only with on-field performance. Seven times they voted prickly Barry Bonds the MVP; seven times they cast enough votes for Roger Clemens to receive the Cy Young Award. No one cared then that the players’ statistics might have been aided by performance enhancing drugs. When those same two players were on the Hall of Fame […]

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"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball…"

~Jacques Barzun, 1954