Barry Bonds and the 'purity' of sport...

...not!

With apologies, this is a big thing with me!
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Barry Bonds was turned down for a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame - again!

While I played catch once with Joe DiMaggio and saw Willy McCovey, Willie Mays and so many other great baseball players play first hand - BARRY BONDS WAS THE BEST BALL PLAYER I EVER SAW PLAY MY GAME - BASEBALL.

I was very good at baseball in my younger days and was actually on a watch list for future play.

I know good baseball. You are either born with fast legs, or you aren't (I wasn't). You are either born with fast hands with a bat, or you aren't (I was). You are either born with a strong accurate arm, or you aren't (I was). Very few people are born with all three, plus a sense of the game - Barry Bonds was. (I know the game, and can say this inequitably )

Did Barry Bonds take performance enhancing drugs - YES  

So what  There are players bigger than him. There are players faster than him. There are players who can throw a ball farther than him. There are players with as fast a bat. No one, except Barry Bonds had all three - before his started the enhancement drugs.

Did the enhancement drugs make him see the ball better and with the fastest bat I ever saw, hit all of those homeruns - NO

Professional baseball is entertainment and Barry Bonds was the best at entertaining San Francisco Giants and annoying the competition.

BARRY BONDS DESERVES TO BE IN THE HALL OF FAME - PERIOD

Hi Michaela!

Well I don't know much about Baseball, I have watched it live in Japan and it was fun to watch, I watched the Yakult Swallows play. I don't know the case, but looked it up and see what you mean. What is Cooperstown?

Anyway, a great injustice was done to one of my favourite footballers Rio Ferdinand. He was at the Manchester United training ground and had been asked to attend a test, they are not routine and can happen anytime. Rio forgot and after training drove home. He remembered and phoned the club and a test was arranged for 2 days later, he tested negative and had never once tested positive in many years before. But he was banned for 8 months for not taking the test.

Well, everyone forgets stuff, the day before yesterday I put in my prescription at a pharmacy, was told it would be ten minutes. I finished my grocery shop and drove home..... I phoned the pharmacy and told them I'll pick it up today. I simply had forgot to pick it up! I guess Rio simply forgot he had to have the test.

Rio is now a respected tv pundit on the game and I think he was unfairly banned, but the stigma is always there and that is unfair! I hope your Barry Bonds is placed in the Hall of Fame.

Celia xx

Cooperstown, NY is where the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is located.

Major League Baseball is sport AND most importantly, entertainment.

Imagine if the Academy Awards denied awards to any actor who 'enhanced' their look by surgery or drugs.

Does anyone think that MMA fighters do not take steroids. MMA is pure and simply entertainment and people come to these events to see someone get the crap beat out of the opponent.

People come to see the SF Giants (my team) hit as many homeruns as they can. The SF Giants have filled their 42,000 seat stadium every year since the team moved there in 2000.

Cheating is cheating, even if you were awesome in the beginning, it mattered in the end.

Now, the thing is, does it really matter? That's the question.

I think if we are going to pay shit loads to a player to play a game, then it's about a lot of things. It's clear we want the player to be beyond awesome. Well, considering winning is everything if we are willing to go far enough to pay outrageous sums to players to ensure it.

But I think a hall of fame entry is about innate perfection unaltered born with and only born with.
So as awesome as he clearly was, he broke that one rule. Break the rules, pay the price.

It's why I can come up with oodles of good reasons to 'break the rules' when it comes to my pension, but I won't. Because the punishment is just that important to remember. I break the rules, they boot me off, I'm screwed.

That's why rules matters, even if they suck.
I don't think Barry is 'suffering' because they won't allow him in.

But, Leslie, he didn't break any rules. Baseball didn't have any rule against 'juicing' until he left the sport.

The rules were in place AFTER he retired in 2007.

Oh, ok, that is a valid observation then. You would then be correct.

..and poor Rio Ferdinand, who I respect lots, was given an 8 month ban coz he forgot to attend the test!!!!! Never had a positive result in over a decade and never since!

Drugs, juicing or what ever is rampant even down to the elementary school level. Fathers want there kid to be a huge NFL football player so they start feeding these kids human growth hormone before puberty. High School coaches want to move up in the sport, so they juice their student athletes. Cheating is everywhere - even to how much a football is pressurized.

On the other hand, sports like the Olympic sports have defined performance enhancing drugs almost too broadly. There have been athletes fortfeiting events or are banned for using prescribed drugs to treat asthma or other legitimate medical issues.

I am not in favor of using drugs illicitly - for sports or even recreationally. But I am also not a prude. I have used LSD once and I tried opium once in Hong Kong - a long time ago. I do use marijuana; in the past for recreation, now to manage pain and my depression.

….. and there are different levels of it, some passable. I remember Wolves used to water their pitch heavily before matches and trained their players to play in heavy conditions. My lasting memory of Derek Dougan, their star striker was of him always being covered in mud! Guess some forms of swingin' the odds is more unacceptable than others. Horseracing is not clean either and Dog Racing even worse, There are undetectable ways in those 'sports', especially with hot favourites... Greyhounds kept awake all night or horses given heavy exercise the day before a race etc. cannot be detected for example.

Celia xx

Someone, somewhere, sometime will always find a way to game the system.