Apathy and Barry Bonds

Any day now, Barry Bonds is going to hit home run #756 and break Hank Aaron’s record. This has generated a HUGE amount of publicity, namely from ESPN. The funny thing is, I don’t care.

Well thats because you hate Barry Bonds!

No, I don’t. I’ve been ruined by all the disgusting hype from ESPN, as well as the awkwardness of the situation. People in San Francisco want him to break the record and everywhere else he gets boo’d. Bud Selig couldn’t have handled the whole situation any more awkwardly either. Do I think he did steroids? Yes, its pretty obvious. Its stupid to say, “SHOW ME THE PROOF THAT HE DID!”, as well. His steroid use used to upset me, but now, its just gravy. It is what it is. Either way, his name is going to be #1 on the all time home run list.

Why don’t you care about his steroid use?

At first it upset me, namely 3-4 years ago. How dare he cheat!!! Now, I’ve just accepted it – its the world I live in. Much, much worse things have happened and will happen. Steroids aside, hes still an amazing baseball player. It doesn’t even bother me that a player that I think did steroids holds the home run record. Thats just life.

Is he better than Ruth?

I’ve thought about it a lot, and well, I don’t know. Ruth’s career OPS is higher, yet Bonds had the four greatest seasons in baseball history. Ruth played in an un-integrated era, while Bonds played in the “Steroid Era.” Ruth had all the intangibles one could ever want, while Bonds is despised by many. If Bonds played in Ruth’s day and suffered the knee injury he did, he would have been forced to retire because they didn’t have a means of treating it back then. Theres just to many factors. For me, its tough for me to compare players from different eras, even with stats like EqA. Adjusted for all time, Ruth has a higher EqA but trails in most other stats (WARP2, WARP3, EqR, BRAA, BRAR, and so forth..) due to less games played. Do you value superior efficiency or longer lasting production? I’d take longer last production but Ruth’s AB/HR ratio and production in his career are impossible to ignore.

I’m pointing a gun to your head, pick one!

FINE! I’d take “steroid” Bonds (2001 to present). He was a different player (stolen base fiend and great defense) before his knee surgeries and home run surge so I view his career in halves. His seasons from 2001 to 2004 were the best in the history of baseball. 2004 saw an OPS of 1,400+ and an EqA of .457! Thats insane. By no means am I a Bonds fan or anything. My point is that I think its dumb to say one is definitively better the other. Either way, I can’t wait until this whole thing is old news in about two years so I don’t have to hear about it anymore.

There you have it. The foremost record in baseball is going to be broken, and I don’t care. Bonds deserves credit for what hes done regardless of your take on his career. Hes one of the two best players of all time. Of course, this is all moot because we know A-Rod is going to hit 800 home runs in 2015.

Who, What, Where, and When

What?

I’ve decided to start a blog. Its something that I’ve thought about doing on and off for a while, and I finally decided to start one.

What will it be about?

Sports, namely the teams I follow. I will also talk about things like the NFL Draft or anything else that I find interesting.

What teams do you like?

My main teams are the Yankees/Redskins/Browns/Cavaliers. Also worth mentioning are the Brewers and Nationals. I don’t really have any college teams that I root for. I used to be into the NHL but I hardly follow it anymore.

What exactly are you going to write about?

Lots of things. What I think of players, how teams are playing overall, roster moves, prospects, etc. I’m big on drafts for sports as well.

So why is your blog any different then any of the other 345,566,322 out there?

Well its not. There are lots of other good blogs out there that are better than I could ever hope to be.

Then what made you want to do this?

I’ve started to read more blogs recently and it seems like a worthwhile thing to do. Soul of Baseball and a Cavalier Blog I started reading inspired me to do it. I hope I don’t start it for a week then burn out though.

I guess thats it then.

Yeah, pretty much.