>>>>Berry Bonds - The finest baseball player produced by chemistry!
>>>
>>>Tom,
>>>
>>>I agree. Barry Bonds is just another business man. The problem is that the "business" is entertainment. Fans love the home run. In fact, my first baseball hero was Hank Sauer. My second was Ernie Banks.
>>>
>>>However, there's one thing about baseball that this current "scandal" can't take way from what Bonds has accomplished. All the steriods in the world can't improve your eye/hand co-ordination. Can you hit the ball farther? Sure, but it doesn't matter if you can't hit it in the first place.
>>>
>>>(He who grew up with the kids of the players and coaches of the Chicago White Sox.)
>>
>>Any HR records he has or attains will be severely tainted. I agree that his eye/hand coordination has ZIP to do with any doping he has done, but I can't help but believe that this doping did enhance his power and his HR production. He should receive a permanent ban from baseball because he does not deserve to pass Ruth and Aaron on the HR list. This is also far worse than any thing Pete Rose or Joe Jackson did to the game. At least they earned their HRs the old fashioned way. I also think his HRs from 2003 should be stricken from the record books.
>
>I wouldn't be so sure that Bonds' hand-eye coordination was unaffected by whatever he took.
>I look back to the Expos' Tim Raines who had tons of stolen bases when it was found he was on drugs. After he cleaned up his act he wasn't nearly as prolific.
>Now these were probably different kinds of drugs, but nevertheless it's a safe bet that no athlete takes a drug that will hurt his performance.
>
>I also agree that this is far far worse that gambling on baseball and I'd say the evidence is pretty clear that Rose didn't try to throw any games.

Perhaps Pete Rose was sacrificed. Just some smoke trying to make amateurs believe that what he did was the worst thing that ever happened to that sport. So this ended into a lifetime ban. Perhaps there were things worst than that but revealing other things could have hurt the sport too much.

But the problem with trying to hide bad stuff is that eventually you can't continue to hide. you know what they say "A rotten apple..."

Those in control can always hope that the situation will improve by itself but if it does'nt then it leads to a potential major breakdown.

If the MLB would have been serious about the drugs problem this "Bonds, Giambi..." episode would have never happened. Perhaps MLB gambled too much on that one. In the end it's a business. And the goal of the business is to make money. How do you make the "Baseball" business make more money? By having events happening on a regular base. Home-run records being broken almost every two years is a nice way (even if those record breakings are due to drugs. As long as you're not caught there's no problem).

I remember when George Foster hit more than 50 home-runs in a year. At that time that was considered something fantastic. Nowadays it's just normal to see guys approaching if not surpassing that mark. What happened? Can these improvements be put only on better balls and improvement in the ways bats are made?