Asher, What Were You Thinking?
by
Tony Aubry,
BaseballEvolution.com
April 5, 2006
In Asher’s recent article, he asks fans to lay off of Barry Bonds. However, he made some points that really didn’t make to much sense to me. Actually they were pretty dumb.
First off, Asher tries to discredit Ruth due to the fact Yankee Stadium had a short porch. Do me a favor Asher – don't do that again. From the time the Stadium was built in 1923 to when Ruth left, he hit 259 homeruns at home and 252 on the road. See an advantage there? because I certainly don’t. He also hit .338 on the road and .346 at home. Once again, not a big difference at all. Actually, in Ruth’s entire career he hit more HR on the road (367) than at home (347). You can argue that the reason he put up those numbers is because he played in 20s, but if Ruth was born 30 years ago and had the technology, trainers, workout regiments, and supplements we have today, he’d do the same. Either way, that point was simply ludicrous.
Asher also makes points about Bill Terry having that one big year in 1930 and Gibson having that one big year in 1968. Do you see a trend there? ONE big year. If Terry didn’t hit .400 his career AVG is still an outstanding .335, and if Gibby’s ERA wasn’t 1.12 in 1968 his career ERA is still excellent at 3.06. HOWEVER, according to the allegations Bond’s used steroids from the 1998 off-season until 2004. Bond’s was hurt in 1999. So Bond’s benefited from the steroids from 2000-2004. If you take those years away from Bond’s resume he has 450 homers out of his current 708, which is Bond’s greatest achievement.
“Barry Bonds is one of the five greatest players of all time.”
Asher, c'mon. Let’s not get too carried away here. First off if Bonds never used steroids I highly doubt he’d still be playing today. You mention that Bonds dominated even before the steroid era. Yeah, he did, but he wasn't head and shoulders over the rest. That actually confuses me – in a time when baseball wasn’t filled with 'roided players, he dominated, but not head and shoulder’s above the rest. When more and more players used steroids and got better, he
was head and shoulders above the rest. Doesn’t make too much sense to me.
Bonds is no where near Ruth’s level, and he isn’t a (expletive) on Williams’ (expletive) (excuse my language) without the performance enhancement drugs. Cobb leaves him in the dust. Go look at Stan Musial’s numbers. They're astonishing. So he isn't on his level either with out the roids.
You want to compare him to Mantle? Ok, I’ll take that. But wait a second Asher . . .
Mantle is 14th on your list. So go figure that out, Asher, and then come back to me.
Disagree with something? Got something to add? Wanna bring up something totally new? Tony can be reached at comments@baseballevolution.com.
