Just a few questions:
Who’s the greatest home run hitter of all-time? Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds or do you have another choice?
Do you believe Bonds took steroids or any other performance-enhancing drug?
Once Bonds passes Aaron, would you like to see somebody break the new record?
24 Comments
I’m a Mets fan and loathe all things Yankee but I have to give the nod to Babe Ruth, given the age in which he hit all his home runs. He hit home runs when no one else could. He all but invented the concept of the home run trot.
Imagine what Babe Ruth could have done if he had the kind of conditioning that modern athletes have.
Gotta go with Ruth as well. Usually modern stats trump earlier ones, but Ruth changed the game.
I do think Bonds is a cheat, and a knowing one as well.
And I do think someone will pass Bonds if he breaks the record. It will probably be Arod.
I know I’m in the minority but it’s Barry Bonds. I do believe he took something, but it wasn’t banned at the time. I also think it’s impossible to know how many other players juiced, and the bottom line is he’s one of the best players all time steroids or no. He’s just on a different level.
1. Hank Aaron because I saw him break the record.
2. Yes
3. I won’t recognize any Bonds record.
Note to Kevin above who said: “I do believe he took something, but it wasn’t banned at the time.”
Steroids have been illegal in the USA for over 15 years. MLB ‘rules’ do not supercede the laws of the United States.
Steroids have always been illegal. The game cannot permit something which society deems illegal.
Dang Annie posted first lol. I swear I wasn’t copying!
Each era is different, that said I would have to go with Hank Aaron. He hit HRs during a time when Pitching mostly dominated the sport.
Barry Bonds was one of the greatest players to play the game before he began taking steroids.
As for wanting to see someone surpass the record, to me the record will be tainted for the next 25 years.
Hank Aaron followed by Babe Ruth…wouldn’t even include the 323 home runs Bonds hit since he turned 35.
YES HE TOOK AND PROBABLY STILL DOES TAKE STEROIDS.
I believe and hope that A-Rod will break the record so the steroid cheater is no longer able to claim that record.
Hank Aaron.
yes and he likely took the roids.
I’d like to see A-Rod break it and he can. He’s at 479 home runs now and he’s going to be 32 in july.
1. The Babe
2. Yes. Everything
3. No. I personally don’t think the records of Maris and Aaron have been broken unless you allow cheating.
To me all modern records ( last 15 years or so ) are fraudulent. All these stars are frauds.
I do not exclude the Mets. Dykstra for one I always thought was juiced.
Let us not forget the minor league Met who was suspended this week. Or our pitcher who was suspended last year.
How is it for years someone who hit 30 hrs was exceptional and now it is ordinary. Nutrition is not the reason here.
Dave
1. Probably Ruth, but it’s so hard to compare eras.
2. Of course.
3. Sure, but let’s not fool ourselves into believing anyone who has racked up home runs in the last decade is any cleaner than Bonds.
1. Aaron, because the racial pressures he faced throughout his career make his record, in my mind, much more of an accomplishment.
2. If you gotta ask you’ll never know.
3. Although I personally am bothered by the steroid era, I don’t think too many other baseball fans feel this way. If ARod breaks the record in the future, so be it—but I don’t really care one way or the other.
On a related note, though, I did hear this Philly-based researcher on WFAN one day last year. The guy has been tracking Bonds’ homers since the late 90s and reports that the number of long shots (I think his criteria was something like 450 feet or more) just exploded exponentially in the late 90s, when Bonds entered his mid-to-late-thirties and, theoretically, should have been losing distance off his dingers. This researcher claims that the increase in distance in the homers suggests that the steroids were indeed having the positive impact so many of us suspect they do.
1. Probably the Babe, although it’s hard to be sure, since I never saw him play. In addition to Aaron, though, I would give hon mentions to both Ted Williams and Willie Mays, who would have hit more if not for army service and (in Willie’s case) a very disadvantageous home stadium.
2. Of course Bonds used steroids. BALCO developed special cocktails just for him. He used anything and everything that he thought could give him an edge. And I’m sure he’s still using, whether it’s HGH or some cutting-edge undetectable steroid/cocktail that we’ll be hearing about five years from now. After all, Bonds can afford to have the best lab rats on his side.
3. Like some others here, I do not recognize this record (or McGuire’s record for that matter). None of the records of the recent era should count for anything—the entire era should be (and I firmly believe eventually will be) asterisked. The real outrage and tragedy is that what has happened makes it impossible for fans to ever again truly embrace a remarkable season without cynicysm. There will always be a thread of doubt attached, unlike the unalloyed joy most fans felt innocently watching the McGuire/Sosa HR race—not realizing at the time how badly it was tainted. With performance enhancing cocktails always one step ahead of the testers, and no blood testing anyway in baseball, let alone preservation of samples, it will always be impossible to know if some exceptional accomplishment was attained honestly or with illicit assistance.
