| I will recognize Bonds as the true HR champ once he hits 756. Like Pharazon said Aaron never had to deal with the amount of intentional (and hundreds of intentional "unintentional" walks) that Bonds did. Bonds has some 600 intentional walks to Aaron's 180 or something they were saying on ESPN. The guy has 7 MVPs too. He was once walked 7 straight plate appearances in a row, and I guaruntee you they weren't all pitch outs. The guy has the greatest plate discipline/eye in baseball history. Even in the year that Bonds hit 73 HRs "he also managed to shatter two of Babe Ruth's longstanding records -- most walks (177) and highest slugging percentage (.863) ". When he cheated (because nobody can ignore a 24HR jump) what he was doing wasn't against MLB policy. We have no idea what players used for an advantage back when either Ruth or Aaron played. To think that only in the last 20 years that players have looked for an edge is naive to me.
-Only player in 400 home run and 400 stolen base club
-Only player in 500 home run and 500 stolen base club
People also get larger when they're older. They rely less on their speed and agility than when they were younger and change their game. Look at Michael Jordan when he was in Chicago those first 10 years then look at him his last 5. Nobody ever accused him of cheating (and I don't think he did, he's my favorite athlete of all time) but he got bigger for sure. He was even a SF instead of a shooting guard his last years in Washington. Not to say Bonds didn't use anything, but I hate when people say "DERF LOOK AT HIM IN PITTSBURGH"
Bonds used to talk about how the balls felt differently some games back in that 73HR season and the year after and a lot of people laughed. Some pitchers thought the ball was juiced some days and he thought the ball was whatever the opposite of that was. The guy is probably the greatest MLB player to ever play the game and it's really a shame that this whole steroid thing is making people overlook his insane talent. Not even just the the HRs but until his knee problems he was just an all around baseball demi-god on both sides of the field. |