Why do you guys all hate Barry Bonds? 73 home runs in one season, 722 career home runs is unheard of!?

Question

Even with taking steriods, I want to see you try hitting 73 home runs a season and chasing Hank Aaron's HR record. Im not a Bonds fan, nor a Giants fan, my loyalty goes to Joe Torre and the Yankees. Let me hear what you have to say.

Answer 1

Exactly! No one on this site could hit more than 10 home runs off major league pitching even if they juice up for 2 years straight. IF Barry is ever proven to have taken steroids it will be a shame. I like Barry and the Giants are my favorite NL team. One thing that you can't take away from Barry is his amazing ability as a baseball player. The only thing that steroids may have done for Barry is make it so his home runs didn't land 40 ft into the bay they would only land 15-25 ft into the bay. His swing and eye for the ball are incredible. As for all of you that hate him because he's a "cheater", what about Sammy Sosa? He is the biggest cheater ever, he roided and corked his bats.

Answer 2

I'll answer the first part of your question. I've always hated Bonds because he's always been a jerk. ALWAYS!

I've been a baseball fan for 40 years, when I was a kid all you had to do to get an autograph of a player was ask. Ball players were approachable (some still are), not so with Bonds. He's always had an attitude like he's better than the average Joe, when he should be thankful he's made a GREAT living playing a little boy's game.

If the average 9-to-5-er DEMANDED a special chair in the changing room, he'd be lucky to keep his job, at the very least he'd be laughed out of management's office. The Giants have created this monster by catering to Barry's every whim. The man sickens me and has given the sport a huge black eye from which (through no help of Bud Selig and his bury your head in the sand and maybe the problem will go away attitude) it may NEVER recover.

This is NOT a black and white issue as some earlier poster said, it's all about playing the game the way it was meant to be played. Cheating, is cheating, is cheating. Hank Aaron chased Ruth in the 70's dispite death threats and tons of hate mail, and passed the Babe with dignity and class.

Barry has done nothing to endear himself to fans ( refusing to give the guy who caught 713 an autograph? I would've dropped the damn thing in a garbage disposal before I gave it back to such an ungrateful a$$hole)

Where has all this vaunted power gone lately? Out the window along with the steroids he so obviously took. Now, he's just another 42 year old with bad knees. He's hanging on merely to add to his tainted career totals. If he hangs on another year, he'll have to go to the AL with the DH rule so as to not embarrass himself in the field.

When McGwire and Sosa brought the game back from the brink in '98, there was a joy in watching that race, the two fed off of each other andlifted the spirit of a game that was suffering. Fast forward 3 years and Barry's breaking McGwire's record, did he graciously give interviews? No. Did he do ANYTHING to further popularize the game? No. He bitched and complianed and resented the invasion of privacy. Sorry Barry, you are a professional athlete, if you didn't want the spotlight maybe you should have picked a vocation where you can do your job anonymously.

Thousands of fans (baseball fans, not Barry fans) would gladly trade places with Bonds to play a game for a living. And we would have done it without performance enhancing drugs.

Answer 3

I am a big fan of Joe Torre, but what has that got to do with Bonds?

Actually if I took enough steroids I COULD hit 70 HRs in a season. Would assume my eyesight and reflexes were still good enough to put the bat on the ball.

HRs are a direct effect of strength and bat location relitive to the ball. Modern sluggers however routinely drive even mistakes over the fence as they are so strong. McGwire broke a bat broke a bat checking his swing once. The ball never touched the bat. That is how much bat speed he was generating. So Bonds, McGwire and others muscle the ball out of the park sometimes even when they don't get the perfect swing in. That is why hitting so many HRs was difficult in the past. You had to have a minium strength to drive the ball far enough and you had to hit the ball perfectly. Steroids has created unaturally strong hitters thus reducing the skill in hitting a baseball. The reduction in skill cheapens the records. Might as well have cyborgs up there hitting. It's not a real human hitting the ball like that. It is an artifical construct who will likely die of cancer from the steroids use 20 years down the road. So not only do steroid users cheapen records, take the humanity out of the game, they also comit long term suicide which throws a collective guilt onto each fan. We by not demanding steroids testing helped kill a human being.