“Harmon Killebnrew”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmon_Killebrew . Nice, modest guy, and (jeepers!) could even be a role model for kids.
Ok, Hank Aaron is up there, too, but no one ever talks about HK.
Josh Gibson anyone? Anyway, steroids were not strictly prohibited by major league baseball. Drunk driving is illegal in the U.S., but you do’nt see players not allowed to play because of it (or managers) or records taken away. Equating the fact that steroids are illegal in this country is the same as saying drunk driving is illegal, what does that have to do with baseball?...unless baseball of course had specifically banned steroids, which it hadn’t. As far as baseball was concerened, you could do whatever, and that has absolutley nothing to do with U.S. law.
Pitchers should be able to just shoot the hitter because baseball does not forbid it.
Ruth, yes, YES.
And as much as I like Big Papi, c’mon, use your head. Without steroids Bonds would still have likely been a HOF player, yes. The guy does have a great swing and, of course, amazing natural tools. But, to not realize the impact that added strength can have in: 1. Being able to choke up on the bat and still generate home run power, 2. Providing added resistance in one’s swing to a pitched ball moving in the opposite direction, is simply being naive or blatantly untruthful.
listen; if Pete Rose couldnt get into the HALL for betting on his own team ,if he did, then BONDS should not have a record scorecard kept. cause he juiced and is probably still juicing.
homerun icons – ruth, aaron,kingman,hack wilson …
there’s a big list…
The greatest homerun hitter of all time is A-Rod. After Bonds breaks the homerun record and retires, A-Rod will be passing Bonds by within 6-7 years
It’s one thing to hate Bonds and not want him to break the record, but its another thing to raelize the reality of this situation. If you wipe Bonds’ record clean, you MUST wipe all records and statistics of all palyers who ever used performance enhancing drugs. In addition, Bonds was a surefire hall of famer before 35. Back in ‘93 anyone could have told you this guy was going to be a hall of famer. He is a once in a lifetime talent, steroids or not. Hate the guy, hate steroids, whatever, but you cannot deny this.
1) Babe Ruth. He outhomered TEAMS most every year, and saved baseball after the Black Sox scandal. He made the homerun glamorous.
2) Yes, Bonds and other players have used steroids.
3) Yes, I hope someone breaks Bonds record. It’s a disgrace that he will be the all-time homerun king. Not just for the steroids issue, but for also being one of the all-time jerks.
I have no problem wiping off a generation of cheaters.
they got what they want, fame and fortune. that is done they dont deserve to be mentioned with babe, aaron, etc.
i dont care what bonds was projected to be, griffy jr was projected too as was gooden and straw. projection means squat. he cheated he belongs with the other banned players who cheat.
Hank Aaron is probably the greatest, followed by Bonds, with Ruth a distant third. Aaron’s consistent goodness over a long period in baseball’s most pitching-dominant era makes him to my mind the greatest. Ruth’s era doesn’t help him in this comparison. It hurts him. Although he was unquestionably great, he played against so comparatively few great players. The very notion that a guy could go from being one of the best pitchers of his day, to overwhelmingly the best hitter of his time had become practically impossible before Jackie Robinson broke the color line. Babe Ruth probably never had a single at bat against a pitcher with the velocity of Drysdale or Gibson or the pure stuff of Sandy Koufax. Someone else implied that Ruth suffered for lack of modern training. Please. Ruth was surrounded by better athletes. He was a lard-ass by lifestyle-not because he couldn’t train.
As for Bonds’ steroid use, for all the finger-pointing and time wasted measuring hat and shoe sizes no one in the media has done the obvious: measure the actual impact of steroid use. You could easily take a sample of players who have been busted under the recent policy (Jason Grimsley, or a # of minor leaguers). Find out when they started doping. Then take pre- and post- measures. For batters, estimate pre- and post- bat speed. For pitchers, measure pre- and post- velocity. It’d be a rough measure for sure, but FAR superior to what passes for “evidence” these days.
I suspect that no one in the media will take up that little challenge for fear that they’ll find out what lots of people suspect: that there has been a lot of self-righteous windbagging over minuscule or non-existent performance enhancement. Team physicians and other sports doctors began prescribing steroids primarily to assist players (and real people) in recuperating from injury. That’s probably still what they’re best situated to do. Additional muscle mass in baseball is just as likely to slow a bat as speed it up.
once again, Bonds might have broke U.S. law by illegally taking steroids, but he did not break any major league baseball regulations by taking steroids. Once again, if a player breaks a U.S. law ( any law) he is not kicked out of baseball, banned from, suspended, or have his records and statistucs removed. Thinking otherwise is riduculous. And when did baseball fans become such moral police? You know you all loved the HRs back in ‘98.