Answer 4

1. If Bond's used any drugs then he cheats, he's is saying he is more important than the sport or anyone ever involved with it

2. Even if you say "Everyone can juice up any way they want" to make it available to every one, regardless of health risks, this and records to follow are not breaking existing records. They are setting a new class of records, separate from the rest.

3. Regardless of anything else, Barry Bonds is a huge ego maniacal jerk. One of the biggest in Baseball since I have been paying attention the last 40 years. He has mellowed the last 3 years or so. But I think he realizes that he needs to change his image for posterity.

Answer 5

Bonds has never made any effort to make the fans want to like him. He's been Surly, Difficult, and generally Not Nice. I find it amazing when athletes do that. They must not know how much fans WANT to like great players. Give them a reason to root for you.

As for McGwire. I can't tell you how much he broke my heart when he ducked every question in front of congress. I'm a Yankee fan, and have been since 1985. But, in 1987 Mark McGwire's 49 HR's made me dream. I batted pigeon toed the way he did when I was in little league. In 1998 I fell in love with baseball again (after the strike drove me away) thanks to McGwire and Sosa.

So trust me, not everyone still loves McGwire. I also dislike Giambi & Sheffield, they're a disgrace to pinstripes.

By the way, it is generally accepted that Babe Ruth was multi-cultural. Half Black & Half White. Most accept that that is the reason he was given up for adoption. Buck O'Neil and many, many other ***** League players always said how they believed this to be true. They played with Ruth in barnstorming games.

Answer 6

First thing 700 Hrs is not unheard of because Aaron and Babe did it. 800 Hrs is not unheard of because Josh Gibson and Sadahara Oh did it.
Of course everyone trys to get an edge, however would you play cards against someone that is cheating you.
Most people and myself want the game to be on the up and up and not like wrestling.
He was a great player before steroids but if he wasn't "juiced he would not be chasing Aaron; he would be chasing 600 Hrs.
My question to you and others is "Do you want things to be for real or not"?

Answer 7

Well, the possibilities that's going to be valued at much less are little. And over the years, it is going to attain valued at. Also, Mark McGwire has no longer been at the scorching seat for steroids up to Barry Bonds has. But proper now, I see it promoting for an convenient three million greenbacks on eBay.

Answer 8

Barry "Anabolic" Bonds came into the league as a center fielder who could steal bases like no one's business. All of a sudden he packs on 50 pounds of muscle? Come on man. He's a cheater and his team mates have always hated him, even back in college they hated him. He's a jerk. If you use steroids, you are admitting that you need extra help because you can no longer compete. Using steroids is cheating, pure and simple. It gives the user the advantage.

Answer 9

Exactly.....why does everybody still like Mark McGuire...they say because he told that he was using...but even if Barry did say he was using...they would take the record away ...when McGuire did it... and admitted it....only did it become an issue... They know of other players doing it....but they are chasing Barry like the Black Plague....Are they hunting down anyyone else to take their records away ? Everyone that used to feed off him...now has turned against him...how much do you think they are getting paid for their testimonies? His mistress got mad because he didn't give her money...now she wants to talk....conflict of interest...she has an agenda...they are hating, and no matter what anyone says ....it's because of color... They just wont say it. Although Hank beat his record by many... Babe Ruth still has the biggest name in baseball....hmmm....good luck to Barry.....no matter what he did...he did it well....

Answer 10

It's barrys attitude that make people dislike him. Remember what Sosa and McGwire looked like during their "race" in '98 ....take a look at their rookie cards and feast your eyes on the obvious..."serious juice" Barry Bonds had posted hall of fame statistics before he ever juiced up. I believe Canseco, hundreds of players were on the roids. so where do the * start and where do they end ??

Answer 11

Because he's a cheater. He couldn't have hit all those homers if he wasn't juiced up. The Babe and Hank Aaron did it the old fashioned way. He will NEVER be among the greats in my book.